A couple weeks ago I posted on the wild and crazy happenings in US dairy of late. Since then I happened on the web site of the Cornucopia Insitute (CI), a group that defines itself as a consumer watchdog group for organic food products. In 2006 they published a paper (get the PDF here) about the organic integrity of milk.

The Cornucopia Institute points out that organic consumers assume, much of the time, that the milk they’re drinking is humanely raised, more nutritious and that the profits of its sale go more directly to the farmers who produce it. As the Institute shows, this is not the case for some of the nation’s most common dairy products, including Horizon Organics (owned by conventional giant Dean), Silk (owned by the same) and Aurora (which supplies supermarket organic brands like Safeway and Costco). These large “organic” producers are using factory farm practices and monopolizing principles to overpower smaller competitors and con organic consumers into paying more for less.

Where was the USDA in all of this, you might ask, aren’t they in charge of enforcing the Organic certifications and making sure that milk producers stay true to the spirit of the law? Not so much. As the Institute reported, “mostly, the [USDA] has resisted or ignored the pleas for enforcement of federal organic rules, even sitting on recommendations from their own citizens advisory committee, the National Organic Standards Board.” While several measures have been passed to hold industrial “organic” dairies to account for their skirting and abuse of organic standards, enforcement has been severely lacking.

Recently, the USDA has taken some action, at much urging from consumers and producers alike. A new law requiring 120 days per year on pasture for all milk producing animals was passed in November. You can read about it here and here. As you can read in the PDF of the Cornucopia Institute’s 2006 report, it’s taken years to get past the USDA’s stonewalling to tighten pasturing requirements, despite 80,000 comments in support of tightening the rules.

The key with organic milk, as in so many of the issues consumers face today, is transparency. The Cornucopia Institute decided to provide some, and created a scorecard for dairy operators, including small producers, name brands and private labels (a.k.a. store brands). The Institute asked nineteen questions and pared down the answers into twelve categories based on consumer expectations for organic milk. When an operator (including 100% of private labels) refused to return the questionnaire, the Institute went around them by accessing all of their public records, talking to suppliers, workers and former workers, until they’d painted a picture of that label’s practices. In the end, organic dairies were given a score out of 1200 points and five cows, with nine farms receiving a perfect score, and 38 recieving a zero, with one or no cows, including Trader Joe’s, Organic Cow, Hain Celestial, Horizon and Back to Nature.

The first incarnation of the scorecard showed that “nearly 20% of the name-brands now available on grocery shelves scored a substandard rating.” Don’t be discouraged, though! That leaves 80% working hard to produce organic milk and dairy products in line with the goals of the organic movement. The Institute updates the scorecard regularly, so check it out here before deciding where to get your white stuff.

You can visit the Cornucopia institute for ratings of other organic products, like almonds and infant formula, and for action alerts. You can go here to read an interview with Cornucopia Institute founder Mark Kastel by Gourmet Magazine.