CHICAGO, Ill. – When Gary Hirshberg started his organic yogurt company in 1983, he knew he had the makings of a successful business.
“The only problem that we had was we had no supply and no demand,” said the head of Stoneyfield Farm, who goes by the title of CE-YO.
More than 20 years later the demand is in place – Stoneyfield is the third largest yogurt brand in America. But there is still a severe shortage on the supply side.
“We could use 100 percent more organic milk this very second than we have available,” said Hirshberg in a speech at the All Things Organic conference in Chicago.
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The problem won’t be resolved overnight by squeezing a few more teats. It requires building the organic dairy herd, getting more land into production, raising more feed and most importantly, certifying more organic farmers.
With the lag-time associated with certification, Hirshberg said the industry is going to be in a pinch for some time to come.
Jim Slama, president of Sustain, a Chicago-based environmental lobby group, said it isn’t just a dairy problem; there is a supply shortage throughout organics.
He can’t understand why farmers are not making the transition into the niche sector, considering retail sales have grown at a pace of 20 percent per year for more than a decade and growers are getting prices that are two to three times higher than conventional prices.
“It is very perplexing that more producers aren’t stepping up into this void,” said Slama.
Shepherd Ogden used to work for the Rodale Institute where he developed an economic model to show farmers the financial benefits of switching to organics.
He said many farmers won’t entertain the idea of making the shift due to the ridicule they would face from their NASCAR neighbours.
“The people they’ve been hanging out with since high school think that organics is flaky. They’ve got that picture that it’s nerdy and it’s hippies and everything else,” he said.
George Siemon, known as the CEIEIO of Organic Valley Family of Farms, the fourth largest organic brand in the United States, said there is also plenty of internal pressure to contend with.
It is a tall order to convince farmers to invest three to four years of time and a lot of money into going organic and to give up on their traditional relationships with the local feed mill, the local veterinarian and the local milk hauler, and to abandon their traditional mindset.
“If you believe in something for 20 years, it is hard for you to say, ‘maybe I was wrong,’ ” said Siemon.
Many are overwhelmed by the prospect of so much change, which is why demand continues to outstrip supply.
“I live it every day. I talk to hundreds and hundreds of farmers trying to make them see the light,” said Siemon.
Lately his evangelizing seems to be hitting a nerve. He is getting more interest from farmers now that organics has become a bona fide industry in the U.S.
Producers are increasingly recognizing that organics is here to stay and, with the remainder of agriculture in financial turmoil, they are being lured by significant price premiums.
Siemon welcomes new entrants to the industry no matter what their motivation. But he said organics is more than just an economic alternative. It is a whole different philosophy of food production.
“You can follow your wallet but sooner or later you have to change your head,” he said.
