Photo by Tina WrightCows at Jerry Dell Farm, an organic dairy farm in Dryden, will soon be enjoying summer pastures. The USDA insists on outside grazing for cows producing organic milk.

Local organic dairy farmers are happy that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a “pasture rule” that spells out a minimum amount of time that organically- raised cattle must spend on pasture. To ship organic milk, farmers must execute a plan to have all cows and calves over six months old outside grazing at least 120 days a year, and even more where climate permits. Going into effect this June, the rule for organic pasturing also requires that cows get at least 30 percent of their feed from grazing.

When the USDA first established organic standards in 1990, the requirement that organic cows have “access to pasture” was not specific. The fight over what the pasture rule really meant in the field was put off to another day. Then a large dairy in Colorado, Aurora Dairies, began shipping “organic” milk from thousands of cows on concrete eating organic food out of a bunk, many organic dairy farmers and consumers protested that this was not organic milk.

It was time to get specific on USDA pasture requirements. The National Organic Standards Board came up with its recommendations for pasture rules in 2005.

What took so long to implement these regulations? Vaughn Sherman, a partner at Jerry Dell Farm, an organic dairy in Dryden, has a sense of humor about it. “You know, democracy is a great thing until it gets abused. It took them forever to go through all the hearings and regulations. I don’t know, it’s ridiculous to me that it took that long,” he says.

The USDA‘s commitment to organic agricultural regulations was half-hearted in the Bush years, according to a recent investigation by the USDA’s own inspector general. Released in early March, the report details the agriculture department’s collusion with rulebreakers and the indifference to testing and enforcement of organic standards by its National Organics Program, the arm of the agriculture department that regulates the organic farming industry.

Kathie Arnold, an organic dairy farmer from Truxton (north of Cortland), has faith in the current USDA leadership. In an e-mail interview, she says, “Miles McEvoy, the new deputy administrator of the National Organics Program (NOP), has made it clear that enforcement of organic standards, including the new pasture standard, will be a hallmark of his administration at the NOP.”

In various leadership roles, especially at the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, Arnold has pushed for organic cattle-grazing regulations for years. She says the new pasture rule is important to organic dairy farmers. “It helps level the playing field as to production practices on all organic dairy farms and it will provide integrity to the organic market by clarifying and strengthening the previous nebulous ‘access to pasture’ rule that had been unevenly enforced,” she says.

Sherman points out that his organic-certifier and milk cooperative have always demanded intensive pasturing, even before the USDA action. He says, “Even NOFA-NY, they check us out with their certifications and inspections and so does Organic Valley. They come by and make sure we abide by the pasture rules. The [USDA] pasture rule, it’s minimal. It could be a lot more grazing but at least it’s enough to get by.”

The Northeast Organic Farmers Association-New York (NOFA-NY) certifies many organic farms in this area. Jerry Dell Farm has shipped milk to Organic Valley since the Dryden farm on Gee Hill went organic in 2001. The Sherman family partnership milks over 300 Holstein cows, grazes hundreds of acres and raises most of its own cow feed.

At the same time the housing bubble burst in 2008, the organic milk market blew its milk bubble after years of stunning growth, 20 percent every year from 2002-07. The $1.3 billion organic milk market is now flooded and organic dairy farmers are taking price cuts, quotas and even losing their organic markets altogether in some cases.

In the Northeast, HP Hood started dropping out of the fluid organic milk market last year. They had been licensed to handle the organic fluid market side for New Hampshire’s Stonyfield Farm since 2004. On Jan. 1, Organic Valley Cooperative picked up most of the former HP Hood farms, but the cooperative is managing them as a separate supply group. Organic Valley is a Midwest-based agriculture cooperative that has over 400 organic milk producers in the Northeast and New England.

The future looks scary for both conventional and organic milk producers looking at low prices for milk. Organic dairy farmers who pasture intensively are hoping that milk from large confinement-style herds will be siphoned out of the organic dairy market as pasture rules are enforced. This subtraction could cut the organic milk surplus, leading to additions in milk checks that organic dairy farmers can really use, they suggest.

TAGGED WITH: dairy, dairy farming, NOFA-NY, organic, USDA