I think that private certification agencies (think consumer reports on steroids) could take the place of regulations.

I could either buy a gallon of milk that is certified by an agency I trust for a little more, or pay less (and ask my own questions) for an uncertified gallon.

And if a manufacturer chose not to disclose all relevant information, then I can choose not buy their product (and certification agencies will not certify it)

Not to mention that it isn't in any firm's economic interest to provide a patently unsafe product.

the problem is that no milk will be uncertified. There will be certain certifiers that will certify anything, and it will be extremely difficult for a buyer to tell the difference.

Look at something like eggs. People pay more for eggs because they are "free range", but free range just means that they have access to the range, not that they are capable of using that access.

And it is in firms interest to provide a patently unsafe product as long as not enough people are lost due to the unsafe product to counteract the savings.

without regulation it would be much harder to determine the cause of the problem.

If I am exposed to e-coli due to lettuce or spinach (each certified by a different agency), I won't know. I'll assume it was from my overeasy eggs or rare beef, or because the cook doesn't wash his hands. the farmer could go on selling tainted vegetables for quite a long time before the cause is found.

And people will choose to buy products verified by certifiers they trust. At least then you have a choice.

Consumer Reports has a far better record than the FDA.

Of course, as you state, there would be disreputable certifying agencies too but I could avoid them and only use long-running agencies with a good reputation.

I'm familiar with Salatin's writing (and practices), and I think his argument would be that if you have face-to-face transactions with the producer (Salatin won't ship his meat, for example--you must come to the farm to pick it up), you don't need a certifier because you are holding the producer accountable, and you can require that his processes are transparent.

Certainly you can argue that someone should do this for you, but Salatin is trying to shift the paradigm of how we produce and consume food.

EDIT: Corrected the mis-spelling. Duh.

> Consumer Reports has a far better record than the FDA.

Maybe that's because Consumer Reports has the benefit of leveraging all the work already done by the FDA. Let me be clear, though, you may be right that privatizing such things could work. It's just that your evidence isn't necessarily compelling.

You're assuming the completely rational consumer, which does not exist.

Not completely rational - minimally rational. And you're assuming the rational, non-corrupt government bureaucrat.

>the problem is that no milk will be uncertified. There will be certain certifiers that will certify anything, and it will be extremely difficult for a buyer to tell the difference.

Interestingly enough, there is a substantial group of people that WANT to buy "uncertified" milk raw, straight from the cow. This is, unfortunately, illegal.

In Wisconsin there was a bit of a brouhaha over the practice of "time-sharing" dairy cows. You see, while it's illegal to sell unprocessed milk, the owner of a cow is permitted to drink the raw milk.

Aha, found a link:

http://www.realmilk.com/milk-direct-program.html

Straight from the horse's... er, cow's... mouth.

I understand the risks of raw milk and want it. I also understand why we have it regulated. I would like to relax the regulation to allow me to get raw milk in some situations. but I don't want BigCo. selling it. BigCo. can't be trusted.

With any luck your certification system will do for milk what US News & World Report did for colleges.