Australian cows still eat grass. Doesn't it sound obvious?
I first read about this in a Salon article some months ago. Today there is an article on the issue in the New York Times.
As an Australian -one who grew up in a dairy-farming area- I buy milk from the supermarket in the expectation that the cows who produced the milk were grazed on green pastures and taken to the milking sheds at dawn and dusk to be milked. I buy our organic milk ('Pure' Organic unhomogenised milk- it's really good) expecting the same thing, only the cows would have been grazed on certified-organic pastures.
Unfortunately for US consumers, they can't expect the same.
The US is the land of the mega-dairy, of feedlot cattle: a place where up to thirty thousand cows are confined in huge sheds for almost the whole year, fed a high-calorie diet of grains to stimulate milk production beyond their normal capacity, and milked 3 times daily. For 3 months of the year they are allowed outside to graze for a few hours each day.
When the mega-dairies saw the potential offered by organic milk- a section of the market that offered higher profits and faster growth- they decided to offer their own brands of organic milk. Did this mean that the cows involved in the production of this milk would be grazed on certified organic pastures and raised in a healthy, lower-stress environment than their 'regular-milk' counterparts? They should be so lucky. The production methods remained identical except for one thing: the high-calorie diet they were fed consisted of 'organic' grains instead of ones grown by conventional means. The number of cows involved was smaller than those in the regular mega-dairies: only about 4000. To give you some idea of the scale: the average dairy farm in NSW and Victoria (who together produce 75% of Australia's total dairy produce) contains around 200-250 cows.
US consumers, of course, don't have a clue. Who would expect that the organic milk they buy in fact comes from a cow that may not have seen a single blade of grass in the past 9 months? Especially when the carton assures you that the milk is "produced on certified organic farms, where 'clean-living' cows 'make milk the natural way, with access to plenty of fresh air, clean water and exercise'." Just no grass.
Of course, this organic milk is healthier than the regular milk from the mega-dairies: when you have 30 000 cows confined together in a shed, disease will spread rapidly- if you don't feed the cows antibiotics, that is. It is still legal in the US to supplement the feed of 'regular' cows with hormones to increase their milk production- and they do.
The real problem with this situation lies in the fact that the US essentially has a cash-for-certification system. If one organic certification body refuses classification for these mega-dairies, the dairies simply find another certification body willing to accept the cash in exchange for certification. The US Department of Agriculture has shown a reluctance to enforce current standards, which require that cows 'have access to pasture' (for how long is not specified), and is even more reticent when it comes to strengthening them. A federal advisory panel has already recommended that the USDA clarify the regulations on confinement of cows to ensure they are only kept in sheds during bad weather and while giving birth. According to Salon "it also advised the USDA to interpret the pasture rule to mean that all animals over 6 months of age graze grass for at least 120 days of the year."
That's not a hell of a lot; 4 months per year for the cows, but they won't even enforce that amount.
It's hard to tell who ranks at the bottom of the US government's priorities in this case- the wellbeing of consumers or the welfare of the cows.
The NY Times article is below:
Does Organic Imply Grazing?
JOHN MACKEY, chairman of Whole Foods Market, with the buying power of his 173 stores across the country behind him, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he wants the Department of Agriculture to strengthen its standards for organic milk.
"I'm worried that it is getting bogged down in some kind of political process," said Mr. Mackey, who wields great power in the organic food industry.
For at least four years, the National Organic Standards Board, which advises the department's National Organic Program, has sought a regulation to make the standards more rigorous so that milk labeled organic comes from cows that spend a certain amount of time grazing in pastures. Currently dairy farms that keep cows confined most or all of the time can legally claim their milk is organic if they use organic feed and do not use antibiotics or growth hormones.
The current organic standards, which took effect in 2000, require that cows have "access to pasture," but do not require cows to be put in the pasture.
"We think the average customer believes organic dairy cows are grazing full time," Mr. Mackey said, "and we would like organic standards to be more rigorous so the perception meets the reality." Mr. Mackey first discussed his company's position in an interview with Jim Slama in Conscious Choice, a monthly magazine.
The organic standards board has proposed that dairy cows be allowed to graze during the growing season and that a lactating cow should not be confined in a barn.
Farmers who confine cows can give them high-energy feed that helps them produce more milk than cows on pasture, reducing the cost.
In public comments, two companies opposed the proposal: Aurora Dairy and Wild Oats, the 111-store chain of natural food supermarkets.
Aurora Dairy does not allow its lactating cows in pastures. In its comments Wild Oats said the system was working well because it "facilitates the expansion of the organic milk supply."
Ed Loyd, press secretary to the Secretary of Agriculture, said that the labeling of milk as organic has been an issue since 1993. "We don't know whether there is need for additional rule making or for guidance to the industry," he said.
Within the next 12 months Whole Foods will announce what it calls "compassionate" standards for treatment of dairy cows. Mr. Mackey said he was almost certain the company would go beyond the standards the National Organic Standards Board is seeking.
"We will clearly label products that are not animal compassionate so our customers can be fully informed about their practices," he said. Those who meet the company's standards will be so designated.
"We don't want to see organic standards diluted down to where they don't mean what consumers think it means," he said.
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