HARRINGTON, Del. — Stephanie Knutsen wasn’t expecting to become a lead advocate for raw milk in Delaware or to see her family’s dairy become the first to legally sell it in the state.
She and her husband Gregg Knutsen of G&S Dairy had been milking cows in Kent County for more than two decades without ever considering the possibilities of raw milk.
“Raw milk was not on our radar,” Stephanie said. “It was illegal.”
Until last year.
In January 2024, Sen. Eric Buckson, R-Kent, approached the couple, telling them his constituents were asking for raw milk.
The senator was looking to propose a bill legalizing it and wanted to hear from the state’s dairy farmers on the topic.
Stephanie’s response was “I really need to research this.”
After weeks of immersing herself in raw milk literature, including years of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she was convinced that many people have wrong perceptions about it.
“The more I dug into it, the more I realized how much bias there is against raw milk,” she said. “I became more passionate and more of an advocate.”
While the CDC estimates 3,000 people die annually from foodborne illnesses, Stephanie said she found only two confirmed deaths from raw milk in nearly 20 years.
Foodborne pathogens in raw milk can also cause serious conditions from vomiting to kidney failure, the CDC says.
Stephanie believes many of the negative perceptions are based on information from a century ago when pasteurization became widely accepted as necessary to ensure the safety of milk produced in conditions less sanitary than today’s.
Another thing she learned was a lot of people are eager for the unpasteurized product.
“I had no idea there was such a demand for raw milk,” she said.
Her research led her to work closely with the California-based Raw Milk Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the safety and quality of raw milk.
She was also able to take lessons from the failed attempt of others in 2013 to legalize raw milk in Delaware.
At that time there were 44 dairy farms in the state and the sentiment was that raw milk was too risky to the industry. The state departments of agriculture and health were also opposed at the time.
Her newfound mission landed her a role helping to develop the legalization bill introduced in the state Senate in April last year.
She contacted the state’s 12 other remaining dairy farms, finding that almost all were in favor of legalizing it.
Stephanie also successfully lobbied the state ag secretary and the three county Farm Bureaus in the state to accept raw milk and promote the bill.
Her interactions with state officials built enough trust such that the Division of Public Health agreed to give the Ag Department the lead in overseeing raw milk.
One of her most memorable experiences was being called on to defend the bill in the Senate.
“I had never done anything like that,” she said. “I was scared to death. I did a lot of praying.”
The bill passed the Senate and later passed the House almost unanimously.
Stephanie credits divine intervention, along with a timely lesson on civil discourse in her LEAD Maryland ag leadership program.
The course taught her to “listen to the opposition and what their concerns are,” she said. “Find common ground.”
In this case, some common ground she found was that “nobody wants people to get sick.”
The law, signed by the governor last September, allows the sale of raw milk directly off the farm, with a weekly testing requirement.
While the law is similar to Pennsylvania’s, Delaware’s weekly testing exceeds the once-a-month testing required by its northern neighbor.
Delaware farmers also need a waiver to sell the milk anywhere other than at the farm, such as at a farmers market or drop-off location.
Making it Work on the Farm
The Knutsens are in the process of getting a permit to sell raw milk for human consumption. In the meantime, they are allowed to sell it as pet food.
The Knutsens milk five of their Jersey cows with low somatic cell counts separately from the rest of the 50-cow herd, which is mostly Holsteins with some Jerseys and several Brown Swiss.
After Dairy Farmers of America picks up the herd’s milk every two days and the bulk tank is sanitized, the five cows are milked first and their milk is bottled immediately before milking the rest of the herd.
Serving as the G&S Dairy store with a refrigeration unit is a renovated building that was once Stephanie’s grandmother’s chicken coop.
The weekly coliform testing requirement allows for on-farm testing, except for at least once a month when the milk needs to be sent to a third-party lab.
A small incubator, vials and agar plates are put to use on the farm for the weekly testing.
The milk is bottled in half-gallon jugs that sell for $6 each — $12 per gallon or the equivalent of about $140 per hundredweight.
Delawareans have been buying raw milk from Pennsylvania farmers for $15 per gallon, she said.
The Knutsens believe raw milk could be a way for struggling dairies to survive and thrive.
Stephanie said retailing raw milk from five cows can bring in the same income as shipping wholesale milk from 50 cows.
“You just can’t survive as a medium- or small-scale dairy farmer without some kind of direct, niche marketing,” she said.
So far, the family’s biggest ongoing hurdle has been finding an insurance company that will either cover raw milk or exclude it from the policy without removing coverage for the rest of the farm.
“It’s a whole separate story in itself,” Stephanie said.
Immersed in Agriculture
The Knutsens met at the University of Delaware, where Gregg studied animal science and Stephanie majored in plant and soil science.
Gregg, who grew up on his family’s dairy in Rising Sun, Maryland, had considered other career options but came to realize he wanted to be a dairyman.
Stephanie was raised on her parents’ Harrington farm that went out of the dairy business in the early 1980s but continued as a crop farm.
The pair quickly discovered they were a match.
“He wanted to have a dairy and I had the land” on the home farm, Stephanie said. “It’s our redneck Cinderella story.”
They began dairying in 2004 with a herd Gregg had begun putting together while working for another dairy farm.
The couple started a family around the same time.
Bethany, 21, is following in her mother’s footsteps studying plant and soil science at the University of Delaware while Evan, 17, and Emmie, 11, have time to consider their futures. All of them have been involved in 4-H and show dairy cattle.
Stephanie works for the Maryland Department of Agriculture as an agricultural resource conservation specialist in Denton, just across the state line about a 15-minute drive from the farm.
Gregg also sells crop insurance and the couple are involved in their local and state Farm Bureaus.
They host tours of their farm and lease show cattle to 4-H kids, for which there is a lot of demand.
“Our family has grown because we mentor all these kids,” Gregg said.
Genetics are a focus in the herd, with a number of animals excelling at shows over the years, including the Delaware State Fair.
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“If the genetics aren’t good, we breed to Angus or do ET (embryo transfer),” he said.
Stephanie’s father, Jim Cannon, 84, still helps with the crop work, which includes about 520 acres of corn, soybeans, hay and small grains.
The forages are fed to the dairy herd, with some hay being sold to horse owners as well.
The cows are loosely housed in an open-sided barn with a bed pack of wood shavings, ceiling fans and curtains to keep them “super comfortable,” Stephanie said.
They are milked in a double-6 step-up parlor that was made by renovating the original tie-stall barn.
While the future of the dairy farm isn’t certain, the Knutsens believe their decision to forge ahead with raw milk expands possibilities for the younger generation.
The process has allowed the couple to “envision a future in dairy for our children for the first time,” Stephanie said.
No matter what their children decide, the Knutsens aim to keep dairying into their later years.
“The goal is to be milking three to five cows as we’re nearing retirement age,” Stephanie said.
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