Underground dairy? A look inside the demand for raw milk in Alberta

On a sunny suburban street in Calgary at midday, two vans are parked next to a sidewalk scrawled with children's chalk drawings.

Customers approach carrying bags stuffed with empty, litre-sized mason jars. Most stop to chat for a moment before returning to their cars with full jars, discreetly tucked away.

The man who owns the vans is a farmer, and the product he's delivering to dozens of Calgarians each week is illegal: raw milk.

Within the hour, the farmer is visited by a stream of customers — couples with dogs, mothers with their children, a neighbour from across the street.

It's against the law to buy and sell raw milk in Canada, and has been since 1991, when the federal government banned its sale due to concerns of food-borne illnesses.

Pasteurization is a process that involves heating raw milk to at least 63 C to kill harmful bacteria, such as salmonella and E. coli, which can cause serious illness.

"Pasteurization ensures the milk we drink is safe," reads the Government of Canada's website.

Despite these concerns, the raw milk trade maintains a low-profile existence in Alberta, with goat and cow milk stealthily sold away from the gaze of regulators. Raw milk advocates are lobbying legislators across the country to repeal laws preventing its sale.

Citing recent legalization in the U.S., longtime proponents of raw milk are riding a new wave of momentum, one that has found traction on social media, where it fits into wider lifestyle narratives of health-consciousness, "trad wives," and defying government control.

"I think that the main argument for legalization is that people are doing it anyway," said Golda David, an Albertan representative of an advocacy group called the Canadian Artisan Dairy Alliance (CADA).

"You could spend all the money on cracking down and making sure that there's punitive consequences for selling it. Or you could legalize it, regulate it and make it safe."

Growing interest in Alberta

David runs a Facebook page called Raw Milk Alberta. She says the aim is to educate people about how to consume raw milk safely and connect customers with sellers.

Around this time last year, David said the page had about 4,000 group members. This year, that number has nearly doubled, up to 7,800.

"We get about 400 applications for the Raw Milk Alberta page every two weeks," said David. "I only started that group two years ago. That's a big jump and it's growing faster now."

The Facebook page averages about 10-15 posts a day. Most are from people hoping to be connected with someone who can supply them with raw milk.

Canada is the only G7 country where buying and selling raw milk is illegal in every form.

Raw milk sales are legal across Europe, and in at least 30 American states, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That said, an outbreak of bird flu has renewed calls from that U.S. agency to remind consumers of the risks associated with raw milk consumption in light of the H5N1 detections.

"While the perceived nutritional and health benefits of raw milk consumption have not been scientifically substantiated, the health risks are clear," according to the FDA.

Eva Kralits, the director of CADA, said she wants Canadians to have the right to decide for themselves whether they want to drink raw milk.

Kralits said, overall, CADA has made the most headway toward their goals in Alberta.

"I can just tell you the level of interest in Alberta is … population-wise, in relative terms, [the] highest in Canada," she said.

Kralits said CADA had a meeting last year with Nate Horner, the province's agriculture minister at the time, to discuss the possibility of legalizing raw milk.

In an email, Kralits said the ministry later informed her it couldn't legalize raw milk because officials felt the risks outweigh the benefits.

In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Alberta Agriculture confirmed the government's position.

"The sale of unpasteurized milk is prohibited throughout Canada under the federal Food and Drugs Act and regulations," the statement said.

"Alberta further regulates the sale of raw milk through the Dairy Industry Act and regulation. Per the regulation, raw milk and raw milk products may be sold only to a processor. Any changes to the existing legislation would need to be initiated at the federal level."

The cost-benefit question

Still, despite government health concerns, it seems it's precisely the perceived health benefits of raw milk that is drawing in customers.

"That's the main reason that we hear of consumers wanting to join the [Facebook] page, [they or] their kids are lactose intolerant or they want healthier food," said David.

Amelia Taman and her partner, Alexander Abdulov, live in Calgary. Taman said she was diagnosed with lactose sensitivity after having digestion problems since high school.

At the time, the couple were living in Lethbridge, Alta. A local farmer delivered three litres of raw milk to them twice a month.

Taman said raw milk does not upset her stomach the way pasteurized milk does.

The idea that the nutritional quality of milk is somehow negatively affected when it undergoes pasteurization is a common one among raw-milk advocates.

But Diego Nobrega, a Canada Research Chair in antimicrobial resistance and One Health, and an assistant professor at the University of Calgary, said studies show only a few vitamins are altered by the process.

"[A] systematic review that was done more than 10 years ago demonstrated that pasteurization can lead to decreased levels of certain vitamins, and that includes vitamin B1, B2, B9 and vitamin C as well," he said.

However, Nobrega noted that because milk is not a significant source of B1, B9 and vitamin C when compared to other foods in a balanced diet, pasteurization does not have significant impacts on the nutritive value of milk.

Nobrega said minerals like calcium and protein are unaffected by pasteurization.

In regards to claims that raw milk is easier to digest, Nobrega said pasteurization does remove a bacteria called Lactobacillus, which produces an enzyme called lactase that can aid in digestion. But he added that a study in 2014 demonstrated that raw milk failed to reduce symptoms of lactose intolerance in people when compared to pasteurized milk.

"I think the sample size of the study is questionable, but it certainly provides some degree of evidence that the effects of raw milk at facilitating digestion for people with lactose intolerance will, at best, be small," Nobrega said in an email.

"Also, this whole conversation becomes somehow pointless when we acknowledge that there are many options of lactose-free milk out there."

Beyond causing acute gastrointestinal illnesses, characterized by diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain, the bacteria that can be found in raw milk could lead to severe complications, including miscarriages, renal dysfunction and, in rare cases, death, according to Nobrega.

A studycited by the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S determined that raw milk was responsible for 202 outbreaks, 2645 illnesses, 228 hospitalizations and three deaths from 1998-2018.

He added that misinformation about raw milk is widespread, and is contributing to people's interest in consuming it.

On TikTok, the hashtag #rawmilk has over 13,000 posts, while commentators on sites like Infowars, Gab and Rumble have recently intensified their promotion of the product, seemingly in light of the bird flu outbreak.

Hefty fines

Since moving to Calgary, Taman and Abdulov have not managed to find another raw milk source.

It's hard to find a farmer willing to sell it, and for good reason — hefty fines and potential jail time await them if they are caught. In Ontario, a man was fined over $9,000 for selling raw milk in 2011. More recently, in 2023, a farmer in B.C. was charged over $33,000 for doing the same.

Fraser Logan, media relations manager with the Alberta RCMP, said public health officers at the municipal, provincial and federal level are responsible for ensuring food safety in the province, and that the RCMP would only engage in an issue of that matter if it was escalated to being criminal in nature.

"We support enforcement officers, such as public health inspectors, who work to ensure the safety of Albertans," said Logan.

In Alberta in 2018, a man was charged for selling dairy products without a licence, selling raw milk and obstructing inspectors, but the charges were ultimately stayed, meaning the Crown decided to not continue with prosecution.

Many farmers selling raw milk are found only through word of mouth, and they use clandestine methods of communicating with customers and delivering their product.

David said she estimates the number of farmers selling raw milk to Albertans is now in the hundreds.

The farmer CBC News observed selling raw milk in a Calgary neighbourhood this spring declined to do an interview about his operation or sales.

Another farmer, who asked not to be named out of fear of incriminating himself, said he sold raw goat milk outside of Edmonton for three years, before selling his operation last August.

Over that time, he said he noticed an uptick in demand for his product.

While he sold raw milk to his customers directly, he said his neighbour, who sold raw cow's milk, used a middleman to sell to customers on his behalf, as an extra layer of protection.

"Other people I know would sell only through a fake Facebook account," he added.

He said he felt "morally obligated" to provide people with a product he believes is healthier than what's offered on grocery store shelves.

'Strike the right balance'

In places where raw milk sales are legal, controls are often used to keep the product safe.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, it has always been legal to sell raw milk for direct human consumption, but farmers who sell raw milk are required to devise and implement safety systems.

"There are restrictions in place that apply to the sale of raw cows' milk intended for this use and strict hygiene controls and regulations are in place to protect consumers," said James Silcocks, communications manager with the U.K.'s Food Standards Agency (FSA) in an email.

"FSA dairy hygiene inspectors also undertake a verification sampling programme of raw cows' drinking milk, which monitors for indicator and pathogenic bacteria."

He added raw milk can be sold only by registered milk production farms at the farm gate or farm vending machines, by farmers at registered farmers' markets and through direct online sales.

"Raw drinking milk has a loyal following but it is an inherently risky product.… It's important to strike the right balance between protecting public health, preserving consumer choice and supporting responsible business," said Michael Wight, head of food safety policy, on the FSA's website.

Nobrega, the researcher, said the way the dairy system is set up in Alberta would not be conducive to producing safe raw milk, making legalization a thorny prospect.

"If we as a society are seriously considering drinking raw milk on a regular basis, many conversations need to take place to ensure that we're able to do that with minimal risk, and that will probably involve mimicking some of the models from the U.S.," he said.

Kralits, the raw milk advocate, said that although she's frustrated by the Alberta government's decision to keep the laws as they are, she's not discouraged.

"We're going to keep fighting," she said.