For a diagram of the major corporate players in the organic food industry as of July 2007, click here
For more details visit: http://www.cornucopia.org/
Organic Dairy Farmers to Rally Thurs. July 16th in La Crosse
Ask for Meeting with USDA Secretary Vilsack
Symbolic Milk Dump Planned as Tidal Wave of Milk from Factory Dairies Drowns Family Farmers
Contact Info: Cornucopia Institute - Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042
WEST SALEM , WIS : A glut of organic milk, fueled by giant factory farms, threatens to wash family farmers off their land. Farmers and their advocates are calling an emergency rally this coming Thursday, July 16, in an effort to demonstrate their plight to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. Vilsack will be in West Salem, WI on July 16 as part of a national tour.
Under the Bush administration, the USDA was accused of "looking the other way" as large corporate agribusinesses invested in organics while allegedly violating federal standards. In the dairy sector, there are now estimated to be 20 large industrial dairies, each milking thousands of cows, producing as much as 40% of the nation’s organic milk supply.
"With the slowdown in the economy, the market is no longer able to absorb the growing supply of organic milk," stated Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst with The Cornucopia Institute. "Processors have now cut the price of milk for farmers, and imposed production caps. Many family farmers are now in danger of losing their farms."
Billed as the “Save the Organic Family Dairy Farm Rally,” the event will be held at 11 AM, July 16, at the La Crosse Interstate Fair in West Salem, Wisconsin. It immediately precedes a town hall meeting on rural issues with Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and transportation Secretary Ray La Hood?. Secretary Vilsack has been invited to say a few words to the farmers prior to the town hall session. "His acknowledgment of the dilemma that faces organic dairy producers will be a big morale boost," said Kastel.
Besides The Cornucopia Institute, the emergency organic dairy rally is cosponsored by: Family Farm Defenders, Center for Rural Affairs, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Midwest Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, Church’s Center for Land and People, National Family Farm Coalition, and the Interfaith Program Action Council.
In addition to the serious financial losses some farmers are experiencing, two of the largest organic milk processors and handlers, Dean Foods (marketing Horizon milk) and HP Hood, which owns Kemps dairy in the Midwest (marketing Stonyfield milk) have informed some of their farmers that they will not renew their contracts.
"These corporations have, in essence, signed a financial death warrant for these farmers," said Kastel. Many organic producers borrowed tens of thousands of dollars, some well over $100,000, to convert to organics and modernize their farms. Without contracts to sell organic milk, many of these operators face bankruptcy and risk losing the farms that have been in their families for multiple generations.
"The only way we have been able to continue in business is to cash in our retirement IRA, our life savings," says Bruce Drinkman, who milks 50 cows with his wife Mari outside of Glenwood City, WI. "If the secretary of agriculture and others in power don't recognize our plight, soon we will lose everything."
For years, members in the organic community and the National Organic Standards Board, the expert panel set up by Congress, have appealed to the USDA to crack down on "scofflaws" bending the organic regulations on giant factory dairies, mostly in the desert-West. "We are asking Secretary Vilsack to view this as a legitimate emergency and take immediate action, to shut down the giant farms that are violating federal organic law," Kastel added. "Otherwise many of the ethical, hard-working farmers who built this industry will be driven out of business by cheaters."
In addition to immediate enforcement action against factory farms allegedly "gaming the system," Cornucopia has asked Vilsack to request the Justice Department to look into possible antitrust violations by the nation's largest conventional and organic milk bottler and marketer, Dean Foods.
“I intend to tell the Secretary that there has been a sweetheart relationship between Dean Foods, and other giant agribusinesses, and the USDA for too long,” said John Kinsman, a La Valle?, Wisconsin organic dairy farmer. “We need new management at the National Organic Program, the kind of change that President Obama promised during his campaign," Kinsman added.
While the dustup over the large factory farms producing organic milk is infuriating to many organic farmers and consumers alike, there is no shortage of organic milk that is widely perceived to meet both the letter and spirit of the organic regulations.
The Cornucopia Institute completed an in-depth study last year rating the country's 110 organic dairy brands based on their ethical approach to milk production. Nearly 90% of all namebrand organic dairy products were highly rated in the scorecard (www.cornucopia.org).
"In every market in this country, in every product category—cheese, butter, ice cream and milk—it is easy for consumers to find organic dairy products that truly meet their expectations," said Will Fantle, research director at Cornucopia. "In general, consumers can really trust the organic label. These giant corporate dairies are just bad aberrations."
Consumers, organic farmers other than dairy producers, businesspeople, organic industry stakeholders, and people in rural America who have benefited from the growth of organics are all encouraged to stand with the farmers at this "critical emergency rally."
Organizers say that farmers will be bringing small quantities of their organic milk to "symbolically dump," to illustrate the falling value of their farms and their output. They are encouraging all participants at the rally to bring non-perishable food items to share with others less fortunate.
"We want to welcome Secretary Vilsack to Wisconsin, America's Dairyland, where there are more organic dairy farmers than any other state,” said Kastel. "We know he understands the promise of organic agriculture for rural America. We just want to make sure he understands that families producing milk, conventional and organic, have their backs to the wall and desperately need his help."
Organic Dairy Producers Call Upon Allies for Defense of Integrity in Federal Organic Standards
The Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA), the Midwest Organic Dairy Producers
Association (MODPA) and the Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (WODPA) represent over
850 organic dairies across the country. The three organizations represent organic dairy farmers from
Maine to California, regardless of to whom they sell their milk. They have many different production
methods including seasonal grass based dairies and more traditional production methods that combine
pasture, conserved forage and grain. They also market their milk in many different ways, selling to the
major brands including Horizon, Stonyfield, Organic Valley, Humboldt Dairy, as well as through
smaller cooperatives, independent manufacturers of organic dairy product and direct to the consumer.
The three organizations have recently held their annual meetings and have had resounding support from
their producer members that the following two rules are the cornerstones of organic dairy certification
and the continuing integrity of the USDA Organic Seal:
1. After a dairy operation has been certified, animals brought on to the operation must be
organically raised from the last third of gestation, regardless of how or when the operation
converted to organic dairy production. All replacement animals born on certified operations
must be managed organically.
2. Dairy animals over 6 months of age, whether dry or lactating, must graze pasture during the
grazing season but for no less than 120 days a year and the grazed feed must provide
significant intake, at a minimum, an average of 30% of the dry matter intake per cow per day.
The final rule for access to pasture was scheduled to be released by the National Organic Program
(NOP) back in 2006, but it is now the end of 2007 and the final rule has still not been issued. In the meantime, the future of the integrity of organic dairy products remains at risk. We are at risk because it means animals fed GMO feeds, fed ionophore antibiotics as coccidiostats and antimicrobial growth promoters, fed blood products in milk replacer, and / or treated with antibiotics their first year of life will routinely be brought onto organic dairy operations. The FDA has just ruled in favor of the use of cloned animals in the food supply, and recent news reports indicate that cloned livestock are already making it into the conventional market undetected. This means the possibility that cloned livestock and / or their offspring may infiltrate the organic system if conventional replacement animals continue to be allowed onto organic dairy operations.
We, as representatives of organic dairy producers across the country, have decided to take a leadership role and stop that risk by taking the matter into our own hands since we can no longer wait for NOP to take action.
We know that you are as concerned about the integrity of our national organic dairy herd as we are and
realize that we need to maintain that herd in a manner that is beyond reproach and legitimate criticism.
Even with the slow moving nature of standards change, we as individuals, family farms, supportive
businesses and organizations will have moved ahead in a timely way to match the rapid growth in the
supply of organic milk and dairy products.
We ask that you sign yourself or your organization/business/non-profit on to support the nation's
organic dairy producers in our effort to defend the integrity of federal organic standards.
Sincerely,
Steve Morrison, Pres. North East Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA)
Steve Pechacek, Pres. Midwest Organic Dairy Producers Association (MODPA)
Tony Azevedo, Pres. Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (WODPA)
For more info:
Ed Maltby,
NODPA Executive Director
30 Keets Road,
Deerfield, MA 01342
tel. 413-772-0444
ednodpa@comcast.net
So, What's the Big Deal if Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
by Jim Goodman
Madison Indymedia (www.madison.indymedia.org)
Posted 12/4/06
That was the question asked by the host on a recent Public Radio call-in show. Her question to her guest from the Cornucopia Institute was in regard to recent charges that Wal-Mart was passing conventional grocery items off as USDA certified organic. A mistake? I doubt it. Seriously, think about it, you start a big push in marketing a new line of high profit products and one of the first things you do is mislabel your products, “accidentally”? As Jim Hightower would say “Do they think we were born with sucker wrappers around our heads?”
read more...
Organic Consumers Association (OCA) Calls for Boycott of Bogus Organic Milk Brands;
Study Highlights Which Organic Brands are Truly Organic
Contact:
Ronnie Cummins, 218-349-3836
Katya Kruglak, 703-304-5075
WASHINGTON, April 4, 2006 -- The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is calling on consumers to boycott milk brands that claim to be organic while routinely importing calves from conventional farms and raising the animals in intensive confinement, with little or no access to pasture.
"Consumers buying products labeled 'organic' do not realize that they often essentially being scammed by some of the larger companies who put pictures of happily grazing cows on their products, but in reality keep their cows confined in ways very similar to traditional factory farms. OCA is calling on consumers to boycott these bogus organic products , and give their consumer dollars to ethical producers who are upholding strict organic standards," says Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association.
For the confused consumer trying to buy ethical organic dairy, there is a new study, Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk, produced by the Cornucopia Institute that rates 68 organic dairy name-brands and private labels, exposing the dubious practices of some so-called organic companies, and highlighting companies that are producing truly organic milk.
"We found that approximately 20 percent of the companies we surveyed do not meet what we think should be the basic standard to label a product organic. Our hope our report and scorecard will enable consumers to make ethical shopping choices," says Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst for the Cornucopia Institute and the report's primary author. Companies could receive a rating of one to five cows depending on how they scored.
The study is available online at http://cornucopia.org/index.php/dairy_brand_ratings/
OCA is concerned by the spread of lower quality products being labeled organic to meet the increasing consumer demand for organic. This is especially true of many big box stores, such as Wal-Mart and Costco, who are scrambling to source and sell more products with the organic label.
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"What is happening is that the massive demand for organic products is outstripping demand in the U.S. Instead of helping American farmers and ranchers make the difficult but necessary transition to organic, unscrupulous companies are moving to lower organic standards and import billions of dollars of organic foods and ingredients from overseas suppliers such as China, where labor standards are atrocious and organic certification standards are questionable, says Cummins.
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"What is happening is that the massive demand for organic products is outstripping demand in the U.S. Instead of helping American farmers and ranchers make the difficult but necessary transition to organic, unscrupulous companies are moving to lower organic standards and import billions of dollars of organic foods and ingredients from overseas suppliers such as China, where labor standards are atrocious and organic certification standards are questionable, says Cummins.
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