November, 22 2010, 10:37am EDT
Conventional Cattle on Factory Dairies Producing "Organic" Milk
Illegal Practice Damaging Family Farmers and Defrauding Consumers
CORNUCOPIA, WI
A Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, The Cornucopia Institute,
announced this week that it is filing a formal legal complaint in an attempt to
immediately halt the USDA from allowing factory farms producing
"organic" milk from bringing conventional dairy cattle onto their farms.
Cornucopia claims the practice, which places family-scale farmers at a
competitive disadvantage, is explicitly prohibited in the federal regulations
governing the organic industry.
Conventional replacement dairy calves, typically bought at auctions,
likely receive antibiotics, toxic insecticides and parasiticides as well as
conventional feed during their first year of life before being
"converted" to organics-all practices strictly prohibited in
organic production.
"Real organic farmers don't buy replacement heifers," said
Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia
Institute. "Real organic farmers sell [surplus] heifers."
Demonstrably lower levels of stress, superior health and improved
vitality of the cows separates authentic organic dairy farms from factory farms
masquerading as organic, according to the farm policy research group.
"In the factory farm model, the animals are pushed for such high
production that, just like in the conventional confinement model, after as few
as 1 to 2 years they are so sick, or they are not healthy enough to breed, that
they are slaughtered," Kastel clarified. "Organic cows are
generally so healthy, and live such long lives, that many of the baby calves
born can be sold to other farmers, creating an alternative revenue stream for
organic farmers."
"We have very healthy
young stock,"
said Dave Minar, an organic dairy farmer from New Prague, Minnesota. A
calf on Minar's farm stays with its mother for 6-8 weeks after its birth.
The calves also become acclimated to the milking parlor (as its mother comes in
to be milked every day) and "they are building antibodies when
nursing," Minar added.
Reportedly, because of the illegal practice of bringing conventional
heifers onto organic farms, many organic producers cannot receive a premium
when selling their surplus certified organic calves and heifers.
Policy experts ask the question as to how federal bureaucrats, starting
during the Bush administration, could have possibly blessed a practice that is
explicitly banned in the USDA federal organic standards.
Former USDA National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) Chairman Jim
Riddle, currently with the University of Minnesota, states, "To allow the
continuous introduction of conventional heifers onto organic farms is contrary
to a holistic, systems-based approach; plus, it allows animals that may have
been given antibiotics or hormones, fed genetically engineered feed, or
consumed slaughter by-products [to be brought onto organic farms]."
All the practices referenced by Riddle are banned in the organic standards.
The current federal livestock standards (SS205.236
Origin of Livestock) state: "Once an entire, distinct herd has been
converted to organic production, all dairy animals shall be under organic
management from the last third of gestation." Meaning, before the
calf is even born, it must be managed organically.
New York farmer Kathie Arnold, a recognized leader in the organic dairy
community, made her feelings clear, "Now that a tough pasture rule is in
place, the next very important and needed piece of organic dairy standards work
is the realm of dairy replacement animals, in order to have a fair and
equitable standard that is the same for all farms."
For years, the USDA allowed giant organic factory dairies, milking as
many as 10,000 cows, to confine their animals in huge feedlots and buildings
instead of providing them "access to pasture" as required by federal
law. Sparked by Cornucopia's legal complaints against Aurora Dairy,
Dean Foods and others operating phony "organic" feedlot dairies, a
movement began to close loopholes and clarify pasture requirements for feed and
grazing. The USDA's release of strict new pasture rules this past
February counts as a major victory for organic family farms and consumers.
But bringing in yearling heifers and "converting them to
organic," by managing them organically (organic feed and no banned drugs)
during the second year of their life has become standard operating practice at some
of the same large industrial dairies.
"Another highly-objectionable facet of the illegal laundering of
conventional calves is they are likely fed 'milk replacer' instead of fresh
organic milk," noted Kastel.
Feeding milk replacer instead of milk further pads the bottom line of
the giant factory dairies. Rather than feed fresh organic milk to their
calves, they instead sell that milk to dairy processors. Milk replacer
might also contain risky materials tied to bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE) that are also explicitly banned in organic production and produces cows
with weaker immune systems, more susceptible to disease.
Cornucopia's latest formal legal complaint, in defense of
family-scale farmers, spotlights the Natural Prairie Dairy in Dalhart, Texas.
The dairy, milking over 7000 cows in two barns, is thought to be the largest
certified organic dairy in the United
States.
"They are likely selling well over $1 million worth of milk a
year, at wholesale farmgate pricing, that would otherwise be legally required
to be fed to their calves," Kastel affirmed. "This illegal and
unfair competition has to be stopped immediately."
Just as they delayed the enforcement requiring pasture, and precluding
the feedlot confinement of organic dairy cows, the USDA has claimed they need
new rulemaking in order to close loopholes allowing conventional cattle to be
brought onto organic operations.
Although it appears that the new administration at the USDA recognizes
the impropriety of the current practice, their proposed solution has also been
to develop new tighter regulations. Many industry observers are concerned
that the rulemaking process could take another two years, or longer, until
tighter regulations go into effect.
"The market for organic milk is tightening right now, in late
2010. If major industrial producers are able to continue to bring in
conventional cattle, they will force down prices paid to family farmers,
endangering their livelihoods," Kastel said. "That's why the timing
of this enforcement, by the USDA, is so critical."
Cornucopia contends that protecting
consumer confidence in organics is possibly the most important reason to take
action on these abuses, which undermine the credibility of the organic label.
"One of the reasons that almost every
member-owned natural foods cooperative in the nation no longer sells Horizon
dairy products [owned by the dairy giant Dean Foods] is they were allowing the
same troubling practice of bringing in conventional cattle," said Natasha
Gill, of the Marquette Food Cooperative in Michigan.
"When they spend extra on organic
milk, consumers feel they are supporting both humane animal husbandry and
economic fairness for the farmers who produce their food. These illegal
practices have to stop now," Gill added
MORE:
The Cornucopia Institute has published a
comprehensive report on organic dairy, including a scorecard rating over 120
brands of organic dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, ice cream etc.).
It is designed to empower consumers and wholesale buyers so that they can make
good purchasing decisions, rewarding the true organic farming heroes in the
marketplace: www.cornucopia.org
A copy of the formal legal complaint filed
by The Cornucopia Institute can be found at: https://www.cornucopia.org/USDA/NaturalPrairieComplaint.pdf
The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit farm policy research group, is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Their Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate and governmental watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and BrasÃlia's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular