From Ellen Frankman, on The Daily Meal:
“Most Sundays, Tyrone Mayorga sets out a cooler in the entrance of his West Village walk-up apartment building, waiting for a delivery van service to fill it with raw, unpasteurized milk. The quasi-legal beverage comes from a creamery co-op that delivers to customers throughout New York City.
“I drink it for the laundry list of health benefits,” Mayorga, 23, said. “I’m all about a return to raw living [and] natural and sustainable food products, no matter the fat content. I also drink it because I like the idea of keeping small farmers in business, knowing my money is being given to honest, hardworking members of my community.”
Most New Yorkers like Mayorga can’t make the two-hour drive upstate to legally buy raw milk. Instead, they buy it in the city’s thriving black market for this specialty dairy item.
Raw milk comes straight from the cow and is milked into a bulk tank and kept cold, before being bottled and sold. About one third of states nationwide prohibit the sale of it, due to concerns that the unpasteurized product may harbor harmful bacteria. Even in states like New York where it is legal, sales are often restricted to the farm where the milk is produced.
Local cooperatives — called co-ops — have milk routes and make deliveries to apartment doors. So far, the state hasn’t had the resources to stop them. Two creamery co-ops servicing the New York City area declined to comment for this story.
For New Yorkers who can make the trek upstate, dairy farms abound. The number of state-approved raw dairy farms has doubled from 10 farms in 2005 to more than 20, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
The interest among farmers is “mostly driven by consumer demand,” said Kris Danielsen, the department’s culture dairy product specialist.
“There’s also an economic reason,” she said. “The price that farmers are receiving for their milk from pasteurization plants has decreased at the same time that production costs have stayed the same or even increased.”
Directly from the customer, a farmer can receive as much as $10 for a gallon of raw milk — more than double the price of a pasteurized gallon at the local grocery store.
The Bovine 
I wish we only had to pay $10 a gallon for raw milk. Pasturized skimmed whole milk (doesn’t have all the cream left on) is $14 a gallon here. We couldn’t find a raw milk source after we moved from Montana so we ended up buying our own cow to milk.
It’s challenging milking both morning and night but way worth the effort. Although I’d probably still rather pay $10 a gallon for someone else to do the milking morning and night, rain (snow) and shine. It’s – 35 c here today.
I exagerate, we are not milking right now as we are waiting for our cow to calve any minute now. We’ve been without raw milk for the past 2 months as we dried up our cow so she could calve. I’d gladly be out in -35 c if I could get a few gallons of raw milk.
wow, a western state and no one locally has cows but you?? SAD… Very sad.. Soon all our food will be imported, We THE PEOPLE MUST get active to encourage/force change.
It’s mainly beef cows here. There are some dairies around but most won’t consider selling to individuals as it could potentially shut down their operation if the word got out to the authorities. We know a few people who have milk cows a fair distance away but none we could get milk from.
Everyone we know laughs at us for deciding to own our own milk cow. I must admit I kind of laugh at myself considering I’m a city slicker that has very little background with cows/animals.