need an angel to fund the start-up

and lawyers to bring antitrust suits to open up shelf space

there are buyers willing to pay

   Congrats!!!  Corn ethanol is killing the organic dairy industry!!  Have we figured it out yet???

patrick in Beijing

Mark's father was one of the first dairy farmers to sell organic milk in Maine

This would make either Mark or his father, what, three or four hundred years old?

OK, I know this is a serious article about the difficulties of conducting sustainable dairy practices in the age of corporate monopsonies and the great bio-fuel hoax, and it's fairly clear that Guest Author meant to indicate that Mark's father was a local pioneer in certified organic milk in the modern era. However I'm not just making a quibble here. Disregarding the rich history of sustainable agricultural practice in the ages before cheap fuels and chemical fertilizers is a big part of what got us into this mess. Environmentalist thinking by very definition takes the long view forward, but I don't believe it can offer anything valuable to human cultural development unless it also entertains a very clear and current understanding of what came before.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

And organic farmer owned farm markets that sell dairy products directly to consumers.  That is the way forward financially.  Small local on-site processing right at the year round, indoor/greenhous/ farmers market.  

Local small box food vending from local farmers to beat the BIG box agribizz superstore selling agripoisonous products.  Cutting out the middle men would yield a living price for farmers and an affordable food source for consumers.

As organic farmers are forced to sell out to corporate agrichem CAFO dairying, the land and water is destroyed.

Wise investment in these better, less expensive, more eco-friendly farming methods would be helped along by investment in wind, solar, and biogas energy production on the farm.  All that manure and biomass waste is valuable as clen kwh from biogas and organic fertilizer.

I think if a better, more responsible company like Stonyfield wants to prove it really is eco-farmer-friendly, it needs to try to power it's facilities and trucks with farm produced energy.  By co-investing in farm based wind, solar, and biogas.  

Let farmers voluntarily shift to rotational grazing, that's their part in this.  take a risk now, it's your last chance to save your farms.

Stonyfield could franchise and invest in local farmer's market dairy plant/stores.   expanding their business and revenues in a great green wave across the nation.  Local green production lead by a corporation.  It's per unit profit would drop, but it's business would expand, exponentially.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

And organic farmer owned farm markets that sell dairy products directly to consumers.  That is the way forward financially.  Small local on-site processing right at the year round, indoor/greenhous/ farmers market.  

Local small box food vending from local farmers to beat the BIG box agribizz superstore selling agripoisonous products.  Cutting out the middle men would yield a living price for farmers and an affordable food source for consumers.

As organic farmers are forced to sell out to corporate agrichem CAFO dairying, the land and water is destroyed.

Wise investment in these better, less expensive, more eco-friendly farming methods would be helped along by investment in wind, solar, and biogas energy production on the farm.  All that manure and biomass waste is valuable as clen kwh from biogas and organic fertilizer.

I think if a better, more responsible company like Stonyfield wants to prove it really is eco-farmer-friendly, it needs to try to power it's facilities and trucks with farm produced energy.  By co-investing in farm based wind, solar, and biogas.  

Let farmers voluntarily shift to rotational grazing, that's their part in this.  take a risk now, it's your last chance to save your farms.

Stonyfield could franchise and invest in local farmer's market dairy plant/stores.   expanding their business and revenues in a great green wave across the nation.  Local green production lead by a corporation.  It's per unit profit would drop, but it's business would expand, exponentially.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I am in 100% agreement with spaceshaper's comment that we cannot ignore history when talking about sustainable agriculture principles.  If anything, I think "organic" is a red herring and a term that alienates and isolates the masses.

When I talk to my friends who eat "conventional" food, I think it's lost on them that the "conventions" have only been around for basically the latter part of the last century.  I think that should make them more skeptical of what they're consuming.  The opposite, however, seems to be true.  They tend to think of organic as the "other," the alternative, the "weird" way of eating.

In fact, I felt this way when I first started eating organic.  I was led to believe for far too long that the sterile crap I was shoveling down my mouth was somehow better for me than foods produced as they have been for ages.

"Organic" is also a red herring, as it allows the multitude of conscientious consumers who do care about the planet's wellbeing to assume that because their Earthbound (or any number of other producers') lettuce is organic that they have done enough.  I am certainly not putting down Earthbound or others, as I believe progress is gradual, and it is better to make small positive changes than to give up.  But I do not want the positive changes of large-scale "organic" production to end there.

Our society needs to adjust so that choosing the "organic" option at the grocery store, simply because it saves more time than visiting farmers' markets or joining a CSA, is not seen as the better option.  We need to take back our time as individuals so that we can direct our energy towards making smarter, healthier choices all around.

I could go on, but I'm already babbling.  Anyway, I agree with spaceshaper that we need to recognize, in fact highlight, the fact that conventional is new, certified organic production is newer and better, but organic is timeless.