Thanks to a complaint filed by Wisconsin's Cornucopia Institute, the federal government might finally determine that factory farming and organic farming are mutually exclusive.
Truth in labeling
By
Mark Kastel
The Cornucopia Institute in Cornucopia, Wisconsin, recently filed a formal complaint with the USDA's office of compliance asking it to initiate an investigation into possible violations of the federal organic law by a factory farm operating in Colorado. At issue is whether it is legal to confine cows in an industrial setting, without access to pasture, and still label milk and dairy products organic. Similar factory farm operations in Idaho and California are also under investigation by The Cornucopia Institute and will likely be targeted with formal complaints to the USDA in the near future.
We have been interested in these confined animal feeding operations, or CAFO’s. As demand for organic milk has skyrocketed, investors have built large industrial farms mimicking what has become the standard paradigm in the conventional dairy industry. It is our contention that you cannot milk 3,000-6,000 cows and offer them true access to pasture as required by the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, the law that governs all domestic organic farming and food processing. In other words, organic farming and factory farming are incompatible.
The Chicago Tribune recently published an investigative report that compared the 5,600-cow Aurora Dairy in Colorado to a more traditional 70-cow organic farm in central Wisconsin. One of the owners of the large Colorado farm, in Platteville, Colorado, Mark Retzloff, the corporation's president, has justified an exemption from the requirement for pasture by saying there is not enough rain in the area to support it. (Federal law does give the farmer the ability to remove cows from pasture for "temporary" reasons based on weather, environmental, or health considerations.)
The claim that pasture is impractical, or not cost-effective, in arid Colorado is no excuse under the law. There are many places in the United States that are not ecologically compatible with livestock agriculture. If the Aurora Dairy cannot incorporate a meaningful amount of pasture into their operation, because they are located in an extremely dry, arid region, then they are not engaged in organic farming.
This just puts rank-and-file organic dairy producers, who are operating with integrity, at a competitive disadvantage. California dairy producer Tony Azevedo recently told me, “Pasture is the cornerstone of organic dairy farming. It is a great way to protect the soil, create wildlife habitat, and makes an ideal filter system-protecting our waterways.” And he is right-on! There is also evidence that pastured cows are healthier than cows that are routinely confined.
In addition, what cows eat affects the nutrients in their milk. The Danish Institute of Agricultural Research recently reported that organic milk-defined as produced by pastured cows-is 50 percent higher in vitamin E, 75 percent higher in omega-3 fatty acids, and 200 percent to 300 percent higher in antioxidants than conventional milk.
The day after we filed our suit, we were pleased to learn that the USDA’s National Organic Program issued an internal memorandum requesting that the National Organic Standards Board develop a strict policy on the pasture requirement so that the agency can issue a guidance document, enhancing enforcement. While it appears that the environment is becoming more congenial at the USDA's National Organic Program, it is unfortunate that a discernible pattern appears to be emerging. In April 2004, the USDA's National Organic Program promulgated a series of "guidance documents" perceived by many in the organic farming community as loosening up the requirements for organic certification. It was not until The Cornucopia Institute and many other organizations and individuals vehemently protested, leading to widespread media coverage, that the USDA withdrew the flawed documents.
The staff at the NOP responds to controversy, but we need an agency that embraces the true spirit of organics.
While organic farmers and consumers await the results of any pending investigation by the USDA, all eyes will be on Washington in March for the next meeting of the National Organic Standards Board. In the past, the NOSB has proposed strict pasture requirements for livestock producers. These were never implemented by the agency, so we are now quite interested in seeing if the USDA will now concur and embark on an aggressive campaign to force farms that are now not in compliance to file new farm plans and change their management practices.
The consumers in this country, who go out of their way to purchase organic milk, believe they are supporting an environmentally sound system of agriculture, humane animal husbandry practices, and family-scale farmers. The USDA needs to deal decisively with corporations that pay lip service to the ethics of organic agriculture at the expense of family farmers and the consumers who so loyally support them.
February 6, 2005
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Mark Kastel is a farm policy analyst in La Farge, Wisconsin, president of M. A. Kastel and Associates, and co-director of the Cornupcopia Institute.
