I’m raising funds for our dairy farm, Grassway Organics, as we fight to keep our farm running and protect our owners’ rights.

We run Grassway Organics, a first-generation family dairy in East Troy, Wisconsin. Chaz left his job in 2016 to milk cows full time. We built this farm ourselves, and our three sons have grown up in this barn. This fight is not only about our business. It is about the farm our family built together and the work we have dedicated our lives to.

Wisconsin issued us a Grade A dairy license in March 2020. We operate under the state’s own rule, ATCP 65.52(2)(b), the bona fide ownership interest provision. We did not interpret it on our own. We brought our proposal to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and worked it through with them. We then went beyond what the state required. Grassway became the 20th farm in the nation to earn RAWMI food safety certification, and the first dairy in Wisconsin to carry raw milk liability insurance. For six years, we were licensed, inspected, certified, and insured with not one issue.

In April 2026, the department suspended our license. It has proposed a $10,000 fine plus $50 per day for every day we continue to operate and is now threatening to close the farm entirely. The rule never changed. It was not repealed, the legislature did not amend it, and there was no rulemaking. The phrase the state is shutting us down over, bona fide ownership interest, has never been defined by DATCP anywhere.

This has been a major stress over our farm and our entire operation. The daily stress of knowing the state of Wisconsin wants to shut down a licensed Grade A farm has been incredibly hard, especially when Wisconsin has already lost more than three-quarters of its dairy farms since 2000.

We have filed for a temporary restraining order to halt the shutdown while the case is decided. The full hearing is scheduled for May 24–26, 2027, in Waukesha County. We have already spent more than $10,000 in attorney fees and have not yet reached a hearing.

The funds raised here will go toward the legal battle to keep Grassway Organics running and to defend the rights of its owners. Any donation or share would mean so much as we face these growing legal costs and work to protect the farm we built for our family and our community.