The true price of a gallon of raw milk

From the Midlife Farm Wife:

Midlife farm wife rings bell to trigger conditioned response.

“Yesterday we had some very unusual visitors, raw milk farmers like ourselves. But because they work very hard to stay under the same radar I am always swinging from dressed like a clown grabbing as much attention as I can, I will not share their names or their location.

They do things very differently from us. Instead of selling raw milk outright, by the gallon, to any customer who comes up their farm lane, they do this. They require a signed agreement called a “Milk Share Agreement”. This allows the owner of the share, a certain predetermined amount of milk. Often, one share will equal one gallon of milk a week. Two shares will get you two gallons and so on.

This farmers customers must come recommended by another current customer and this farmer does no advertising of his raw milk AT ALL. Even when talking about it…he lowers his voice.

How angry this makes me.

A hard working farmer feels he has to sneak about in order to sell his perfectly good farm product which in turn puts food on his own families table, or be arrested for I don’t know what. As I’ve mentioned many times before, in Illinois it is LEGAL to sell raw milk as long as the consumer comes to your farm with his own container. There is no requirement for signed agreements or the purchase of cow shares but this farmer is cautious due to fear.

In the meantime, I continue to blog about our raw milk sales and specifically this month, the cost of producing raw milk. So, how does one compute the cost of one gallon of raw milk? Here is our formula. Please keep in mind, this is a very GENERAL blog about computing costs. The process is long and time consuming but since the big universities focus on the cost of producing conventional milk, you won’t find much help anywhere else. This blog is intended to at least get you started….”

More on the Midlife Farm Wife.

And now, here’s a word from Tisha Caside who’s looking for raw milk in Colorado where, she says, it’s “illegal”:

“I am on the hunt for producers who create and “distribute” (not SELL) products made from raw milk – raw milk cheese, raw milk butter, raw milk yogurt, etc. in Colorado.  I had put out an email to the list of people in our That’s Natural! database that have raw milk shares available (you see, in Colorado it is illegal to sell raw milk, so you have to purchase a share of a cow so in fact you are entitled to a part of that cow’s production) – asking this question.  To my surprise, I got a couple of hostile emails warning me about what I am doing, and that it is “illegal” to sell raw milk products in Colorado.

First of all, there can be no law against my right to consume raw milk or products made from raw milk.  If that is a choice I am making – no government, no bureaucrat, and no use of force (e.g. the police) can stop me.  Just like it is my right to feed my children foods that are full of nutrients versus the toxic substances you purchase in the middle aisles of the grocery store, it is my right to consume raw milk.  My grandmother drank raw milk – without the heavy hand of force telling her it was dangerous and “illegal”.  My right – my responsibility – my raw milk and raw milk products are something that I will not give up.  And it is pathetic that we are having this conversation in the first place.  But, enough producers have been threatened with the use of force from local health agencies, to now threaten me – the consumer.  Isn’t it funny how that works?…”

Read more on That’s Natural.