Hartford - Small dairy farmers who sell raw milk told state legislators Monday that a proposal by the Connecticut Department of Agriculture could put them out of business.

A bill before the General Assembly would restrict the sale of unpasteurized milk to the farms. The state fears customers seeing it in a store may mistake it for pasteurized milk.

The Connecticut Raw Milk and Cheese Producers Association said many of its 18 members sell products at health food stores and food co-ops.

”If you pass this bill, I am out of business,” said Elisa Santee, who runs Foxfire Farm in Mansfield and has sold her products in stores for more than a decade without any health issues.

F. Philip Prelli, the state's agriculture commissioner, said his agency has made changes to an early version of the bill that would have required farmers to pay for regular testing for things such as E-coli contamination. He said the new version will require the state to pick up the tab and oblige farms to cover the cost of testing if there's an outbreak.

It also requires them to change their labeling, to include the risks of consuming unpasteurized milk.

”Yes, I want to be able to allow small farms to be able to exist in the state,” said Prelli, who noted that he grew up drinking raw milk. “We think it's a prudent way to move forward with this, to look at it and still allow the sales at the farms.”

The farmers and their advocates were skeptical that the state will cover the costs given Connecticut's financial problems. They also accused the department of overreacting to what they said is a relatively minor problem.

”This is an industry that had only a very few occasions when a health issue has been at issue,” said Sen. Andrew Maynard, D-Stonington.

Allison Barringer Reed of West Hartford urged lawmakers to support the legislation. She told members of the legislature's Environment Committee that her 3-year-old niece became gravely ill last August with a form of E-coli contamination that had been passed on to her by a friend. The young boy had consumed raw milk contaminated with the E-coli bacteria.

Reed's niece spent 16 days in the hospital, undergoing kidney dialysis, treatment for a collapsed lung, feeding and breathing tubes.

”I find it silly that in our medically advanced and consumer-savvy time we are even here spending time on this long proven public safety issue,” she said. “It leads me to wonder if next we will question Florence Nightingale's groundbreaking finding on the benefit of hand washing in the prevention of the spread of disease.”

Article UID=f274310a-73f9-495b-ada9-3ff37995a3cb