SALEM — Oregon’s raw dairy proponents are going back to the drawing board after a proposal to allow more unpasteurized milk sales failed to gain traction this year.

A recent legislative deadline has killed House Bill 2616, which would have expanded direct-to-consumer opportunities for raw milk and overturned retail restrictions specific to cows.

Though the proposal isn’t moving forward, “raw milk is not going away” since farmers are looking for “safe, legal ways” to fulfill the “huge demand” from consumers, said Alice Morrison, co-director of the Friends of Family Farmers nonprofit, which supported the bill.

Morrison said the organization is heartened by the outpouring of support and discussions about HB 2616, which had the backing of a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

The biggest barrier facing the bill was the “all-out no” it encountered from public health officials, with whom raw milk supporters will try to negotiate a compromise on future legislation, she said.

“It’s time we come together with the health authorities and see if we can address their concerns,” Morrison said. “I would love to get a better sense of which parts of the standards they think are insufficient.”

A representative of the Oregon Coalition of Local Health Officials could not be reached for comment. In testimony opposing HB 2616, the group called raw milk “one of the world’s most dangerous foods,” which is responsible for about three times more hospitalizations than other sources of foodborne illness.

The organization said people may mistakenly assume well-maintained farms will produce raw milk that’s safe without realizing “what horrors unpasteurized milk caused in the past,” including severe health problems and even death.

The Oregon Dairy Farmers Association also opposed HB 2616 because “public health is absolutely critical” and because the overall dairy industry could be blamed for disease outbreaks caused by unpasteurized milk, said Tami Kerr, its executive director.

However, ODFA would be open to discussing the specifics of future dairy legislation before it’s introduced, which proponents haven’t been willing to do in the past, she said. “We’re always willing to have conversations, but it depends on the details whether we’d support it or not.”

Under current state law, raw milk can be sold under an exemption to licensing requirements as long as the consumer buys it directly from a farm with no more than two producing cows or nine producing sheep or goats.

The bill would have broadened that exemption, allowing raw milk to also be sold at a farmers market, delivery service or “another farm-to-consumer sales location” if the product is labeled as unpasteurized.

Raw milk from sheep and goats can currently be licensed and sold at retail as long as it’s from disease-free herds, and HB 2616 would have extended those provision to cows.

“We’re the only state that distinguishes between species that way,” Morrison said.

License holders would be required to receive training, conduct regular testing, develop risk management plans and obtain third-party certification of their safety protocols.

The certification would need to be approved by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which could also impose other requirements.

Raw milk producers should be able to follow science-based licensing requirements so they’re not limited by the exemption’s small number of producing animals, Morrison said. “There are folks who have wait lists for months.”

Though earlier bills that tried to relax Oregon’s raw dairy restrictions have also failed, proponents prevailed against the state’s ban on raw milk advertising in 2015.

Lawmakers lifted that prohibition after farmer Christine Anderson successfully challenged the law’s constitutionality in federal court, prompting state farm regulators to stop enforcing it.