This is the text of our Dairy Herd-share Trifold Brochure (PDF).

Dairy Herd-Share Programs and the Economics of Raw Milk

Gain Access to Unprocessed Milk from Pasture-Fed Dairy Animals, Nature’s Perfect Food!
Help Save Local Dairy Farms!
Purchase a Share in a Dairy Animal or Dairy Herd!

Copyright © 2023 The Weston A. Price Foundation.
All Rights Reserved.

Why Consumers Want Real Milk

More and more consumers have trouble digesting commercial milk; many have allergies to modern milk products. Most commercial milk is actually an adulterated product that:

• Comes from cows fed high-protein feed, which is totally inappropriate for cows and which makes the milk more difficult to digest and can cause it to be allergenic.
• May contain pesticides, antibiotics and synthetic hormones.
• Is lacking in adequate fat needed for nutrient assimilation—milk from old-fashioned cows on pasture contains almost twice as much butterfat as modern milk labeled “whole” milk.
• Is pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized, processes that disrupt the enzymes, diminish nutrients and denature many of the proteins in the milk.
• Is susceptible to contamination because pasteurization destroys the many components in milk that kill bad bacteria.
• Is homogenized, a process that violently breaks up the fat globules.
• Contains contaminants, including harsh cleaning fluids used to clean the miles of pipes in modern milk factories.
• Contains nonfat dry milk (added to reduced-fat milk), a source of carcinogens, oxidized cholesterol and free glutamic acid (MSG).

These same consumers are discovering that they have no problems digesting unpasteurized (raw) whole milk from pasture-fed cows, sheep, goats or camels. In fact, such milk—called Real Milk—provides numerous health benefits. It is Nature’s perfect food, especially beneficial for growing children and those who are recovering from serious illness.

Why We Need Dairy Herd-Share Programs

Healthy Real Milk is available in stores in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, Utah and Washington. In many other states you can buy milk directly from farmers at the farm.

However, in some states, such sales are illegal; a farmer can lose his or her Grade A license and even go to jail for selling unpasteurized milk to consumers.

In many states where raw milk sales are illegal, consumers have been able to obtain raw milk directly from farmers by purchasing a share in a dairy animal or in the whole herd. Even in states where sales of raw milk are legal but a permit is required, share programs allow farmers to provide raw milk to consumers without the cumbersome and expensive requirements mandated by the state.

GUIDELINES FOR SHARE OWNERS

Before you buy any dairy shares, be sure that:

• Dairy animals are fed mainly on pasture, hay and/or forage that is free of pesticides and herbicides, and preferably no soy or GMOs.
• When a milking machine is used, the dairy animal’s teats are cleaned before attaching milking cups.
• The milking shed and surroundings are clean, tidy and free of rodents and standing water.
• Milk is kept chilled in a stainless steel tank or individual containers.
• A milk sampling plan is followed to test for coliform and human pathogens.

How Dairy Share Programs Work

The consumer buys an ownership interest in a dairy animal or herd. The consumer contracts with the farmer for his or her expertise to provide feed, shelter and care to keep the animal(s) in good health. The farmer also provides the labor to milk the animal(s) and store the consumer’s milk.

Such contracts are legal in nearly every state in the U.S. “Agistment” is the legal term for boarding your livestock on another’s premises.
Because the milk is the consumers’ property through their ownership interest in the herd, the consumers do not buy milk from the farmer. Rather, they pay the farmer for the service of boarding and milking the animal(s) and for the labor to process the milk into butter, cream, cheese, etc.

The dairy share programs can lead to other business for the farmer. Consumers joining these programs will often buy other foods from the farm, such as eggs, vegetables, poultry and meat.

The content of this document is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be nor should it be construed as either a legal opinion or as legal advice.

The Economics of Dairy Farming

CONVENTIONAL SMALL DAIRY ECONOMICS

• Thirty cows in a confinement situation.
• Fed high-protein feed to push milk production.
• Each cow produces 200 hundredweight peryear.
• Farmer receives about $12/hundredweight
• Gross income is $72,000.
• No government subsidies (only big farms get those).
• Costs are high:
  • Feed (grain, supplements, etc.)
  • Vet bills (cows are always sick)
  • Replacement cows (cows live only 42 months)
  • Artificial breeding (hard to get cows pregnant);
  • Interest payments on debt (capital to purchase expensive equipment).

Small dairy farmers cannot make a living on this model; there were 650,000 dairy farms in the U.S. in 1970 and only about 40,000 left today.

DAIRY-SHARE PROGRAM ECONOMICS

• Thirty cows on 100 acres of pasture.
• Lower production but healthier cows.
• Cows produce 100 hundredweight per year.
• Farmer provides milk for $4-$24 per gallon, equivalent to $50-$300 per hundredweight.
• Provides butter, cream and cheese for a price equivalent to at least $50/hundredweight.
• Feeds whey and/or skim milk to chickens and pigs.
• Gross income from milk & milk products is at least $150,000.
• Gross income from eggs, chicken, pork, beef and other products is at least $50,000.
• Costs are low:
  • Feed cost minimal—sunlight is free!
  • Vet bills are low (cows are healthy).
  • No replacement-cow costs (cows breed their own replacements, live 12-15 years).
  • Interest payments on debt much lower (not as many capital costs).

DAIRY HERD-SHARE PROGRAMS CAN SAVE FAMILY FARMS!

Dairy share programs are saving small farms in Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and other states where laws forbid the sale of raw milk.

For a list by state of raw milk dairies and share farms, visit www.realmilk.com.

To set up a cow-share, goat-share or herd-share, please contact the Weston A. Price Foundation at (202) 363-4394.

A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of
The Weston A. Price Foundation®
for Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts
Education ~ Research  ~ Activism

PMB Box 106-380
4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
(202) 363-4394
info@westonaprice.org

Visit our websites
www.westonaprice.org
and www.realmilk.com

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After Raw Breast Milk, What’s Best?

Homemade Raw Milk Formula for Babies; and Raw Milk for Toddlers and Children
Find Out Why Doctors Recommend It, Parents Love It and Babies & Children Thrive on It!

Thinking About Commercial Formula? Think Again!

Problems associated with commercial formula include:
▼ Constipation
▼ Congestion
▼ More frequent spitting up
▼ Gas and stomach aches
▼ Problems sleeping
▼Milk allergies and lactose intolerance
▼ Weakened immune system
▼ More frequent colds, runny noses and ear infections

Instead, Make Homemade Raw Milk Formula
Milk from the human breast is raw and like raw cow’s milk, contains active biological systems that naturally protect the milk itself—and the infant who drinks it— from infection.
Both raw breast milk and raw cow’s milk contain vital living elements that cannot be commercially reproduced.
Neither raw breast milk nor raw cow’s milk are likely to cause lactose intolerance or digestive problems.
Both raw breast milk and raw cow’s milk increase immunity to infection by increasing the biodiversity of beneficial bacteria in the gut.
Both raw breast milk and raw cow’s milk are high in beneficial fats, critical to proper brain development and for protection against pathogens.
Raw breast milk is not regulated for human consumption. Raw cow’s milk, when tested and regulated by the state, must meet the safety standards set for pasteurized milk—without undergoing pasteurization.
Raw milk from cows or goats can be used in a homemade formula that includes other ingredients to ensure conformity with mother’s milk. Babies can make the transition from raw milk formula to plain undiluted raw milk at nine to twelve months; but infants younger than nine months should only be given raw milk as an ingredient in raw milk infant formula.

Doctors Recommend Raw Milk

“Raw milk stabilizes MAST cells [which protect against pathogens], decreases inflammation and is effective for naturally treating asthma and allergies. It does not have the side effects of drug therapy. I recommend raw milk to all of my patients.”
Donald Fields, DO
Pediatrician, Yosemite Pediatrics
(formerly chief of medicine at Valley Children’s Hospital, Madera, CA, associate professor of medicine, University of California, San Francisco)

“Raw milk is a medical super-food! It protects and rebuilds the immune system.”
Susan Stone, MD, Fresno, CA

“Soy formula does not contain the nutrients that children need for their growth; it is one of the worst foods you can give your child. Serious health hazards include ADD, ADHD, brain damage, and altered behavior due to high levels of manganese…drink raw milk.”
Joseph Mercola, DO, mercola.com

Parents Love Raw Milk

“My three-year-old daughter suffered from asthma, chronic allergies, runny nose and congestion. At the end of the first week after starting raw milk her asthma and congestion were gone and she stopped taking all her medications.”
Becky Moreno

“Since I have been giving raw milk to my nine-year-old son, his frequent colds disappeared.”
Frederick Holmshaw

“My six-year-old daughter was very sick with eczema when the doctors put her on soy milk. Her eczema became progressively worse. I changed to raw milk and within two days her skin started to clear up. Within three months, she had no eczema and loves drinking raw milk!” Dara Ree

“Raw cow’s milk saved my newborn’s life! I gave her commercial formula at one month old and she became very ill and could not have a bowel movement. I started raw milk formula and within an hour she was able to have regular bowel movements again!”
Pandita Lugo

The health-sustaining qualities of raw milk depend on mom’s diet. For cows, this means a diet of grass, forage and hay from mineral-rich soil. Human moms will best nourish their breastfed babies by consuming plenty of nutrient-dense animal foods—including raw whole milk from pasture-fed cows—during lactation.

All raw milk is healthy, whether human, cow, goat, sheep, water buffalo, reindeer, horse or camel, provided that living conditions are natural and healthy and sanitation standards are met. While some people tolerate goat’s milk better than cow’s milk, cow’s milk is best for homemade infant formula because it contains high levels of vitamin B12 and folate.

Babies Need Cholesterol!

Babies need cholesterol for the development of their nervous systems and brain. Unlike adults, babies cannot make cholesterol. Fortunately, raw milk is rich in cholesterol and contains special enzymes to ensure that the infant absorbs 100 percent of the cholesterol. These enzymes are destroyed by pasteurization, and there is no cholesterol at all in commercial infant formulas. That is one important reason why raw milk—from mom or from a cow or other lactating animal—is so important for your baby!

For further information:
westonaprice.org/childrens-health/

A Campaign for Real Milk is a Project of
The Weston A. Price Foundation©
for Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts
westonaprice.org and realmilk.com

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This is the text of our

A Campaign for Real Milk
Pasture-Fed * Unprocessed * Full-Fat

A project of The Weston A. Price Foundation.

For sources of Real Milk call (202) 363-4394 or visit www.realmilk.com.

Why a Campaign for Real Milk?

Back in the 1970s, a couple of blokes were sitting in an English pub, bemoaning the consolidation of the brewing industry in England and the decline of British beer and ale. A commodity that represented the soul of Britain—carefully brewed ales from countless small-scale manufacturers, each with a distinctive color and taste—had given way to the insipid canned beers of a few large monopolistic breweries. What was needed, they decided, was a return to traditional brewing methods. They launched A Campaign for Real Ale, which soon became the force that turned back the mega-brewers and reinstated varied and delicious ales to English tables and pubs.

Back in the 1920s, Americans could buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, many kinds of fresh and aged raw cheeses, and thick cream. Today’s milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to cancer, but when Americans could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare. In fact, fewer and fewer Westerners can actually consume today’s pasteurized, ultrapasteurized, homogenized, fat-reduced and manipulated dairy products. Sales of fluid milk are declining relentlessly at 1-3 percent per year.

Back in the 1920s, Americans considered a supply of high-quality dairy products vital to American security and economic well-being. Today dairy farms are going out of business at an accelerating rate, unable to make a living on the low prices dairy farmers receive from the monopolistic dairy industry, leading to tragic rural decline.

What’s needed today is a return to humane, pasture-based dairying, small-scale traditional processing and direct farm-to-consumer sales; what’s needed is. . .A Campaign for Real Milk.

What Is Real Milk?

Real Milk comes from real cows.

The source of most commercial milk is the modern (rather than the traditional) Holstein,* bred to produce huge quantities of milk—three times more than the old-fashioned cow—and to survive on a grain-based diet rather than on grass. Her average lifespan is forty-two months, compared to about twelve years for the grass-fed cow. She must be milked three times per day, and she is very susceptible to mastitis. Her milk contains high levels of growth hormone from her pituitary gland, even when she is spared the indignities of genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, to push her to the udder limits of milk production.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk. Buy milk only from old-fashioned cows, which have lower production and can do well on grass.

*Please note, there are farmers who produce excellent “Real Milk” using older lines of Holsteins and Holstein crosses (Holsteins who can survive on grass are “old-fashioned”). It is the modern commercial Holstein, bred only for quantity, not quality, and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, that should be avoided. Know your supplier! Ask questions!  

The old-fashioned breeds of cows include but are not limited to Jerseys, Guernseys, Red Devons, Brown Swiss, Milking Shorthorns, Dutch Belted, or older genetic lines of Holsteins. Raw milk from goats or sheep is also excellent. (Or, depending on what part of the world you live in, from llamas, camels, mares, donkeys, water buffalo, or reindeer!)

Real Milk comes from real cows that eat real feed.

Real feed for cows is green grass in spring, summer and fall, with only small amounts of grain; stored dry hay, silage and root vegetables in winter. It is not soy meal, cottonseed meal or other commercial feeds, nor is it bakery waste, chicken manure, swill from ethanol production or citrus peel cake laced with pesticides. Vital nutrients like vitamins A, D, E and K2 are greatest in milk from cows eating green grass, especially rapidly growing green grass in the spring and fall. Vitamins A and D are greatly diminished, and vitamin K2 disappears when milk cows are fed commercial feed. Soy meal contains thyroid-depressing estrogen compounds called isoflavones that pass through to the milk. Most milk (even most milk labeled “organic”) comes from dairy cows that are kept in confinement their entire lives and never see green grass!

Join A Campaign for Real Milk. Buy milk products only from herds allowed to graze on green pasture.

Real Milk is not pasteurized.

Pasteurization destroys enzymes, denatures anti-microbial and immune-stimulating components, diminishes nutrient availability, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B6 and B12, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth and behavior problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis and heart disease. Calves fed pasteurized milk do poorly and often die before maturity. Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk turns putrid.

Pasteurization was instituted in the 1920s to combat TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by poor animal nutrition, dirty production methods and infected water supplies. But times have changed and effective water treatment, stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated trucks and improved testing methods make pasteurization completely unnecessary for public protection. And pasteurization does not always kill pathogens. The bacteria for Johne’s disease, with which a large portion of confinement cows are infected, survive pasteurization; Johne’s has been linked to Crohn’s disease in humans. Much commercial milk is now ultra-pasteurized to get rid of heat-resistant pathogens and give it a longer shelf life. Ultra-pasteurization is a violent process that takes milk from a cool temperature to above the boiling point in just a few seconds. Clean raw milk from tested healthy cows is available in stores in ten states and may be bought directly from the farm or obtained through cow share or herd share programs in many more. (Sources are listed at realmilk.com.)

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Demand access in all states to clean, raw milk. Boycott processed milk!

Real Milk is not homogenized.

Homogenization is a process that breaks down butterfat globules so they do not rise to the top. Homogenized milk has been linked to heart disease.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Use only milk with “Cream on the Top.”

Real Milk contains butterfat, and lots of it!

Average butterfat content from old-fashioned cows at the turn of the 20th century was over 4 percent (or more than 50 percent of calories). Today butterfat comprises less than 3 percent (or less than 35 percent of calories). Worse, consumers have been duped into believing that
low-fat and skim milk products are good for them. Only by marketing low-fat and skim milk as health foods can the modern dairy industry get rid of its excess poor-quality, reduced-fat milk from modern high-production herds. Butterfat contains vitamins A and D needed for assimilation of calcium and protein in the water fraction of the milk. Without them protein and calcium are more difficult to utilize and possibly toxic. Butterfat is rich in short- and medium-chain fatty acids, which protect against disease and stimulate the immune system. It contains glycospingolipids, which prevent intestinal distress, and conjugated linoleic acid, which has strong anticancer properties.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Buy only full-fat milk products.

Real Milk contains no additives.

Powdered skim milk, a source of dangerous oxidized cholesterol and neurotoxic amino acids, is added to 1% and 2% milk. Low-fat yogurts and sour creams contain mucopolysaccharide slime to give them body. Pale butter from hay-fed cows contains colorings to imitate vitamin-rich
butter from grass-fed cows. Rennet produced by bio-engineered bacteria is used in large-scale cheese production. Mass-produced cheeses contain additives and colorings, and imitation cheese products contain vegetable oils.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Boycott counterfeits.

Real Milk can save family farms.

Pasteurization laws favor large, industrialized dairy operations and squeeze out small farmers. When farmers have the right to sell unprocessed milk directly to consumers, they can make a decent living, even with small herds.

Real Milk–Nature’s Perfect Food

Galen, Hippocrates, Pliny, Varro, Marcellus Empiricus, Bacchis and Anthimus, leading physicians of their day, all used raw milk in the treatment of disease. During the early 1900s, Dr. J. E. Crewe of the Mayo Foundation used an exclusive raw milk diet to cure TB, edema, heart failure,
high blood pressure, prostate disease, urinary tract infections, diabetes, kidney disease, chronic fatigue and obesity. Today, in Germany, successful raw milk therapy is provided in some hospitals.

Studies show that children fed raw milk have more resistance to TB than children fed pasteurized milk (Lancet, p 1142, 5/8/37); that raw milk is very effective in preventing scurvy and protecting against flu, diphtheria and pneumonia (Am J Dis Child, Nov 1917); that raw milk prevents tooth decay, even in children who eat a lot of sugar (Lancet, p 1142, 5/8/37); that raw milk is better than pasteurized milk in promoting growth and calcium absorption (Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 518, p 8, 1933); that a substance present in raw cream (but not in pasteurized cream) prevents joint stiffness and the pain of arthritis (Annual Review of Biochemistry, 18:435, 1944); and that children who drink raw milk have fewer allergic skin problems and far less asthma than children who drink pasteurized milk (Clinical & Experimental Allergy. 2007 May; 35(5) 627-630). Many parents report an improvement in their children’s behavior when they switch from pasteurized to raw milk.

Raw milk contains numerous components that kill pathogenic bacteria in the milk, strengthen the immune system, protect the intestinal tract, prevent the absorption of toxins and ensure full assimilation of all the nutrients in the milk. These components are largely destroyed by pasteurization.

The Weston A. Price Foundation®
PMB 106-380, 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
For sources of Real Milk call (202) 363-4394 or visit www.realmilk.com

Contributions to A Campaign for Real Milk help pay for education and legislative action. Please send your tax-deductible donation to the Weston A. Price Foundation.
Copyright © 2023 The Weston A. Price Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

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