Milky Malarkey

There are a lot of dairy producers, especially in the West, that slap "organic" labels on their products despite the fact that they don't actually adhere to organic standards.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed stricter standards that would close several loopholes—most importantly, by defining what "access to pasture" means in regard to dairy cows. The new rules, if enacted, would require dairy operators to allow cattle to graze 120 or more days per year and to ensure that 30 percent of cows' diets come from grazing rather than from organic feed. (You can see the proposed standards in this incredibly dense, 28-page PDF file.)

The USDA is both a regulator and an advocate for farming and agricultural interests. So it's no surprise that it has spent eight years on this issue. In the meantime, the organic-dairy industry has split into two basic types of operations: small ones, mostly in the East and Midwest; and giant ones, mostly in the West.

It's the Western operations where most of the problems are found. The small ones make up 93 percent of the number of farms, while the large ones, with the other 7 percent, account for about a third of production. Of course, by taking advantage of loopholes, the bigger operations have a big competitive advantage over the smaller ones, which in general follow accepted guidelines for what is and is not "organic"—admittedly, and increasingly, often a very squishy term.

In her Washington Post column, Cindy Skrzycki notes that one of the biggest dairy operations, Aurora Organic Dairy, has been cited with 14 "willful violations" and the USDA has proposed yanking its organic certification. It also is facing class-action litigation. The company says the complaints made against it have come from "activists" who are "opposed to scale," but it nevertheless has agreed to make changes and is now publishing data on grazing access.

There are only about 87,000 organic dairy cows in the United States, and Aurora owns about 16,000 of them in Colorado and Texas. It says it produces about 10 percent of all the organic milk sold in the country.

Besides restricting cows from access to open pasture, big dairy operations have been accused of overmilking and restocking herds with noncertified cows.

Some groups have alleged that industry interests are still trying to slow down passage of any new rules. Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association, told Skrzycki that it "makes you really suspicious since it has taken them years and years to close these loopholes."

But that's what you get when you have a regulatory agency that also acts as an industry advocate.