Benor Farm offers add-ons like ricotta to their herdshare program. (Photo: Christine Zhu/NC Newsline)
One of the biggest topics of 2025 for farmers, consumers and healthcare providers in North Carolina was whether raw milk should be legal to sell for human consumption. The battle, which has been going on for years, could well resurface during the 2026 legislative session.
Raw milk has not undergone pasteurization, which is a process of heating the milk to a high temperature for a certain amount of time to kill pathogens like tuberculosis, which for centuries was frequently caused by drinking milk from cows with tuberculosis.
Public health officials say foodborne illnesses like salmonella can also spread through consuming unpasteurized milk. Symptoms of these can include vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. They can be especially severe in children.
Some people, however, say raw milk is healthier — a theory that’s been debunked by hundreds of studies — or that it tastes better. Others argue it’s an issue of personal liberty, claiming consumers have a fundamental freedom to decide what they and their families consume.
Robert Benor owns Benor Farm in Cedar Grove, N.C. (Christine Zhu/NC Newsline)Robert Benor owns Benor Farm in Orange County’s Cedar Grove, a regenerative dairy with 12 cows and a herdshare.
Herdsharing is a practice similar to a CSA or farmshare, but it’s specific to dairy products. Consumers who want raw milk can buy a “share” of a dairy herd’s production, which sidesteps the legal issues over selling the milk itself.
Benor says some of his customers have moved here from other states where the sale of raw milk is legal. “[They] say they can’t get used to the taste of pasteurized milk,” he said. “There’s others who are all natural and prefer raw milk.”
The cows, each bearing the name of something that goes with milk — for example, Milkshake, Nutmeg, Chocolate Chip, and Biscuit — live on the pasture at Benor Farm year round.
The number of herdshare members fluctuates throughout the year, but Benor says he provides raw milk to roughly a few hundred families and individuals. He also offers add-ons like butter, ricotta, yogurt, heavy cream, and fresh eggs from his chickens.
The cows live on the pasture at Benor Farm year round. (Christine Zhu/NC Newsline)Benor milks the dairy cows every morning, sanitizing the equipment and storing the milk in a bulk tank that’s cleaned every 72 hours.
“We focus a lot on sanitation and hygiene, so that we can make sure the milk is as safe as possible,” Benor told NC Newsline.
But even the best sanitation can’t remove pathogens from unpasteurized milk -– a fact Davidson resident Pamela Breeckner knows from personal experience.
Breeckner told NC Newsline her father passed away years ago from tuberculosis contracted from drinking raw milk from a neighbor’s diseased cow. At the time, dangers related to unpasteurized milk weren’t as well known, and there were fewer regulations on its sale and consumption.
“He was hospitalized or homebound for about 12 years before his death,” Breeckner said. “He was ill my whole life.”
The cow’s owners also passed away from tuberculosis, she said.
North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler is in favor of banning the sale of raw milk outright. He said the topic has been an ongoing issue for many years. Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza — a very infectious strain of bird flu — led to the latest push to ban raw milk.
Bird flu has moved from wild birds and poultry to farm animals like dairy cattle. From there, it can spread to humans, leading to conditions like respiratory symptoms and pinkeye.
As of Dec. 17, a total of 71 human cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza have been identified in the U.S. since 2024, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
“[There were] dangers that had existed in the past, especially with bacterial growth in raw milk,” Troxler said. “But then when you throw in high-path avian influenza, then that is a different ball game.”
The controversial issue took the spotlight in North Carolina during debate over the state’s 2025 Farm Act, which passed the Senate and stalled in the House.
An earlier draft of the bill would have closed the “pet milk” loophole in state law that allows the sale of unpasteurized milk. Under current law, the sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal, but it can legally be sold as “pet milk” for animal consumption.
The measure was ultimately pulled from the bill because of protests from raw milk advocates. About 100 activists attended a hearing of the North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee in May, one of whom was arrested for attempting to bring a gun into the meeting.
Bill sponsor Sen. Brent Jackson, a Republican from Sampson County, said at that hearing he’d received thousands of text messages, phone calls, and emails in favor of raw milk consumption in North Carolina.
“Until we filed this bill, sometimes you don’t know what’s out there,” he said. “But I’ve learned there is a tremendous amount of herdsharing going on in this state.”
Sampson did not allow the public to comment on the bill that day. But the committee voted against a total ban on the sale of raw milk.
Jackson’s staff did not respond to NC Newsline’s request for comment.
Troxler isn’t giving up, though. He points to research like a 2017 study showing that unpasteurized dairy products can cause 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized products.
“From a public health standpoint, there is no reason to take that risk of contracting these illnesses when all you’ve got to do is have pasteurized milk,” Troxler told NC Newsline.
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