Over Again - a Milking Story
Milk Companies Look West, Pressuring Northeast Dairy Farmers
Organic milk has been a lifeline for pocket-size farms in Maine and other New England states. Now those farms are facing trouble as milk processors await to huge dairies in Western states.
Elida Dickey, left, and Emma Mehuren milking cows at True-blue Venture Farm in Maine. Horizon Organic, which had been buying the subcontract'south milk for 16 years, is ending its contracts in the Northeast. Credit... Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
SEARSMONT, Maine — Glendon Mehuren 2's Faithful Venture Farm, 35 miles due east of the land capital of Augusta, looks equally tranquil as the farms pictured on cartons of organic milk. Cows ramble among weathered barns perched on a hill surrounded past small pastures and woodlots.
Simply things accept been rough on the subcontract since August. That's when Mr. Mehuren got a certified letter from Horizon Organic, which had been buying his milk for sixteen years. It said it was terminating his contract in a year. Horizon delivered the same letter to 88 other organic dairy farms from Maine to New York.
In December, Horizon gave all of the affected farmers a reprieve, extending their contracts until February 2023 and paying a chip more than for the milk. Simply the future for small dairy farmers in the Northeast however appears difficult.
For the past twenty years, organic milk offered a lifeline for small farms in the Northeast, allowing them to stay afloat while milking 100 cows or fewer. Now those farms are facing trouble considering there is a lack of milk processors in the region and a overabundance of milk from huge organic dairies in Western states.
On a brisk December morn, Mr. Mehuren and one of his daughters were milking their Holsteins in the small milking parlor, in half dozen shifts of eight cows. His father was exterior in a tractor, hauling hay. Mr. Mehuren quickly rattled off the names of the many nearby dairy farms that had failed over the by few decades. The farms that survived expanded, hoping that book would offset depression milk prices, he said.
Image
"Milk prices were very low in the early 2000s," he said, and many pocket-sized farmers felt the only options were to abound or die. "And so the organic deal kind of came forth."
That gave smaller farmers a 3rd option. Mr. Mehuren earned organic certification for his farm and dairy herd and began selling milk to Horizon in 2005.
Since so, organic milk has grown to account for more than 5 percent of the nation's milk market, and it is dominated past big businesses. Horizon Organic is endemic by the French corporation Danone. Stonyfield Organic, the yogurt maker in New Hampshire that buys organic milk from New England farmers, is owned by Lactalis. And the farmer-owned cooperative Organic Valley, based in Wisconsin, now has more than a billion dollars in almanac revenue.
Meanwhile, bottling became consolidated in larger milk plants outside New England. Ed Maltby, the executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Brotherhood, said almost all packaged organic milk is now ultrapasteurized, giving it months of shelf life.
"It used to be that you had your supply locally to your market," Mr. Maltby said. "Now that epitome has been turned on its caput. The whole concept of regionality has disappeared."
Sarah Alexander, the executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Clan, agreed.
Epitome
"If yous go to a grocery store in Maine, there is Horizon milk on the shelves, and, yes, Horizon is picking up from 14 producers in Maine," she said. "But the milk that'southward on the shelves may be coming from Colorado, it may be coming from Ohio, it may be coming from Virginia."
Chris Adamo, the vice president for regime diplomacy, policy and partnerships at Danone North America, said several factors contributed to Horizon's withdrawal from New England.
"The Northeast region provides a number of standing challenges to option up and send milk to the processing facility we use in Western New York," Mr. Adamo said in an emailed statement.
"While the reduced mileage is important, it is only one factor," he added. Mr. Adamo cited a scarcity of truck drivers as another.
As Horizon withdraws, another challenge for organic dairy farmers in the Northeast is competition from larger farms.
"There'southward been an enormous growth of organic dairy farms w of the Mississippi — Texas, Colorado," said Richard Kersbergen, a professor at the Academy of Maine's Cooperative Extension programme who has been working with Maine dairy farmers for 37 years. "That'due south created a situation where these mega-organic dairy farms are able to produce organic milk at a much cheaper cost than those farms in the Northeast."
Image
Epitome
One company, Aurora Organic, has 27,000 dairy cows on four farms in Colorado and Texas, co-ordinate to its website — the equivalent of near 500 modest New England farms. Ms. Alexander chosen such operations "factory farms."
Amanda Aggravate, the commissioner of the Maine Section of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said she was concerned that larger organic farms in the Westward were not being held to the same standards equally those in the Northeast. Two rules for organic certification prepare by the U.South. Department of Agriculture have long been basic of contention: those requiring that organic livestock have admission to pasture, and the "origin of livestock" rule limiting the conversion of conventional cows to organic.
Ms. Aggravate said she would like to see the pasture rule more than evenly enforced past organic certifiers nationwide. She said she also hoped that the United states of americaD.A. would soon clarify the origin of livestock rule to eliminate loopholes used by larger dairies.
"It creates an unlevel playing field for our farmers," Ms. Beal said. "I feel if the playing field were level, our farmers could certainly hold their own."
Ms. Aggravate asked Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, about this when she and her counterparts in other Northeast states met with him twice, via video, to discuss Horizon's canceling the contracts.
Ms. Beal understands organic dairy farms considering she grew up on i. That farm, now run by her brother, is amongst those being dropped past Horizon.
"I actually want to emphasize that this isn't about ane farm or my family's farm," she said. "This is about 14 family unit farms in Maine and 89 family farms across the Northeast, and they are all, every single ane of them, important."
At True-blue Venture Farm, while cleaning out the parlor betwixt milkings, Mr. Mehuren said that he understood the trends in the dairy industry but that he didn't call up they were an comeback.
"Having x farms milking 50 cows is hugely better for local economies than one 500-moo-cow farm," he said. "Consolidation seems to be the name of the game. The local hardware shop closes and you have a Super Walmart."
Mr. Mehuren and other Maine farmers are hoping they will be able to sell their milk to Organic Valley or Stonyfield Organic, the only other commercial buyers for organic milk in the state.
Epitome
Epitome
Horizon'due south extending contracts until 2023 was piffling alleviation to Judy Smith on More Acres Farm in East Dixfield. Ms. Smith, 68, and her husband, Leslie, 77, had been milking xxx cows and selling to Horizon. They had been hoping to transfer the farm to their twoscore-year-old son. But Horizon'southward August letter concluded that dream. The uncertainty seemed too great, and they sold the dairy herd.
"We were between a rock and a difficult place," Ms. Smith said. "We were heartbroken when those cows had to become, I'll tell you what. They were more than just milk cows to us."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/business/organic-dairy-farms-new-england.html
Post a Comment for "Over Again - a Milking Story"