With Mark Kastel
Our July special series features the farms and farmers who produce our warehouse supply of premium organic dairy products. To begin this series, we invited the specialists out of Wisconsin’s The Cornucopia Institute to describe their research and work with the issues surrounding organic dairy farmers.Their organization strives to advocate the extraordinary credibility of organic, family-scale farms and to generate for them more political and marketing initiatives. To date, their research has culminated into their Organic Dairy Report, an overarching national rating of today’s dairy companies. In it, farms are each given a rating from 5 to 1, from “Outstanding” to “Ethically Challenged” which is then detailed with a breakdown of their criteria, including contact information about the farm. To view their list, visit: http://cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html
Organic food sales are exploding. Annual sales now total approximately $16 billion and the rate of growth has been averaging 20 percent per year for more than a decade. This is decidedly good news for organic farmers—making organics one of the few bright spots in modern agriculture. Consumers are benefiting too, as their hunger for wholesome food produced in an ecologically sound and sustainable fashion is pushing the mainstreaming of organics in the nation’s grocery stores and farmers’ markets.
But not all is well down on the farm. Family farmers, who have found a lifeline in the premium prices offered for their organic commodities, are alarmed by the rise of factory farms in livestock agriculture, market consolidation at the processing level (potentially shrinking farmgate prices), and the dramatic growth of organic imports for livestock feed and use.
Lured by the booming marketplace, factory farms and powerful corporations are scrambling after their slice of the lucrative organic pie. In a number of cases, these forces are willing to cut corners, weaken organic standards, and exploit loopholes in organic rules. Sadly and tragically, they may only succeed in corrupting the “certified organic” food label, thereby destroying consumer confidence in organics—a prospect that would crush family-farmer viability and slam the door on the opportunity for more family farmers to convert to organic production.
The USDA—the federal agency charged with oversight and enforcement of organic rules—has been indifferent to these developments. During the 1990s, agency officials actually testified against placement of the nation’s organic program within their agency. More recently, the USDA was harshly criticized in two independent audits for its failings at managing the nation’s organic agriculture and food certifying entities.
Against this backdrop, The Cornucopia Institute formed in 2004. Cornucopia is dedicated to supporting economic justice for family farmers. It is aggressively “watch-dogging” the government and corporations involved with organic and sustainable agriculture, while seeking to empower both farmers and consumers with its research, investigations, and marketplace initiatives. The group’s core membership comes from the organic farm community and their urban/consumer allies.
One key issue of focus for Cornucopia is the growth of 3000- to 10,000-cow factory farms in organic dairying. These industrial operations, aligned with their huge corporate partners, have gained a toehold in the marketplace. The USDA has been looking the other way as giant factory farms exploit loopholes, allowing them to confine their milking herds and continually bring into their operation non-organic cattle as replacements. With more factory dairies under development, a tidal wave of suspect organic milk threatens to wash the ethical family dairies (which have been producing dairy products that match consumer expectations) off the land.
Cornucopia has been rallying farmers, consumers, and ethical businesses in a campaign challenging questionable animal management practices employed on factory dairies. The USDA has been forced to hold national hearings on the matter to review their regulations. More organic farmers have come to these hearings to speak out for strong organic standards than has ever occurred in the 15-year history of the organic program. Farmers’ voice has been amplified by consumer and business support for organic integrity. Tens of thousands of emails, faxes, and phone calls have rained upon agency officials. The Cornucopia Institute has filed formal legal complaints with the USDA against some of the largest factory-farm owners, alleging they are "gaming the system" and violating the USDA organic standards.
Many consumers have found a renewed connection with their food and the bounty of the earth through the organic food movement. To help these consumers make the best decisions in the marketplace, Cornucopia spent a year researching every organic dairy marketer in the country, asking them a series of detailed questions about where their milk comes from and how it is produced. The release of Cornucopia’s report, Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk along with a national dairy products rating scorecard, allows consumers and wholesale grocery dairy buyers to purchase those dairy products that best reflect their values.
Goodness Greenness well-represents a number of ethical businesses that have helped build the organic industry. They distribute organic dairy products that are highly rated in our study, including:
Traders Point Creamery started bottling milk, selling direct to customers, and delivering in the central Indiana region in the summer of 2003. They milk 60 Brown Swiss cows that are 100% grass fed and spend 99% of their time on pasture. They say, “We believe in ‘nourishing the land that nourishes us all’—preserving the family farm and continuing our grandparents' legacy of sensible, sustainable, low-input agriculture.”
Wisconsin Organics is a regional brand name in the Midwest. Privately owned, they maintain a close relationship with their "patrons"—family farmers who exclusively ship them milk. One hundred percent of their dairy products come from milk produced on family-scale farms in America's Dairyland—Wisconsin.
Organic Valley, a farmer-owned cooperative, was the first nationwide, commercial organic dairy processor and marketer. Starting with seven dairy farms, they now have hundreds of farmers in all regions of the country and manufacture a full line of excellent dairy products.
Mark A. KastelSenior Farm Policy Analyst
The Cornucopia Institute
