Herd shares provide a mutual benefit for raw milk fans and dairy farmers in Virginia.

However, since the state does not permit retail sale of raw milk for human consumption, residents who want to drink raw milk must own their own cow or purchase a share in a dairy herd.

Farmers charge for the share as well as monthly boarding fees, and the shareholder gets an agreed-upon amount of raw milk.

Crystal Trost drank raw milk as a child growing up on a dairy farm in Lititz, Pennsylvania. The commonwealth allows raw milk sales with inspections and permits.

Now that Trost lives in the Shenandoah Valley with her family, she has to go through a different process to get raw milk.

Trost owns a share in a herd of 60 to 70 milk cows at Sunset Lane Dairy in Rockingham. Weekly, Trost may pick up her share of 1.5 gallons of raw milk from the dairy. Shares are available in gallons and half gallons.

Herd shareholders pay monthly boarding fees but have no other obligations or privileges. At Sunset Lane, a share comes out to 4 gallons of raw milk a month for a total cost of $32.

Sunset Lane Dairy is run by Miriam Martin, husband Aaron and their children. Martin likes that they can drink “all the raw milk we want as a family and herd sharing allows others to do the same, when they can’t keep a cow or a goat.”

Trost added, “I’m glad to be directly supporting the farmer. I like to know where our food comes from and prefer to eat food in its least processed form.”

(The Food and Drug Administration says pasteurization does not affect milk’s nutritional value but significantly reduces food safety risks compared to raw milk.)

Trost and her family buy their food from local sources as much as they can. She points out that all food sources need to be monitored for safety, and milk is no different.

“Safe handling from the cow to the jar is important to me,” Trost said. “We can see the process at the farm and know that they are using best practices.”

Sunset Lane is inspected by the USDA and Martin said everything is up to code. The dairy ships its extra milk for commercial processing — a unique situation in Virginia, where most processors will not take milk from herd share farms.

Martin said the commercial contract allowed her family to start a herd share business while maintaining their debt load.

“Someday maybe we can do just herd shares,” she said. “We feel that having herd shares alongside a commercial contract is a win-win for us and the customers. We always have the right amount of milk to fill the contracts each day with fresh milk, and we don’t have to make something like yogurt out of the leftover milk. No saving milk over the weekend for Monday or Tuesday.”

Weekly, Trost takes her three half-gallon glass jars and drives to Sunset Lane Dairy to pick up her share and a half of milk. The herd shareholders are responsible to bring the jars clean every week. Trost likes that she doesn’t have to use plastic jugs.

Martin said glass jars can be a challenge for the farm to manage, ensuring jars are clean and customers return them on time.

But “milk stays fresh longer in glass,” Martin said.

Herd share customers tell the Martins which day of the week they want their milk, and the Martins make sure a jar is filled with their name on it in the cooler. It is self service.

“We thoroughly enjoy talking to any customers who show up while we are bottling milk for the next day,” Martin said. “We maintain several drop-off locations where someone hosts a refrigerator and we deliver milk, eggs etc. there on a regular schedule. Customers then pick up at their convenience and leave empty jars for the next week.”

Prior to the herd share, Trost and her family owned a share in a cow with a group of people. They took turns sharing milking duties and taking home the raw milk.

The Trosts also owned a cow for a few years.

“While we enjoyed having our own cow, it was a lot of work, and the demands of caring for and milking the cow outweighed the benefits,” she said.

The Martins, who purchased their own farm 21 years ago, know all about the work and benefits of a dairy farm.

“When we bought our farm, it was in need of lots of repair,” Martin said. “We are still milking in a single-7 parlor that was built in 1950.”

Both Aaron and Miriam grew up on small dairy farms.

The herd share option became available in Trost’s area about 20 years ago, and she is aware of only two herd shares in her area.

Martin said there are four locally, but many more in Virginia.

“I wouldn’t say that it is common, but I’m grateful it is available,” Trost said.

Trost can make yogurt and butter with the raw milk she gets weekly, pleased that she is cutting out packaging waste.

Because raw milk is not homogenized, the cream rises to the top. Trost skims some and sets it aside to make butter in her blender. She also reserves the buttermilk for baking.

To make yogurt at home, Trost heats the milk to between 160 and 180 F to denature the whey proteins and kill any bacteria that could compete with the yogurt culture that will be introduced to the milk when it cools down to 115 F. This heating process does not necessarily pasteurize the raw milk, which requires a specific time and temperature combination.

Trost makes quarts of yogurt at a time. Her family, particularly her teenage son, loves to eat yogurt as a breakfast or snack.