by Will Fantle

The Cornucopia Institute has released an update to its popular organic scorecard helping consumers make informed choices in the marketplace in selecting dairy brands that represent the highest level of organic practices.  The update rates 107 organic brands across the country and covering fluid milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, and ice cream and can be viewed at www.cornucopia.org.

“Consumers who pay premium prices for organic products do so believing that they are produced with a different kind of environmental ethic, a different kind of animal husbandry ethic, and social justice for family farmers,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for the Wisconsin-based Institute and the report’s primary author.  “But not all organic dairy products are alike.  Using Cornucopia’s scorecard, consumers in any part of the country will be able to select foods in the marketplace that best represent their values,” Kastel added.

The recent rise of factory farms in organic dairying has sparked controversy in the organic community.  The factory farms confine thousands of animals in feedlots and provide little, if any, pasture and grazing for their dairy herds – as federal organic standards require.  Some of the factory farms have been the subject of federal enforcement actions for organic livestock violations, but for the most part the federal Department of Agriculture has been looking the other way.

“Our updated scorecard helps consumers and wholesale buyers see through the fog and invest their food dollars in brands that protect the hard-working family farmers that built the industry and who are now in danger of being washed off the land by a tidal wave of suspect organic milk from these factory mega-farms,” explained Kastel.

The update involved in-depth research and surveys of dairy product manufacturers located in every region of the country.  Company owners and senior management had to approve and personally verify their responses to the Institute’s 19 survey questions.  Brands received scores ranging from “five cows” (ranking as the best) to “one cow” (substandard) based upon an analysis of the responses and other outside research.

A growing body of scientific literature clearly indicates that legitimately produced organic milk, from pasture-based animals, offers distinct nutritional advantages.  Most recently and earlier this year Newcastle University, based in the United Kingdom, reported that milk from grazing cows on organic farms contains significantly higher amounts of beneficial fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamins.

According to Gillian Butler, livestock project manager for the Newcastle study, their research “clearly shows that on organic farms, letting cows graze naturally, using forage-based diet, is the most important reason for the differences in the composition between organic and conventional milk.”

“Not only do the confinement operations create an unfair competitive playing field, discriminating against all the family farmers who work hard to fulfill both the letter and intent of the national organic standards, they also are denying the consumer the extra healthful nutrients present in the milk of cows that graze fresh green grass,” observed Kathie Arnold, president of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.

Cornucopia also announced the filing of new legal complaints seeking USDA enforcement actions against two more operators of giant industrial dairies.  Phoenix-based Shamrock Farms, which operates an industrial dairy milking approximately 11,000 cows in the Arizona desert 54 miles south of their plant, and Rockview Farms Dairy of Downey, California, the operator of another giant industrial dairy in the desert north of Las Vegas, Nevada, were targeted in the complaints.  Cornucopia contends that the feedlot dairies are “masquerading as organic.”

The Cornucopia Institute is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy, and economic development, our goal is to empower farmers both politically and through marketplace initiatives.