Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection officials appear to be drawing a line in the sand when it comes to the sale of raw milk to consumers.

DATCP officials issued a "summary special order" Oct. 18 requiring Scott and Julie Trautman of Stoughton to stop selling raw milk directly to consumers. The Trautmans milk about 30 Jerseys on their Dane County farm.

Scott Trautman said they lost their commercial milk outlet in September, when Foremost Farms USA and the National Farmers Organization stopped picking up their milk. The Trautmans were unable to find another milk handler.

"The situation is that there really aren't any other milk trucks going by here," Trautman said. "We needed a direct market for our milk."

Trautman said they were selling their milk as "pet milk" before they got the ultimatum from DATCP officials.

"We were presented with a subpoena asking for customer information and an order to cease from selling milk immediately," Trautman said. "That's a new thing for (the DATCP). No one can figure out why they need to know who our customers are. We think they're now into a phase where they're intimidating raw-milk customers as well as producers."

Trautman said he believes DATCP officials are on a mission to enforce the state's longstanding prohibition against raw milk sales in response to a September incident in Walworth County. Testing confirmed that 35 campylobacter infections resulted from the consumption of unpasteurized raw milk sold by Zinniker Family Farm near Elkhorn. The farm was selling raw milk through a cow-share program.

DATCP officials said the Zinniker incident was the third major disease outbreak in Wisconsin since 2001 that has been tied to raw milk consumption.

Tom Leitzke, an official in the DATCP's Food Safety Division, said selling raw milk to consumers is illegal whether it is as pet milk or as part of a cow-share program.

"Pet milk would need to be sold under a commercial feed license," Leitzke said. "That's a side issue. We believe (the Trautmans) were selling pet milk to people for their consumption."

Leitzke said the DATCP isn't necessarily interested in enforcing raw-milk sale penalties, which could be either civil or criminal.

"We'd just like to stop them," he said. "It's been building in the state. We're aware of that. Some of these people have become very obvious in what they are doing. It's an ongoing problem."

Steve Ingham, DATCP Food Safety Division administrator, said the agency sent a letter in April to milk producers they believed were illegally selling milk to consumers through cow-share arrangements.

"There were two operations we knew of and others we heard of through the media," Ingham said. "We advised them how the law was being interpreted and where we stood on it."

Ingham said the Zinniker incident has been taking up most of the agency's time spent on raw milk cases, but they have made farm visits and are seeking information about other producers selling directly to consumers.

"Is this the norm?" Ingham said of the action to stop the Trautmans from selling milk. "It's a logical way to proceed. But it's not like we're devoting a lot of resources to doing it."

DATCP public information officer Donna Gilson said state statutes stipulate that when producers lose their milk market, they have 30 days to find a different one. If they can't, their license is revoked.

The Trautmans' dairy producer license was revoked Oct. 18.

Joan Behr, Foremost Farms communications director, said the milk cooperative decided to stop picking up the Trautmans' milk after "alleged suspicious activity was observed on the farm."

"That activity had to do with the sale of raw milk," Behr said. "There apparently was a sign on the farm that indicated they sold (raw) milk. We felt it was suspicious activity and we would not allow the milk to be delivered to our customers."

Behr said that because the sale of raw milk is banned in Wisconsin, Foremost officials "didn't want to jeopardize our members' markets by being associated with an activity prohibited by law. We said the milk had to find a different market."

Ron Statz, NFO Midwest regional marketing director, said Foremost Farms officials told the NFO they would no longer pick up the milk.

He said NFO officials looked for other milk handlers but couldn't find any who thought the Trautman milk pickup would make economic sense.

Statz said between 300 and 500 pounds of milk per day were being picked up at the farm. Trautman said they were milking their 30 cows once a day.

Statz said he had heard rumors about the Trautmans selling raw milk, but the NFO didn't have evidence of that.

"I know there was a producer in southeast Wisconsin who is in a fair amount of hot water for selling raw milk," Statz said, referring to the Zinniker case. "The NFO is trying to not take a position on raw milk sales, but it is important for producers to know the risk they may have."

Trautman said he is concerned about the possibility of people getting sick from drinking raw milk, but he has taken precautions to make sure that wouldn't happen.

"I learned from the (Zinniker) situation," Trautman said. "Every time we opened the spigot we would take a sample, date it and put it away. If there was ever a problem, we would have a sample from that batch of milk."

The milking-cooling filters were kept clean and the milk was healthy, Trautman said.

"We know what we're doing," he said. "We're doing a fine job of dairying. There are no quality problems here. We have healthy cows and we make healthy milk."

Trautman said there are frequent illnesses caused by food sold in grocery stores and restaurants, but health officials look for ways to correct the problem rather than shutting down the business.

"We keep working on it; we don't shut them down," he said. "With raw milk producers, they just say you're done now. It is meant to be hurtful, to put the producer out of business. It's like we represent some kind of massive threat."

Trautman said their long-range goal was to begin making cheese on their farm, but he doesn't believe DATCP officials would let them do that.

"We're located 15 minutes from DATCP's offices," he said. "They could have a meeting, come out to our farm, make us miserable and be back in time for their morning break."

He said state officials have been "exceptionally hostile" to their plan to produce cheese on the farm.

"They made it very clear to me that I either cooperate or worse things are going to happen," he said.

Trautman admits that his dairying style is unconventional. Calves are left on the cows to nurse for eight weeks and the cows are only milked once a day.

He said raw-milk sales were making a "world of difference" to their farm.

"Without (the sales), we cease to be a self-sustaining farm," he said. "We'll go back to being a hobby farm. And I feel I lose a lot of legitimacy in what I'm doing."

The Trautmans also sell grass-fed beef, pastured pork, poultry and eggs on their farm just outside Stoughton.

With the raw-milk no-sale mandate and no commercial market, the Trautmans are dumping their milk.

Trautman said they are considering moving their operation to a state that's receptive to raw milk sales.

"We're seriously looking to go to a state like Vermont," he said.

Jim Massey can be reached at 608-574-8011 or jimmassey@mhtc.net.