Factory Farming Review
The Cornucopia Institute, which I have discussed before, has issued a report today on the state of the “organic” milk industry. The intent of the report is to assist consumers in determining which organic milk products actually meet the consumer’s expectations. As many have noted, since the USDA adopted regulations concerning the use of the term “organic,” the products being sold under that label often reach the shelves with histories that disappoint buyers looking for a more “natural” and less processed product.
As Cornucopia has noted before, the bulk of the organic milk market is occupied by large dairies that rely primarily on huge factory dairies for their milk. The report grades several organic producers in areas such as the use of hormones, antibiotics, access to pastures, cull rate, and ownership structure (with a preference for family farms.
Not surprisingly, the nations biggest producer, Horizon Organic, owned by Dean Foods, got the lowest grade, but the company did not disclose any information to the Institute:
They operate two corporate-owned farms, in Maryland and Idaho. Their Idaho facility, milking 4000–5000 cows, was originally a conventional factory-dairy that they converted to organic production. It has, according to widespread industry reports, very little access to pasture. Unlike the majority of all organic dairy farmers in the United States, who concentrate on the health and longevity of their cows, caring for them from birth, the Dean/Horizon Idaho farm sells off all their calves. Later, presumably to save money on organic feed and management, they buy one-year-old conventional animals on the open market. These replacements likely have received conventional milk replacer (made with blood—considered to be a “mad cow” risk), antibiotics, other prohibited pharmaceuticals, and genetically engineered feed. Many practices on a farm of this nature put ethical family-scale organic farmers at a competitive disadvantage.
The Cropp Cooperative’s Organic Valley brand did much better, attaining an “excellent” rating.
Traders Point Farms from Zionsville, Indiana, gets the Institutes highest grade: “The Traders Point herd of Brown Swiss are 100% grass fed and spend 99% of their time on pastures. We milk about 60 out of a herd of 120. Our farm is certified organic under the USDA regulations. We never use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, and our cows never receive antibiotics or synthetic hormones.”
Coverage on the report in: The New York Times & Treehugger
On the issue of factory farming, Princeton University Philosopher Peter Singer is putting forth a moral argument against factory farming, continuing the argument of Matthew Scully in his book, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy:
Factory farming, overwhelmingly dominated by huge corporations like Tyson, Smithfield, ConAgra and Seaboard, has contributed to rural depopulation and the decline of the family farm. It has nothing going for it except that it produces food that is, at the point of sale, cheap. But for that low price, the animals, the environment and rural neighborhoods have to pay steeply.
Link to Singer’s piece in the Minnesota Daily.
March 23rd, 2006 08:07
Thanks for the link to the report. I don’t buy milk at Trader Joe’s but am still disappointed to see their low rating.
November 1st, 2006 01:14
By definition, intensively farmed animals are reared on land that is much too small either to grow the food they need or to cope with the waste they produce.
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