WI Raw Milk Issue Heads To Courts As Farmers File Lawsuits

The shelves and refrigerated cases of Kay and Wayne Craig's small members-only grocery are stocked with bulk grains, eggs and organically fed chicken, turkey and beef that they raise and pasture on their Grassway Organic Farm.

You won't find raw milk there, but the fact that they sell it to store members from the bulk tank elsewhere on their farm in Calumet County has landed them in a dispute with the state that threatens the store and represents the latest front in an ongoing battle over the sale of raw, unpasteurized milk in Wisconsin.

Small, unadvertised raw milk sales are allowed by state law. But somewhere along the way, those sales became too plentiful on the Craig farm as far as the state was concerned. Last year, the farm, which sells most of its milk to a processor, was selling 260 gallons of raw milk a week. At $6 a gallon, that's nearly $75,000 a year — no small chunk of change. The raw milk comes from 18 of the roughly 100 cows in the family's herd, says Kay Craig, making the sales still small in comparison to total volume.

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