ACTION: Help Organic Dairy Farmers

our local grocery stores (4.00 / 4)

carry Horizon and one of them has "O," a Safeway line, rated respectively 0 and 1 on a scale of 5 by The Cornucopia Institute. They dropped Organic Valley, alas, though it was only running a little more than these other brands. But that was enough to kill its sales, with an uninformed public.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Mon May 04, 2009 at 17:10:47 PM UTC

should have read the articles first (4.00 / 4)

So they are praising Horizon for honoring their contracts to farmers and castigating OV for not doing so? What does this mean in the context of Horizon (according to Cornucopia) not providing as high a quality product as OV, and not being open to watchdog group inspections?


"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Mon May 04, 2009 at 17:14:33 PM UTC

oh shit (4.00 / 3)

I didn't read that. I'll ask OCA about that. Horizon's been dumping on their farmers too lately.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 01:03:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I was thinking it read like (4.00 / 3)

Horizon affecting the market so heavily that they are driving better dairies out of business, because they only do exactly what they have to do, the bare minimum, cut corners, and have no ethics. Something like that.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 04:31:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Horizon's been lowering its prices (4.00 / 3)

and increasing its market share, but has been threatening small farmers to cut their contracts while building a new factory farm. And the effect of Horizon's low prices hurts all other brands of organic milk.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 04:45:26 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

yep (4.00 / 2)

my thoughts exactly

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Thu May 07, 2009 at 02:51:46 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

oh, and I didn't mean to chastise you (4.00 / 1)

I just realized that it read that way - I was talking to myself!

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Miep @ Sun May 10, 2009 at 06:14:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

oh shit (4.00 / 2)

I didn't read that. I'll ask OCA about that. Horizon's been dumping on their farmers too lately.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 01:03:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Any chance some of the smaller organic farms (4.00 / 3)

can get out into the farmers markets since it "tis the season"? I didn't read through the links because my eyes are dead tonight, but is there any effort to redirect the dairy products to farmers markets, local schools, day and summer camps, hospitals and other care facilities etc? Granted, may not be as large of a market, but it's something. And it's supports local communities.

I'm doing my bit this week. Getting milk not just to drink/for coffee, but also for yogurt and ice cream from a local dairy  :)  

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by: nycstray @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 04:37:25 AM UTC

I hope so and that'd be great (4.00 / 2)

I wonder what the requirements would be, i.e. whether these dairies have bottling facilities or if they typically sell their milk to companies that process them into cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 04:44:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I know we have facilities here. (4.00 / 2)

I'll have to check with the one I like, but I'm pretty sure they bottle their own. They have recently gone into ice cream also. I also know then Sen Clinton got an "earmark" for a dairy here to go solar and it sounded like a decent sized dairy (but not to the big ag level iirc)

We may need to re-look at the farm bill for schools and such. What comes to mind is that insane thing about farmers washing, cutting and bagging their produce and not being able to have it in the schools because it is now "processed" food.

It just seems that the dairy farms that had contracts with some of these larger companies should have some way of redirecting their product to other uses within the states. The dairy I buy from is at Union Sq and my 'hoods farmer's markets and in many of the mom and pops around me. If there isn't easily accessible ways to redirect the product from the smaller farms, there should be. No way in heck should we be losing these smaller dairies. But I guess big production would like that . . .

Heh, bottom of the 9th, Yankees/Sox, tying run on base, no outs, almost 1AM lol!~

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by: nycstray @ Tue May 05, 2009 at 04:59:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]