It’s fashionable to smack Obama these days, and while I share the instinct of both my lefty and wingnut pals to shake their heads in confusion at Washington, I remain wowed by one aspect of this presidency: The Obama USDA. His appointment of Tom Vilsack continues to impress me and prove my initital fears wrong.
Two cool pieces of news, if you’re a proponent of organic ag and small farming like I am. First, the USDA’s National Organic Program announced that it was tightening up organic dairying rules in a way that fortifies pasturing at the expense of feedlot dairies (all eyes are now on the USDA and the obviously non-compliant Aurora Organic Dairy).
Why does this matter? Because organic milk is the driver of the organic industry, typically accounting for roughly 40-45% of all organic sales nationally. That’s a huge chunk of the fastest growing segment of the USDA. I can also tell you, as a former grocery guy, that organic milk is a “gateway drug.” Parents deciding to buy organic for their families usually begin with organic milk, then slowly start piling other organic items into their carts. Tainting this important staple of the organic diet with questions of integrity is tantamount to smothering the entire organic industry.
I’ve been watching (and taking part in) this fight over organic dairy rules for five years. Because so much money has been thrown down on feedlots to create cheap (well, “cheaper”) organic milk, and because the National Organic Program got its start in a hostile, Bush administration USDA, I honestly thought the federal government would side with Big Organic Dairy in the end. This “access to pasture” rule is a huge victory for small farmers who don’t game the system, who believe organic means pasturing, and for shoppers who want organic milk to have the nutrition-edge of being raised on pasture.
And the Obama USDA keeps impressing. Yesterday in Vermont, USDA Sec. Vilsack was asked how to address the national dairy crisis, a topic that we’ve been covering since last year. From The Burlington Free Press:
[Vilsack] has set up a Dairy Advisory Committee with a two-year charter. He wants it to convene in the next 30 days to begin evaluating how to change the dairy pricing system to smooth out the boom and bust cycles.
Vilsack acknowledged that the pricing problem isn’t new, although the bust cycles seem to be coming more frequently. What is new, he said, “is that lobbying for regional solutions isn’t the answer. We have to look nationally.”
Maybe this is a huge assumption on my part, but I’m assuming that by “looking nationally,” the Secretary means to examine “corporate consolidation.” With the Obama Department of Justice crawling up Dean Foods’ left nostril in an antitrust investigation, it looks to me like this administration has correctly begun to ask “Que bono?” Who benefits? Are there “national” entities that benefit from a busting milk industry and the demise of small dairy farmers? I suggest looking at the biggest players in the industry, the perennial dictators of price, and the immorally low milk prices paid to farmers in 2009, prices that were way too low even for a recession.
Scoff at this administration if you want. But change is afoot.
The biggest concern of mine over a “national” price restructuring is that there are some dairy processors that are doing what’s right and passing profits on down to the dairy producers. As you know there are quite a few different processors for milk in the United States, but not all are equal. Far from it actually. If the larger processors would pass down the profits like they should, (DFA, Deans) then there would be much less of an issue with the farmers pay price. Instead they line the pockets of their own higher ups. But believe me, there are dairy processors doing their producers right by actually passing on their profits. So a restructuring of the prices paid to dairy farmers should be reorganized within individual companies before a national restructuring is put in place.
David Brand. @BrandFarms
The biggest concern of mine over a “national” price restructuring is that there are some dairy processors that are doing what’s right and passing profits on down to the dairy producers. As you know there are quite a few different processors for milk in the United States, but not all are equal. Far from it actually. If the larger processors would pass down the profits like they should, (DFA, Deans) then there would be much less of an issue with the farmers pay price. Instead they line the pockets of their own higher ups. But believe me, there are dairy processors doing their producers right by actually passing on their profits. So a restructuring of the prices paid to dairy farmers should be reorganized within individual companies before a national restructuring is put in place.
David Brand. @BrandFarms
Amen Brother.
It looks like there are plenty of profits to go around in the conventional market, but the big guys are keeping more than their fair share. When milk or pork producers are taking in the neck, grocery stores are not giving away the products. I’m just guessing that their suppliers are not losing money either.
Greg
Riverbend Farm
David said:
“If the larger processors would pass down the profits like they should, (DFA, Deans)…”
That is one mighty big “if,” and in America, as a rule, we don’t tell corporate entities what they should and shouldn’t do with their profits. That’s why the antitrust investigation of Dean is so important to the dairy crisis.