State’s ban of raw milk has $225 million price tag

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The economic loss to Maryland from the state’s prohibition of raw milk sales is estimated at $225 million — that’s “M” as in million — according to the Weston A. Price Foundation.
Here’s how that figure is derived:
There are estimated to be 180,000 drinkers of raw milk — or approximately 45,000 raw-milk drinking families in the state, according to the foundation.
That’s roughly 3 percent of the total population of 5,700,000.
In the past, until prevented from doing so, those raw milk drinking families spent $67.5 million a year buying milk from Pennsylvania farmers.
That’s $30 a week times, 50 weeks of the year, times 45,000.
The raw milk drinkers also spent another $70 a week in Pennsylvania buying other farm products.
That’s another $157.5 million — $70 times 50 weeks times 45,000.
That leaves a total of $225 million.
Then there’s the so-called multiplier effect, traditionally figured at 2.7.
It’s the local money staying and being spent in the community by the farmer, at his local feed store, or at the neighborhood pharmacy or at the movie theater.
The $225 million times the multiplier of 2.7 produces a total of $607.5 million.