Consumers who think buying organic means supporting the ethical treatment of animals are being “shortchanged” by a growing trend toward factory farms, an organic watchdog says.
Cornucopia Institute has released a report alleging that the U.S. organic dairy industry has been taken over by a handful of firms producing milk in industrial-style confinement facilities containing up to 5,000 cows.
“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,” said Mark Kastel, author of a report entitled Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk.
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“But some companies are willing to cut corners to make a buck and they are hoping consumers won’t notice. We are shining a spotlight on these activities.”
Using a survey and “other outside research,” Cornucopia ranked 68 private label and name brand organic dairies on how they were living up to organic principles.
The institute found that 20 percent of the name brands available on grocery store shelves were employing what it deemed substandard farming practices and ethics.
One of the dairies that received Cornucopia’s lowly one-cow rating is Horizon Organic, manufacturer of a top-selling organic milk brand in the United States and a wholly owned subsidiary of Dean Foods.
Horizon, which has a 50 percent share of the organic dairy market, operates two corporate farms: a 550-cow dairy in Maryland and a 4,000-cow operation in Idaho.
The company contends Cornucopia’s report is creating “false divisions” in the organic community by inaccurately portraying Horizon and other large dairies as factory farms that ignore the founding principles of organics.
Jule Taylor, general manager of milk supply with Horizon, said the company derives 80 percent of its milk supply from 325 family farms.
And whether it’s a 12-cow farm in the eastern U.S. or the company’s 4,000-head operation in Idaho, Taylor said all the dairies that Horizon obtains milk from have one thing in common: “All of these farms have to meet the same national organic standard, which is currently the toughest in the world today.”
However, Cornucopia argues the National Organic Program is lax when it comes to enforcing acceptable pasture standards.
The institute has lodged four legal complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, alleging multiple violations of organic livestock management practices by Horizon and two other large U.S. dairies.
One of the complaints was filed against Aurora, a company owned by the founders of Horizon that operates the nation’s largest dairy in Platteville, Colorado.
Cornucopia alleges the cows in that facility have virtually no opportunity to graze and that the “factory dairy” has never been properly certified as an organic livestock operation.
As a result, Aurora received the same one-cow rating that Cornucopia gave to Horizon.
Taylor said Cornucopia’s rating system unfairly penalizes large operations, pointing out that Horizon was one of the driving forces behind the national standard and a protector of organic regulations.
