Imagine that you just bought your young child organic milk at the store, thinking that it is completely free of growth hormones or antibiotics — something that is promised under organic rules.
However, due to loopholes in regulations as to how animals may be purchased at organic dairy farms, the cows that produced your milk could have received growth hormones and antibiotics a month, or even weeks, before these cows produced your child’s glass of organic milk.
Unfortunately, this is a very realistic scenario and just one of many taking place because of the USDA’s refusal to address, clarify and tighten the regulations around organic dairy.
As a result…..
– Organic consumers are being misled because not all the organic milk they are purchasing is truly organic.
– The lives of organic farmers are being devastated because some certifiers are allowing ‘organic factory dairy farms’ to manipulate the system, thereby creating an unfair playing field for the small family farms who are doing things the right way.
– The integrity of the organic seal is suffering irreparable harm.
Part of the issue is that organic certifiers throughout the country are interpreting components of organic dairy rules in different ways, something that was corroborated by the USDA’s Office of Inspector General’s report in 2013. However, the USDA has done nothing since then to rectify this problem.
Melissa Hughes, General Counsel and Chief Mission Officer at Organic Valley, called out one USDA accredited organic certifier, Idaho State Department of Agriculture, and said that its “egregious interpretation of how livestock (dairy) achieve organic status……is a new level of inconsistency we have never seen in 30 years of organic dairy.”
The organic industry recognizes the severity of this matter and is hardly sitting on its hands. Dozens of dairy, trade and farming organizations have all sent letters to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue urging him to address this problem.
However, according to Abby Youngblood, Executive Director of the National Organic Coalition, the current administration took this organic dairy issue off of the regulatory agenda in 2018, and it has not been put back on.
TWO AREAS OF CONCERN
The problems in organic dairy center around two rules: access to pasture and origin of livestock.
Access to Pasture: – animals must have a minimum of 120 days on pasture, and this number could be greater depending on geographic location.
Many people believe that access to pasture rules are not a problem per se but enforcement is.
Industry watchdog The Cornucopia Institute has been warning people about this since the organization was formed 15 years ago and asserts that it is simply not logistically possible for many ‘organic factory dairy farms’ to provide their animals the required access to acreage meeting the legal definition of pasture. Additionally, The Washington Post exposed this access to pasture problem in the paper’s high-profile investigation of Aurora Dairy.
At the 2018 National Organic Standards Board meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota, Jennifer Tucker, who oversees the National Organic Program, announced that the USDA would be initiating its Dairy Compliance Project in 2019. The results and effectiveness of the program remain to be seen.
Origin of Livestock: – The specific concern for many groups is the lack of consistency from organic certifiers in how conventional cows are transitioned into organic production.
The predominantly held interpretation is that a whole dairy herd can be converted to organic over a 12-month period — once. Not multiple times.
However, some certifiers are allowing dairy operations to use various LLCs and separate ownership structures to circumvent the rules, thereby transitioning dairy animals continuously into organic over time, using a 12-month conversion period for each animal transitioned.
Additionally, animals that are simply in the transition phase are being sold to other farms as organic bovine dairy animals.
Both of these things are allowing major organic dairies to grow into 2,000 – 5,000 herd operations very quickly.
WHAT TO DO
Based on our conversations with industry experts, the best thing that people can do is to raise this organic dairy issue with their elected representatives in Congress and have them pressure the USDA to get this on the agency’s agenda for 2019.
“This is dramatically serious and a very depressing situation. Unless we solve this problem soon, hundreds of organic dairy farms will go out of business, and the effect on rural economies will be catastrophic. In 3-4 years, we could be faced with a situation where all organic milk will come from large-scale dairies,” warned Ed Maltby, Executive Director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.
With gratitude, Max Goldberg, Founder |
* California’s Audrey Denney, an advocate for organic regenerative agriculture, has just announced that she will be running for office again in 2020.
* Renowned organic farmer Bob Quinn is releasing a new book on March 5th called Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food.
* New Barn has changed its name to New Barn Organics and has also added several industry veterans to its executive team.
* In the EU, a court ruled that halal meat cannot be certified as organic.
* Mercaris, a market data and auctions startup, held its first quarterly online auction for organic cream.
Dr. Bronner’s has launched a new organic peppermint hand sanitizer for hygiene on-the-go, and it can also be used to clean display screens. Certified organic and fair trade, the active ingredient, ethyl alcohol, is 99.9% effective against germs while the peppermint oil leaves behind an uplifting scent.
Seeking to offer its customers a way to drink bone broth on-the-go, Bonafide Provisions has introduced organic keto broth cups. With organic chicken broth as the base, these cups come in three flavors: grass-fed butter and MCT oil; lemon, turmeric, grass-fed butter and MCT oil; and lemon, turmeric, coconut oil and MCT oil
Nest Bedding has partnered with organic mattress company OMI to launch its first certified organic mattress called Nest Bedding by OMI. Produced in OMI’s eco-factory, raw materials are sanitized with ozone and the professionals assembling each layer are forbidden from wearing scented deodorants or perfumes.
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Another day, another story of widespread glyphosate contamination. This time, U.S. Pirg found the toxic weedkiller in 19 out of 20 beer and wine brands tested, including organic ones.
By the end of this year, all 365 stores will be converted into regular Whole Foods stores.
Years in the making, Organic Valley and Maple Hill have partnered on a national farming initiative defining and unifying grass-fed organic standards across the U.S.
SunOpta has sold its specialty and organic soy and corn business to Pipeline Foods for $66.5M. Tradin Organic, SunOpta's European-based international sourcing and supply platform, was not part of the sale.
Prairie Organic Spirits, the country's leading organic spirits brand, has established the Spirits of Change Fund and will donate 1% of its sales to support the next generation of organic farmers and to help transition more conventional farmland to organic.
Organic and natural cottage cheese brand Good Culture has secured an $8M round of funding led by CAVU Venture Partners with participation from 301 Inc. and Almanac Insights.
A former Amazon shipping and packaging manager started The Wally Shop, which delivers organic and local produce and bulk ingredients -- with zero waste.
A bill has been introduced into the California legislature that would aim to allow school districts to apply for up to 15 cents of additional funding on every school meal in order to buy certified organic foods grown in the state.
Back to the Roots, an organic food & gardening company, closed a $3M Series C led by Central Garden & Pet and Blue Scorpion Investments.
Sustain Natural, a natural/organic sexual and reproductive wellness brand started by Meika Hollender, has sold a majority stake in the company to Combe.
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* California’s Audrey Denney, an advocate for organic regenerative agriculture, has just announced that she will be running for office again in 2020.
* Renowned organic farmer Bob Quinn is releasing a new book on March 5th called Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food.
* New Barn has changed its name to New Barn Organics and has also added several industry veterans to its executive team.
* In the EU, a court ruled that halal meat cannot be certified as organic.
* Mercaris, a market data and auctions startup, held its first quarterly online auction for organic cream.