The infighting within the organic dairy community rages on, led by Organic Valley’s front group the Cornucopia Institute. Cornucopia yesterday announced that it had filed a lawsuit against United States Department of Agriculture for the release of information about Aurora Dairy of Colorado. According to a local Colorado paper, Cornucopia alleges that “when Aurora Dairy cows die or stop lactating, they are replaced with new cows that have not been certified organic.” (It’s amazing that none of the mainstream news outlets that quote this “farm policy think tank” have thought to ask where the heck they came from, and where the heck do they get their money.)
Aurora ranchers, Cornucopia said in its complaint, cannot prove their cows have eaten only certain foods, get regular exercise and pasture time, live in certain sanitary conditions, and have not been injected with hormones or drugs, as required under organic rules. According to the complaints, Aurora’s replacement cows were supplied by a rancher who has insufficient records to show the cows were raised organically. Those cows, Cornucopia said, “were on pasture for no more than two weeks (out of a period of more than a year) before delivery to Aurora and were otherwise confined to a feedlot.”
Cornucopia doesn’t claim Aurora Dairy’s milk is unsafe to drink, Cornucopia co-founder Mark Kastel told the Daily Times-Call in an interview. Rather, he said Aurora’s “factory mega-farm” practices undermine the value of the organic label.
Let’s be clear here: What undermines the organic label is the misleading labeling that the organic industry is relying on to sell customers health and safety benefits that have yet to be shown to exist. What undermines the organic label is USDA’s continued head-in-the-sand approach to enforcing their own guidelines that milk labels not be misleading, despite a litany of complaints and pleas for direction from local regulatory agencies. And what undermines the organic label perhaps most of all is the overall milk industry’s shameful acceptance of these food-terror marketing practices.
Milk is milk, and it is no better or worse as a result of the label on the front of the carton.