A dairy farmer in southwest Wisconsin says it’s time for raw milk to be sold in America’s Dairyland.
Travis Klinkner milks cows in the western part of Vernon County, close to Romance. After the pandemic, he says, more people want farm-direct marketing, so he tried to get Wisconsin Farm Bureau delegates to support the change. “I think that our policy gives our government relations team a good step toward helping our lawmakers make good laws about selling raw milk in Wisconsin. People can buy what they want, and farmers can sell directly to people what they want.
Klinkner says that at least 26 other states already let people buy raw milk, but safety rules vary from state to state. “We don’t want people to just open a valve on their bulk tank and pour milk into a dirty jar. There will be standards for this, such as the ones we propose today from the Raw Milk Institute. These standards will make sure that the consumer gets a clean, high-quality product.”
People can’t get sick from unpasteurized milk because of the law, but Klinkner says the technology and standards are there to make it safe. He says that farming is not like it was in the 1920s and 1930s. “The standards I’m proposing go above and beyond those for pasteurised milk in a lot of ways, like having lower counts of bacteria and coliforms. This way, we can give consumers who may not know how to drink or handle raw milk a stable shelf life.”
At the most recent Farm Bureau convention, the policy was changed to allow the sale of raw milk.
