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The owners of Dee Creek Farm in Woodland, Wash., thought they would build their
customer base with free-range poultry, but it’s the raw milk drinkers that keep business
ticking, thanks in part to the efforts of Lilly, one of three milk cows at the farm.
Got raw milk?
‘Cow sharers’ find the legal loopholes
By AMANDA PENNELLY Issue date: Fri, Jul 8, 2005
The Tribune
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As health-conscious Portlanders gravitate toward more organically grown foods, some
also are putting stock in raw cow milk.
Literally.
Growing numbers of local residents are buying shares of cows’ milk production and
hauling raw, or unpasteurized, milk to their neighborhoods — something the state said
wouldn’t happen until … well, the cows came home.
But despite warnings from health officials, and Oregon dairy laws that prohibit the
retail sale of unpasteurized milk to humans, many people are doing everything they can
to get a hold of the raw stuff.
Because raw milk drinkers can’t legally buy it, they’re investing in the cow that
produces it. Through “cow sharing,” people can buy a percentage of a cow’s milk
production for a one-time fee — any-where between $60 and $80, along with small
monthly bottling and maintenance fees. By signing a contract with a dairy farmer, the
cow shareholder then commits to consuming about a gallon a week per share. And much
like Wall Street, shareholders who don’t want their percentage of cow’s milk can transfer
back their shares to the farmers.
“We’ve only been doing it for a couple of months and we’ve already sold 40 shares,”
said Woodland, Wash., dairy farmer Anita Puckett. About a third of her shareholders are
from Portland. She said that one share equals one gallon of milk a week; she says her
Jersey cows produce about 30 gallons a week. Other types of cows produce different
amounts.
“I think one cow share averages out to $6.50 a gallon, but some farms charge a little
more,” she said. “About 75 percent of our new customers are from our raw milk program.
We thought our free-range poultry would be the big draw, but it’s the milk.”
The initial share fee usually can be sold back to the farmer, Puckett said, if a customer
decides not to participate any longer.
But, she said, every farmer prices shares differently.
Cow-share programs, a growing national trend over the past decade, have only recently
made their debut in Oregon. And the state Legislature hasn’t decided how it’s going to
deal with the phenomenon.
“There are no specific guidelines for it at this point,” said Eric Paulson, supervisor of
the food safety division at the Oregon Department of Agriculture. “There’s nothing
against drinking milk from your own cow. It just comes down to determining what makes
you an owner of a cow. We’re waiting to hear back from the attorney general on this
one.”
Scotts Mills dairy farmer Barbara Spinola joked about her own cow-share program:
“I’d like to see some of those shareholders come and haul away some of this manure once
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