Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 15, 1994 TAG: 9402150187
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Del. Jim Shuler of Blacksburg - a Democrat and a veterinarian - was pleading with the House of Delegates not to make it legal for farmers to sell unpasteurized goat's milk.
"It's a public health concern," Shuler said. He hoisted a jar of white liquid. "If you're going to vote for this bill, I would ask you to come by and put your lips to this jar: a quart of unpasteurized goat's milk."
No one drank, but three delegates rose to defend the Goat Lady's legalization bill. Amid outbursts of "baa" and "moo," it passed, 76-23.
Members applauded and waved to the Goat Lady in the balcony. But she turned away with a troubled look. "I want to know," she said, "where he got that goat's milk . . . Somebody betrayed us."
Don't cross the Goat Lady. Few at the Capitol even know her true name. Ask the ushers in the House gallery to direct you to Christine Solem and they look blank. Mention the Goat Lady . . .
"Oooohhhhh, the Goat Lady. She's right over there, with the short brown hair."
Solem is 50, lives in Charlottesville and is a classical pianist. She performs infrequently these days, since she is consumed by the issue of goats and their milk.
Solem has 16 adult goats and about two dozen kids on her 10-acre farm. There are Princess Shifflet, Boo, Mrs. Kray, Neuron, Dendrite, Evelyn, Bandage, Monkey, Phil and Smash, to name a few.
"If I hear a name that I think would be a good goat name, I just hold onto it," she said. "One I have in reserve now is Laverne. What's your name? Greg? Noooooooo, no good."
Since 1974, she has been naming them, feeding them hay or alfalfa and milking them twice a day.
A goat can produce between 3 quarts and 2 gallons of milk a day. People who cannot digest or are allergic to cow's milk sometimes can stomach goat's milk. Solem simply prefers goat's milk. Raw.
Several of her neighbors do, too. Solem has spent more than a decade fighting local and state officials to be able to sell raw milk.
To the Goat Lady, the state law that prohibits selling unpasteurized milk is as ridiculous as a goat named Greg. Goats are cleaner than cows, Solem said, and their raw milk has never been known to sicken anyone.
The state just wants to restrict personal choice, she said, and to protect big dairy farmers.
"What they want to do is just chip, chip, chip away at small farmers. So it has become a passion with me. It's become an obsession," she said.
After fighting for years in the courts, Solem and the 100-member Virginia State Dairy Goat Association went after the law itself. The Goat Lady has dogged the General Assembly for about five years now. Last year, the House passed her bill,but a Senate committee axed it.
After Monday's House victory, Solem went to work on senators. The first she met was the Assembly's lone physician - Sen. Clarence Holland, a Virginia Beach Democrat.
Holland agreed that raw goat's milk is relatively safe.
"Great! Great!" exclaimed the Goat Lady as she set out after other senators. "Now if I could just find out where Shuler got that goat's milk. He had to have gotten it from a farmer. Somebody betrayed us."
Contacted later, Shuler was adamant that he wasn't part of a conspiracy. He said he just believes raw milk is unsafe.
"Anybody in the medical world who knows anything about contagious disease will tell you you're a fool for drinking anything unpasteurized," Shuler said. "There can be disease in any milk that's not pasteurized."
That's the line of reasoning the Senate Agriculture Committee used last year to kill the bill and probably will use again. But if the Goat Lady ultimately loses her fight, she can take solace in one thing: No goat farmer betrayed the cause.
Shuler's jar contained pasteurized goat's milk. It was purchased at a grocery store.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB