Amish Farmer Acquitted in Wisconsin Raw Milk Case

People “want food with integrity, that’s honest, that’s real,” Daniel Hershberger told a Wisconsin courtroom recently, reports Modern Farmer. Daniel was testifying on behalf of his son, Vernon Hershberger, who was being prosecuted by the State of Wisconsin for three misdemeanor counts of licensure violation, and one misdemeanor count of violating a holding order, all for “selling” raw milk at his family farm.

Daniel had been called to testify about the motivation behind his son’s 2003 decision to switch from selling milk to large commercial bottlers to operating a private membership-supported food club that offered raw milk from his dairy.

From 2003 to 2010, the club grew from a handful of people to more than 100 families who could obtain raw milk and other farm fresh products in exchange for helping out by sweeping floors, raking manure, milking cows, cleaning udders, and washing jars, among other tasks.

Vernon’s operation was called into question by the Wisconsin Dept. of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP), which raided the farm—complete with armed sheriffs—in June of 2010. The DATCP sealed Hershberger’s coolers, freezers, and food shelves and issued a holding order barring Hershberger from touching any of the food in his club pantry. Modern Farmer also reports that DATCP agents even “threw a vial of blue dye into a milk tank full with more than 2,000 pounds of raw milk” making the milk unsuitable for sale.

The defense was simple. In addition to receiving the testimony from his father, Vernon argued that he wasn’t selling milk. He insisted that he didn’t needed a state license since the families that were part of his farm club were partners in the operation, leasing animals in exchange for the milk they produced.

It took the jury only a few hours to acquit him of all three licensing charges, finding him guilty of the one count of violating a holding order (which Vernon admitted doing at trial). Given that the holding order was only issued because the state believed Vernon was illegally engaging in the sale of raw milk without a license, Modern Farmer reports that Vernon is not expected to receive any jail time.

Pasteurization regulations are strictly enforced by government organizations like the DATCP, which consider raw milk a threat to public health. According to the Daily Beast, the Centers for Disease Control cites raw milk as the cause of 148 outbreaks of illness - from harmful bacteria like salmonella and E. Coli - from 1998 through 2011.

Under current law, large dairy organizations like Hood and Land O’ Lakes, which mix and bottle milk from many different farms are regulated in the same way as single family farms that sell only what they produce. Raw milk advocates believe that it is illogical to regulate small farms and large corporations in the same way and many small farmers want the right to independently produce and sell raw milk at their and their consumers’ own risk.

To that point, Elizabeth Rich of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a raw milk advocacy group, tells the Daily Beast, “The Constitution didn’t include food freedom or the right to produce and consume food of our choice because they didn’t think they had to.”

Can you buy raw milk where you live? A state-by-state map of raw milk sale laws can be found here.