AN EMOTIONAL Vicki Jones from Mountain View Organic Dairy received a standing ovation from the crowd at the last week's EatBuyGrow event in Melbourne, after telling her side of the raw milk story.
It was reported late last year a child died in Victoria after allegedly drinking raw milk from Mountain View Organic Dairy.
The exact cause of the child's death is expected to be examined by the coroner's court.
But Ms Jones claims a new investigation reveals there was a two-month time delay between the child drinking the unpasteurised milk and passing away.
The information suggests the child drank the milk in August and died the end of October.
She said this information was provided to her by the health department.
"I am very emotional about this," she said.
The news sparked a debate on labelling laws, with health authorities now pushing for raw milk – which is sold as a cosmetic product – to be labelled more prominently.
Speaking at the event last week, Ms Jones also told the crowd that before the raw milk incident occurred, she and husband Rowan had spent several years transforming their Longwarry farm into an organic and ethical enterprise.
"When I first started farming, I saw some things that horrified me," she said.
Almost immediately, she decided to eliminate the practice of calving induction from their business, which is a technique used to make cows calve prematurely in an effort to bring "late calvers" back into line with the rest of the herd.
It was a practice she did not want to continue, and also opted to cease using chemicals, antibiotics, tail docking, and selling bobby calves.
"I was prepared to take a financial loss, for an ethical gain," she said.
She said these decisions came down to weighing up what was important.
"Does economics always have to win over ethical and compassion?" Ms Jones said.
"I have found that when we make a decision based on what is right, what is better for those involved, it does end up being financially rewarding, even though we made the move accepting that we would lose money."
Their journey has not been an easy one.
After buying another farm in 2002, they expanded their business to milking 400 cows.
"We were spending a lot of money, but weren't making a great profit."
About $300,000 was being spent on fertiliser and grain to sustain the high-producing cows.
"We had no control over our business ... if the costs went up at the same time as the milk price went down, we had to wear it," she said.
In 2009, their farm was hit by the global financial crisis, and Ms Jones said milk prices went down by 50pc almost overnight.
In 2010, grain prices sky-rocketed to $500 per tonne, so they stopped feeding out grain, and also decided to make the switch to organic certification.
"My children were coming onto the farm, and I was reluctant to let them to be exposed to chemicals," she said.
In 2011, Mountain View Organic Dairy was born.
They made the decision to never feed grain again – swapping to grass-fed only, and noticed the texture of their milk had changed.
"And we had this beautiful, creamy milk," she said. "It was depressing to put it on the truck and send it to the (milk) factory that really didn't care about it."
The shift to dealing directly with retailers and consumers opened up a "whole new world", Ms Jones said, adding it was vital for farmers to know the community buying their product.
At the same time, the couple decided to phase out selling their bobby calves.
"I had always struggled with that," she said.
"We had been raising them to sell to bullock growers. And it was a good part of our income."
But Ms Jones wanted to test the market to see if she could sell the meat. In the beginning, no-one was interested, but consumers of Mountain View Organic Dairy milk gradually embraced the concept.
"Now we market dairy beef ... and raise all the calves," she said. "We've got this amazing market."
In 2013, Ms Jones said the farm was impacted by a "record dry year" in which milk prices were slashed.
Their interest rate soared to 18pc, but they still made a profit. But the following year when interest rates climbed even higher, the Joneses copped an extra $170,000 and made a loss.
Then December 2014 hit, and Ms Jones received a phone call from the health department saying that children had become sick after drinking their raw milk.
She said many people made up their minds about the story without hearing all the facts.
Although it had been a stressful, emotional and sad time, Ms Jones said she wanted to continue farming.
"Right now we are supplying organic milk to Pure Harvest, still making yoghurt, still selling our grown dairy steers (dairy beef). The future for raw milk is unknown; we will never sell it again, not until it is legal."
