News Nuggets

New Rules Put Organic Dairy Cows Out to Pasture


By Courtney Lowery, 2-15-10

 
 

The USDA this last week, after years of controversy, tightened up organic regulations for organic dairy and meat producers, mandating that their animals have at least 120 days out on pasture.

Previous rules were vague only mandating that the animals have “access” to pasture. Critics said that loophole meant huge dairies could go organic while maintaining factory-farm like conditions for their animals and thus, going against the whole spirit of organic and fooling consumers by doing so.

Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute, which has advocated for the change for at least a decade, said this in a press release:

“The organic community has been calling for strong regulations and its enforcement for much of the past decade. Cheap organic milk flowing from the illegitimate factory farms has created a surplus that is crushing ethical family farm producers.”

Colorado’s Aurora Organic Dairy, one of those large operations with limited pasture, became the poster child for the push to change the rule and the New York Times described Aurora this way on Friday: “For many it has come to represent the contradictions embodied in large-scale organic farming. The dairy has about 15,000 cows on five farms in Colorado and Texas, with a total of about 4,400 acres of pasture, said Sally Keefe, Aurora’s vice president for government affairs.”

Aurora produces organic milk for store brands for large grocery chains and Wal-Mart.

As noted above, it’s not just dairies that will have to change their ways. Organic meat producers will have to do the same—120 days of pasture and at least 30 percent of the animals’ diets coming from pasture during the grazing season. The new rules go into effect in June and producers have a year to comply.

The USDA’s Deputy Secretary, Kathleen Merrigan, said to reporters on Friday, “This is an industry that’s come to Capitol Hill and wants tough, strict regulations, because they know that’s what consumers want. They want clear, consistent, tough enforceable rules.”



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