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Not All Organic Dairy Is Created Equal
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At Mercola.com, Dr. Joseph Mercola warns readers to be careful when you buy organic dairy products, not all of them are created equally. He writes:
In the U.S., organic dairy brings in about $6 billion in sales annually.1 Consumers pay a premium for the milk expecting they are getting a superior product. Organic milk (and meat) from cows raised primarily on pasture have been repeatedly shown to be higher in many nutrients, including vitamin E, beta-carotene and beneficial conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).
Organic milk also contains about 25% less omega-6 fats and 62% more omega-3 fats than conventional milk,2 and the animals, when given appropriate access to pasture, are raised in a more humane environment than cows raised on CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations).
Unfortunately, not all organic dairy is created equal, and just seeing the USDA organic label on a gallon of milk is not enough to verify its quality (or lack thereof). An investigation by The Washington Post revealed that some organic dairies are nothing more than CAFOs in disguise, selling higher-priced milk that is scarcely different from conventional CAFO dairy.
Milk From Large Organic Dairies May Not Be as Organic as Promised
When the Post visited Aurora Organic Dairy in Colorado, the company that provides organic store brands to corporations like Walmart, Target and Costco, a few problems were evident right off the bat. For starters, the farm is massive, housing 15,000 cows, “making it more than 100 times the size of a typical organic herd,” the Post noted.
Further, organic standards require that cows have free access to certified organic pasture for the entire grazing season, but there are large loopholes in the requirement.
As Aurora spokeswoman Sonja Tuitele told the Post, “The requirements of the USDA National Organic Program allow for an extremely wide range of grazing practices that comply with the rule.”3 The Post investigation indeed revealed that Aurora Organic Dairy appears to be stretching the limits of the rule:4
“… [D]uring visits by The Washington Post to Aurora’s High Plains complex across eight days last year, signs of grazing were sparse, at best. Aurora said its animals were out on pasture day and night, but during most Post visits the number of cows seen on pasture numbered only in the hundreds.
At no point was any more than 10 percent of the herd out. A high-resolution satellite photo taken in mid-July by DigitalGlobe, a space imagery vendor, shows a typical situation — only a few hundred on pasture.”
The Post even had samples of Aurora’s organic milk tested for “a key indicator of grass-feeding” (its fatty acid profile), which revealed the milk matched conventional, not organic milk. Adding to the problem, farmers are allowed to hire their own inspectors in order to be certified USDA Organic.
In Aurora’s case, the Post investigation revealed the inspectors had visited the farm outside of the grazing season, which means they had no way of knowing whether the dairy’s grazing habits met the organic requirement. In 2007, the USDA even sanctioned Aurora Organic Dairy for willfully violating organic standards, but the farm was allowed to continue operating after a settlement was reached.
Half of the Organic Milk Sold in the US May Come From CAFOs
It’s very much a buyer beware market when it comes to organic dairy. Theoretically, choosing organic milk makes sense, but this holds true only if the farmers are giving the cows actual free access to pasture. Mark Kastel, co-director of the nonprofit Cornucopia Institute, told the Post that right now, “About half of the organic milk sold in the U.S. is coming from very large factory farms that have no intention of living up to organic principles.”5 It’s a widespread problem.
When the Post visited seven other large organic dairies in 2015 (these located in Texas and New Mexico), they found the cows were primarily kept on feedlots, not pastures. Cornucopia also noted that aerial photography, backed up by satellite imagery, from 14 “industrial scale” organic livestock operations revealed “few if any animals” out on pasture.6
As a result of the Post investigation, Cornucopia has filed legal complaints against Aurora Dairy and Colorado Department of Agriculture, their organic certifier. They’ve also asked for the removal of the USDA’s lead organic regulator, Miles McEvoy. Kastel explained:7
“The rigorous investigative work by Peter Whoriskey at The Washington Post clearly illustrates a pattern of long-term corruption by both Aurora Dairy and the USDA’s National Organic Program. Our organic regulators have turned a blind eye as giant industrial operations place ethical family-scale dairy farmers at a distinct competitive disadvantage.
… These gross violations of the law were well-documented in a series of complaints we filed against Aurora operations in Texas, and other ‘organic’ CAFOs in the U.S., as well as their certifiers that have languished at the USDA for over a year and a half without enforcement action.”
Read more here.
