The MilkDirect™ Program
by Tim Wightman
01 FEB 2002
It would be hard to catalog all the conversations, reasons and moments of enlightenment that have led our clients to our milk house door. I guess it's best to start in the garden as that is where all good things come from and where the education of Gleta and myself began. Because it was in the garden that our vegetable customers began to ask us whether we had any other healthy and organic items from the farm to sell.
Our customers wanted to know about our herd and our milking practices and the availability of our milk. They described specific health problems or overall health conditions that they understood would be helped by a steady intake of unprocessed milk.
The Milk Book
An important step in our education was the discovery of The Milk Book by William Campbell Douglass-we haven't looked back since. Our beat-up, dog-eared edition revealed to us what some of our customers already knew-whole unprocessed milk is a miracle food that could cure all sorts of conditions, conditions that baffle the medical profession. The Milk Book also showed us that the logical outlet for our organic practices was the sale of unprocessed milk-not only logical but ethical and economically sound.
But-could we do it?
Not according to the State of Wisconsin, not in an unprocessed form. We could pasteurize it, bottle it and leave it unhomogenized and compete with the big boys for product placement in our local grocery stores. It would be a better product than was currently available to the consumer, but that didn't quite jibe with what we had read in The Milk Book. An impasse.
Guidance from Guidestone
Then came along a little newsletter out of Colorado called “The Direct Marketer” (I’m not sure of the name) that Gleta had a vague memory of subscribing to but hadn’t seen in some time. But this issue was the one we were destined to see—and bingo! In this blessed little paper was an article about a farm that was selling its cow herd on the Community Supported Agriculture concept. Sell shares in your cows and people get their milk in return! We had been running a CSA garden in our town for four years and this sounded like it could work.
We played phone tag for a week but finally I talked to the folks at Guidestone CSA Farm in Loveland, Colorado. He told me his story and also one of a farm in Wisconsin that was currently selling cow shares, although he was unsure of the details. With the help of a lawyer, Guidestone had come to an agreement with the State of Colorado so that the consumer could legally have raw milk. The rest is history.
Here is how it works. The State of Wisconsin is known as the dairy state and is loath to lose that title to anyone. Wisconsin has the toughest food safety standards in the country. These standards stipulate that there will be no raw milk sales whatsoever, certified raw or not, unless it is to a state-approved dairy plant, whereupon it will be pasteurized for the good of all people.
BUT. . . cow owners and/or dairy farmers can drink their own raw milk and give (not sell, give) it to nonpaying guests.
After a brief discussion with the Guidestone lawyer, I realized that it would be possible to come to an agreement with the Agricultural Department to make several independent parties "owners" of a single cow, which would allow them to "drink their own milk."
The farmers' role would be to rent these cows for these multiple owners, charging each of them a boarding fee at the end of the month equivalent to the amount of milk a single owner takes for his own use.
It would be extremely easy for the multiple owners. The drawback for the farmers was the extensive paper trail that would be required. But for $2.50 per gallon "boarding fee" compared to 89 cents per gallon (minus the capital costs, shipping, milk checkoff fees, etc.) we think we could do some paper work. Also, a second milk house constructed to Grade A standards would be needed, where the cow owners could pick up their milk. For $2.50 per gallon, we could build that, too.
We could also build some bones and healthy kids. That was a bonus.
Happy Customers
The biggest surprise has been the variety of people that sign up for our milk. We thought that our clients would be yuppies and retired farmers, but we have a very wide range of cow-share owners, some of whom had never been on a farm before they came to us. We now have well over 100 clients, some of whom drive 120 miles one way to get their milk, because of the standards we uphold and the product we provide. Many of them sign up after reading The Milk Book. When they do, the light goes on and it makes complete sense. Some of our clients drink the milk only for its great taste, while others drink it for therapeutic reasons.
Here are some of the experiences reported by the clients we now have signed on the Milk Direct™ program here at Clearview Acres:
- Bob, a traveling repairman, only drinks his milk when he is at home. Nevertheless, from this minimal amount, he has seen a reduction of the arthritis in his knees.
- Harold tells us, "I don't get gas or experience the other lactose intolerance problems I was experiencing with store-bought milk."
- Andi could not tolerate any dairy products and thought she was doomed to a life without any until a friend told her about unprocessed milk. Now she enjoys our milk and any dish prepared with it.
- Dan, fifteen years in a wheelchair from a car accident, had become accustomed to taking large doses of pain killers for the arthritis in his shoulders. Two months after beginning to drink unprocessed milk he stopped taking the pain killers. If the family runs out of milk before the normal weekly pickup of ten gallons per week, he can feel the pain return. Dan is the father of a family of six.
- Larry can feel his energy levels reduced if his family runs out of milk before their weekly pickup of four gallons per week.
- Tom loves the taste and likes it best when it has begun to sour slightly.
- Walker, age 8, wouldn't drink store milk-"no way, no how." Now that his folks bring home unprocessed milk, he "can't get enough of it."
- Ben, a dairy farmer, was told 25 years ago to quit drinking milk because his cholesterol was too high. This past year, he needed crutches because his arthritis was so bad. He read The Milk Book and started drinking unprocessed milk. Within three days he wasn't bracing himself to get out of a chair. Within two weeks he threw away his crutches. Three months later he went to his doctor who was alarmed that his cholesterol was so low! The doctor prescribed an additional drug to counter the cholesterol-reducing drug he was already using. Upon leaving the doctor's office, Ben tossed both prescriptions in the waste basket and has had no problem with cholesterol or arthritis ever since. To this day the doctor does not know the true cure for Ben's "managed" condition.
- Karen, a smoker for 40 years, recently quit and also reduced her arthritis medicine. She and her husband consume four or five gallons per week.
- Vivian was distressed about her grandson, who spends part of his time with her. Processed milk products gave him severe diarrhea. Now this three-year-old boy enjoys two to three gallons of unprocessed milk per week. When given store milk, the diarrhea is immediate and severe.
Lingering Doubts
When people come to us afraid-afraid of gaining weight, afraid of germs in unpasteurized milk, we simply hand them The Milk Book and seven out of ten sign up, wishing they had heard about the Milk Direct program long ago. Whenever the local newspapers interview some dietician from the nearby agricultural college, who is horrified at the thought of consuming nature's raw milk, we get lots of calls and sign up a dozen more people.
YOU CAN DO IT
People are tired of processed food and farmers are tired of being tied to the processing plants. Our Milk Direct program turns this lose-lose situation into one that is a bigtime win for everyone. This program can help any farmer set up a cow share program. We provide both legal and technical advice. The program includes testing to ensure that the highest safety standards are met.
There are several cow share programs underway in other parts of Wisconsin, including one that has been approved for a large bank loan. We've also had inquiries from dairy farmers in Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas and another in New Jersey. It's the wave of the future, a true revolution in agriculture.
Call us anytime at (765) 277-3352.
Known for his pioneering work in the cow-share and farm-share movement in Wisconsin, Tim Wightman now operates a dairy farm in Ohio. He will be spearheading the report to be compiled after the first Raw Milk Summit conference, held in Norfolk, Nebraska, in June of 2006.
A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of The
Weston A. Price Foundation
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