At present, the organic milk market is a $2 billion industry in the U.S. This is because an increasingly number of parents purchase milk that’s labelled "organic" for their children. They do so in the belief that such dairy products are not only wholesome and nutritious, but are derived from farm animals raised without use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, or housed in feedlots under factory-like conditions. However, the label "organic" is no longer a guarantee that such practices are being adhered to by all producers of milk products.
In recent years, the organic food industry has boomed in this country, growing at the rate of around 20% per year, with dairy products taking a large fraction of its most profitable market. More and more large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, are merchandizing organic food products to their customers. Food chains such as Whole Foods and Wild Oats specialize in promoting organic food products, which are among the largest selling items in their stores.
For the more discriminating consumer, however, it is important for them to distinguish between different types of "organic" food products, such as fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products, that are presently available on the market. For instance, most organic foods sell at a premium, i.e., at significantly higher prices as compared to their non-organic counterparts in the marketplace. It is therefore necessary to determine whether the buyers of such "heathy" organic foods, including milk products derived from animals raised in "ecologically sound" manner, are in fact getting what they appear to be purchasing at these higher prices.
New York Times (April 20, 2007): Organic milk supply expected to surge as farmers pursue a payoff
Last April . . . conventional dairy farmers received a national average of $12.10 for 100 pounds of milk, compared with $15.20 in April 2005, according to the department. Organic dairy farmers, by contrast, were paid about $22 for 100 pounds of milk last spring.
Under the current rules, dairy farmers can feed their cows 80 percent organic feed and 20 percent conventional feed during the first nine months of the yearlong transition. During the final three months, a farmer has to feed the cows 100 percent organic feed.
But Mr. [Arthur] Harvey [the organic farmer] successfully argued [in his law suit] that the regulation was more lenient than Congress intended when it passed the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act. As a result, the new regulation, which takes effect on June 9, will require farmers to feed their cows 100 percent organic feed during the entire transition year.
Interview with Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the Organic Consumers Association
With consumer demand for organic products continuing to grow, more large corporations are entering the organic market. To maximize profits, some of these companies don’t follow organic standards but still label products as organic. For example, Horizon Organic and Aurora Organic, sold by Wal-Mart and other retailers, continue to produce "organic" milk under factory-farm conditions that few reasonable people would consider truly organic.
According to the Organic Consumers Association, half of Horizon’s "organic" milk today comes from what can only be considered "factory" dairy feedlots — and much of Aurora’s organic milk does as well. Rather than buy organic calves that have been raised from birth on organic farms, these companies seemed to have discovered it’s cheaper to buy conventional calves that have been raised on conventional farms, install them in factory feedlots, then milk them and call it organic.
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Mike: Let’s talk about the definition of organic, then. What should organic really mean in terms of, not only the treatment of the cows, but also what chemicals are not in the milk, for example? What is the real definition?
Ronnie: There are organic farmers all over the world - in about 100 countries - who are certified organic nowadays. Traditionally, organic has always meant that you raise crops without chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers and that you raise animals without drugging them up with hormones or antibiotics. You cannot take sewage sludge and put it on farmlands. You cannot feed animals things like blood, slaughterhouse waste, manure and municipal garbage, and you cannot use untested and hazardous technologies like genetic engineering or fruit irradiation. The animals have to be raised on pasture - which is their natural behavior - where every day of the growing season, weather permitting, they are out on pasture eating grass and foraging as they have evolved to do.
What has happened recently is that Wal-Mart was buying their organic milk from genuine organic dairy farmers that pastured their animals, and then they turned around to that company - Organic Valley - and they said, "Hey, we want a lower price," just as Wal-Mart always does. Organic Valley said no, so Wal-Mart then turned to Dean Foods, the largest dairy conglomerate in the world - which had bought out Horizon Organic - and said, "Would you sell to us?" To which Horizon said, "We will sell you the cheapest organic milk you have ever seen."