Check out the Cornucopia website to make sure you are actually getting milk from organic practices and not big ag trying to undermine the integrity of organic milk. Consumers should recognize that an increasing amount of milk used in certain organic dairy products is coming from factory farms that are employing suspect practices that skirt organic regulations and negatively impact human nutrition and the health and well-being of livestock. Nearly 20% of the name-brands now available on grocery shelves scored a substandard rating. And a growing number of new fac- tory farms—housing thousands of cows in confinement conditions—are in development because of strong organic commodity prices, growing consumer demand, a shortage of certified organic milk, and a reluctance by federal regulators to enforce the current organic rules. As more and more of these industrial-scale livestock operations come online, the potential will develop for a surplus of organic milk. Should a surplus occur, it is likely that the downward price pressure will wash many smaller family-scale producers out of business. This will repeat the same sad story that has forced so many conventional farmers off the land—even though organics was hailed as an antidote to the effect of corporate-controlled food production and its accompanying vertical integration of farming and its application of the industrial/confinement model. Organic community observers have warned the United States Department of Agriculture for more than five years that factory farms have been moving into the organic livestock industry and that they have not been following key organic provisions faithfully observed by the many thousands of small- and medium-sized farmers. Our report also recounts that saga and the attempts by farmers, consumers, and organizations like The Cornucopia Institute to win USDA action. Mostly, the Agency has resisted or ignored the pleas for enforcement of federal organic rules, even sitting on recommendations from their own citizens advisory committee, the National Organic Standards Board.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 22:13:57 +0000
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