At my local food co-op $3.89 will get me a half-gallon of organic milk sold by a national brand I trust. I have bought it for years and been reasonably sure the milk is without traces of hormones or pesticides. Am also confinent that the milk does not have the higher-than-normal levels of somatic cell residues found when agri-ceuticals are used to push the cows painfully beyond normal milk-production capacity.
But lately I’ve been letting someone else pay the $3.89 for organic milk. This decision is based in part on my income. But for the record, if the milk was going to a child I would buy organic and drink tea.
My choice in non-organic milk comes with a local label and is marked “From Cows NOT Treated With SYNTHETIC GROWTH HORMONES*” (along with the Federally required subtext: “No significant difference has been shown between…”).
Am still paying twice as much as the rock-bottom supermarket brand price of $1.49 for a full gallon. But I have voted with my one-dollar and forty-nine cents for a cooperative of local dairy farmers who choose not to subject their herds to synthetic hormones in order to profit from chemically amped-up milk production.
And because buying organic milk isn’t just expensive, it’s risky. Factory farming has become well-established in the organic dairy industry and is not something I want to support. The Cornucopia Institute recently filed a lawsuit against Dean Foods, makers of Horizon brands organic dairy products.
So I’ll make a donation to the Cornucopia Institute and watch closely to see how the legal battle plays out.
In the meantime, will continue to buy local first, buy organic whenever I can and base my decisions on that complex and changeable mix of mood, bank balance and daily level of outrage that dictates my spending.
Resources:
- If you’re paying for organic milk and want to make your dollar count, the Cornucopia Institute’s Dairy Report and Scorecard includes a link to the report, Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk, that can help you decide whether the money — and what it represents in terms of voting with your dollar — is really going where it counts.
- You can view their Organic Dairy Brand Ratings Scorecard to see a table of brands receiving one- to five-cow ratings. Clicking on the dairy name brings up a profile of the brand.
- Visit the Cornucopia Institute’s Opinion/Editorial section to find articles on the organic dairy industry including Organic-Milk Fight Takes Aim at Grazing Time by Seattle Times business reporter Melissa Allison.
See the New York Times article An Organic Cash Cow, By KIM SEVERSON published November 9, 2005 for a great take on an organic product and all it’s complications and implications.
“Milk represents all that is wholesome. Add the word organic, and the purity of milk’s image only increases. But a carton of organic milk does not come without complications. It is expensive. Some brands are processed so that an unopened carton can last for months. And an organic seal does not necessarily mean the cows are grazing on pasture or that the milk is local.”