Lynn Duffy
Concord, MA

Voters were asked

“How do you think we should elect the President: Should it be the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states, or the current electoral college system?”

By political affiliation, support for a national popular vote was 86% among Democrats, 54% among Republicans, and 68% among others. By gender, support was 85% among women and 60% among men. By age, support was 85% among 18-29 year olds, 75% among 30-45 year olds, 69% among 46-65 year olds, and 72% for those older than 65.

http://nationalpopularvote.com/pages/polls.php#MA_2010MAY

My husband and I are 17-year residents of Carlisle, both active on town government boards for many years, and operate a small goat dairy. We use our milk for cheesemaking, including raw milk cheeses. I was honored last fall to have Commissioner Soares present me with a “Massachusetts Faces of Agriculture” award. I’ve been proud of how supportive MDAR has been of small operations like my own until this regulatory amendment was proposed.

I’ve hoped that Massachusetts could be innovatively supportive of raw milk production — not just in terms of quality and safety, but also with regard to diversity of products and in-state marketing and selling options. However, I have also had MDAR employees comment to me that they could always shut down raw milk operations through excessive testing fees or regulatory hurdles.

MDAR should be considering (as Vermont did last year) additional ways that raw milk could be sold and they should be asking for input from those of us that they regulate as well as from Agrimark.