As this Chicago Tribune article shows, the department has been allowing feedlot-style mega-dairies to claim organic status -- despite a recommendation from the National Organic Standards Board that it close existing loopholes.
Access to pasture lies at the heart of any meaningful definition of organic farm-animal stewardship. Grass-fed cows produce a healthier product, they're easier on the environment, and they're not forced to live miserable lives completely enslaved by the mechanized milker.With organic milk sales booming and demand unable to keep up with supply, it's no wonder that large confinement-style dairy farmers are rushing in for a piece of the action, or that dairy giant Dean Foods, through its Horizon Organic subsidiary, buys the product and passes it on to consumers.
Nor should anyone be surprised that the USDA, infiltrated by industrial-ag interests, cheers them on.
On its website, Horizon features this list of requirements for prospective suppliers.
Our basic requirements for milk and feed are:
- The product must be certified as organic by an independent, approved, third party certification agency. This certification must be renewed annually.
- The milk must be produced without the use of antibiotics or added growth hormones.
- Heifers and cows must be fed certified organic feed.
- You must meet Horizon Organic Dairy's strict quality standards as well as having Grade A, IMS-approved milk with a good regulatory history.
- Your milk volume and location must be reasonable for hauling.
Note the lack of any pasture requirement. Number five is telling, too. For Horizon, volume, not quality, rules.
The best way to follow the organic-dairy story is to check in periodically with the Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based group that has been campaigning vigorously against what it calls "large industrial dairy farms producing 'organic' milk."
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jdhlax Posted 2:25 pm
19 Oct 2005
It is certainly correct that giving cows chemicals like anti-biotics, which has to be done where the cattle aren't grass fed, is also environmentally harmful. So, what's the solution? Stop eating beef. It's unhealthy, totally unnatural food. There are plenty of other meat choices available. The most ecologically benign - and healthy - ones are from wild animals, such as venison and fish.
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Stentor Posted 11:19 pm
19 Oct 2005
Sure, number five is about volume. But numbers one through four are about quality.
And I don't think number five is necessarily unreasonable. Organic products are already substantially more expensive than regular ones, so if the companies don't look for efficiency somewhere, they'll go out of business. In a more directly green sense, buying from a lot of tiny producers isn't so great for the environment -- the more trips they have to make to pick up tiny loads of milk, the more gas they use.
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amanda Posted 12:50 am
20 Oct 2005
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:31 am
20 Oct 2005
Now to Stentor. Horizon's first three requirements for producers can be condensed into one: be certified organic. The fourth is a requirement for all commercial dairy meant for fluid consumption; it has mostly to do with butterfat content. Now for the volume requirement.
In the system in which Horizon's parent, Dean Foods, thrives, and helped create, it indeed makes sense for dairy farms to be large, volume-minded businesses. In that system , each region essentially has one monopoly buyer/processor, and that entity wields tremendous leverage over price. Farmers in that scenario face two choices: get bigger (and take on debt), or get out of the business. Here is a story about a small conventional dairy farm in my area (that let its cows graze in temperate times and fed them farm-grown forage over winter) that recently took the second option, after Dean Foods shuttered the nearest processing unit.
Not all dairy buyers behave the same as Dean Foods/Horizon, though. Organic Valley and Natural by Nature (in the northeast) both respect small farms--and insist that farms provide pasture for milking cows.
Some places, New York City for example, are lucky enough to be served by small dairy farms with their own processing equipment (i.e, Ronnybrook Dairy).
Ideally, regions and cities would reinvest in the food-processing infrastructure that crumbled after World War II. That would certainly make it easier for small farms to thrive--and easier for consumers to access delicious and health-giving (sorry jdhlax) milk from grass-fed cows.
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jdhlax Posted 9:47 am
21 Oct 2005
And Tom, the reason that you had to "pass" on my comments is that there's no meritorious rebuttal to them. I can cite to a massive amount of literature and many studies that show the massive amount of harm caused by cattle and sheep in the West.
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Lyle Posted 2:19 am
23 Oct 2005
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jdhlax Posted 4:46 am
25 Oct 2005
It is unnatural for anyone but babies to drink milk, and the only natural kind comes from their mothers;
It is unnatural, and harmful to the animal's babies, to take milk from an animal that's meant for her babies;
Most of the world (the pre-European Americas, Austrailia, Asia except for India and the mountainous regions north of there) do not traditionally eat dairy. Dairy is just another bad thing brought here from Europe;
Dairy is medically harmful to many people and is unhealthy for everyone. For example, some people have a natural lactose intolerance, some get ear infections from dairy. (I personally got frequent earaches as a child, because my parents made me drink mild daily. Unfortunately, it was unknown at the time that the dairy causes ear infections, so they removed my tonsils, a common solution at the time!) The reason that dairy is generally unhealthy is because it is far too rich, a quality only needed by babies and harmful to adults in general, especially the vast majority in this society who have sedentary lives.
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