In an open letter published today and addressed to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program chief, Miles McEvoy, the Cornucopia Institute accused the regulatory agency of abdicating its enforcement responsibilities. Cornucopia, an organic industry watchdog, charged that the USDA had allowed Dean Foods and its WhiteWave subsidiary to, allegedly, operate a giant factory farm dairy that has been illegally disadvantaging the nation's family-scale dairy producers.

The Cornucopia Institute also filed, on Feb. 10, its third formal legal complaint alleging Dean/WhiteWave's giant industrial dairy, located in Paul, ID, has continued to operate illegally.

"We're hoping that third time's a charm," said Cornucopia's Senior Farm Policy Analyst, Mark Kastel.

Prior complaints have resulted in the decertification and/or downsizing of a number of other certified organic Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in the organic dairy sector, milking up to 10,000 cows each. Cornucopia has suggested that Dean Foods, with its heavy investment in federal election financing and strong lobbying presence in Washington, has "indemnified" the agribusiness giant from judicious enforcement.

"Just as we have banks that have become 'too big to fail,' in organics we see Dean Foods and WhiteWave (recently spun-off in 2013 through an IPO on Wall Street)—one of the largest industry participants and the kingpin in the powerful Organic Trade Association—repeatedly and successfully flashing their 'get out of jail free card' purchased by influence peddlers in Washington," Kastel explained.

Originally managing more than 8,000 head of cattle and thousands of acres of land in an arid region of Southern Idaho, Dean/WhiteWave's dairy—providing milk for the Horizon Organic label—was accused by Cornucopia, starting in 2005, of confining cattle in pens and buildings instead of providing access to pasture and grazing as federal organic law requires.

Cornucopia claims that their use of these allegedly illegal techniques resulted in millions of dollars of "ill-gotten gains" by catapulting the Horizon label into not only the largest brand in the organic dairy sector, but the largest brand, by dollar volume, in the entire organic industry.

Although the dairy in recent years reduced the number of cows it was managing, and added—for the first time—some amount of pasture, it also increased the number of times the cows were being milked from twice a day to three and even four times a day.

"Properly managing an organic dairy farm by moving the herd to fresh pasture after each twice-per-day milking becomes more and more difficult as herd size gets larger," said Kevin Engelbert, a certified organic dairy farmer from Nichols, NY. "If a farm gets to the point of milking thousands of cows, 24 hours a day, the logistics of getting the herd from the milking facility to fresh grass, legitimately grazing—as required by law—becomes impossible."

Recent interviews with dairy staff by Cornucopia investigators suggest that, to promote extremely high levels of milk production, the Horizon farm management prevented the cows from being put out on pasture between some of the milkings, and when they were out, made sure their bellies were already full of high-production rations (TMR feed) eaten in the barn.

Meanwhile, a select group of "fresh, high producing cows," being milked four times a day, were being entirely confined until their production levels dropped.

The reported level of milk production from the herd supplying Horizon Organics is seen on conventional CAFO dairies, but is very uncharacteristic of legitimate family-scale organic dairies.

"The cows were either prevented from going out and grazing, or if they did go out on pasture they probably didn't eat much fresh grass but instead lay down and chewed their cud, digesting the ration already eaten in the barn," Kastel surmised.

The federal regulations explicitly require all livestock to have access to the outdoors and, specifically, ruminants (including dairy and beef cattle, sheep and goats) to have access to high quality pasture. 

"There are regulatory provisions allowing a farmer to 'temporarily' confine animals if letting them out on pasture would jeopardize their health or cause environmental problems," Kastel explained. "But nowhere in the standards do they allow confinement because moving thousands of cows back and forth to fresh grass would cut into milk production."

This past December, after WhiteWave announced to its shareholders a $7.4 million write-down of the asset, it sold its corporate-owned industrial dairy to private investors in Idaho, although its Horizon brand continues to purchase its milk output.

"There is no statute of limitations in terms of enforcing federal organic standards," said Kastel. "We are asking the USDA to reopen our original complaints and fully investigate our new allegations that the cows on this dairy produced unreasonable amounts of milk based on skirting the requirement that they be fully grazed."

In 2008 the dairy publication The Milkweed published test results comparing brands of organic milk for nutritional compounds that make the milk healthier and are indicative of the amount of grazing time cattle are provided. The top-rated brand was Cedar Summit, distributing milk in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The lowest was Aurora Organic Dairy, an organization based in Colorado depending exclusively on factory farms and supplying private-label organic milk to Walmart, Costco, Target and other chains. One notch up from the bottom was the Horizon brand.

"WhiteWave continues to purchase milk from giant factory dairies in addition to many family farmers. WhiteWave's family farm suppliers are, we believe, just as ethical as the farmers supplying other brands," Kastel affirmed. "But the Horizon brand depends on giant CAFOs, milking thousands of cows each, for a large percentage of their production and that impacts the quality and nutritional value of all their products."

"Small organic dairies nationwide have struggled with drought, flooding and oppressive heat. Still, we have pastured our cattle as required by the National Organic Program (NOP)," said Jim Goodman, who milks 45 cows near Wonewoc, WI. "We have provided a product that consumers expect when they buy organic and we make it work economically—without cutting corners."

"If factory farm organic dairies are unwilling or unable to meet the NOP’s pasture provisions," Goodman said, "then perhaps it is time they are notified that their continued noncompliance to the National Organic Standards has gone on too long and they should seek a non-organic market for their milk."

Visit EcoWatch’s FOOD page for more related news on this topic.

By Alexis Baden-Mayer and Katherine Paul 

There are plenty of reasons to boycott milk from factory farms, beginning with your own health. Dairy cows raised on grass pastures produce milk that is higher in omega-3 fats, vitamin E and beta-carotene than milk from cows raised on grain. Milk from grassfed cows also contains five times as much conjugated linoleic acid, an unsaturated fat which protects against heart disease, aids in weight loss and may prevent cancer and diabetes, than milk from grain-fed cows.

Milk from factory farms, or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that comes from cows raised on genetically engineered grains and pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones—not exactly a recipe for healthy milk.

But it's not just your health that benefits when you boycott milk from factory farms. Industrial dairy farms, with their endless streams of waste, are a public health risk. Just one dairy-producing state, Wisconsin, produces cow manure in quantities equivalent to the human waste produced by the combined populations of Tokyo and Mexico City. New Zealand has a name for it: dirty dairying. And according to a Natural Resources Defense Council fact sheet, manure from dairy cows contaminated Milwaukee's drinking water with Cryptosporidium in 1993, killing more than 100 people, making 400,000 sick and resulting in $37 million in lost wages and productivity. Water contamination from dairies can also cause blue baby syndrome and miscarriages. 

As for the health and well-being of the dairy cows that produce your milk, despite the pretty pictures of happy, grazing dairy cows on milk cartons and company websites, cows raised on factory farms endure intense, sustained cruelty. And most are eventually slaughtered for meat. 

According to 2007 data provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), factory farms produce more than 80 percent of milk sold in the U.S. Organic milk sales account for only four percent of the market. The best way to shift those percentages is for consumers to boycott the industrial milk machine, and force the market to produce more alternatives. 

Here are some basic guidelines to get started:

• Buy USDA certified organic milk, but read the label.
• The best organic milk available nationwide in stores is from grassfed cows or goats. It doesn't contain artificial vitamins, nutrients created through mutagenesis, or synthetic ingredients. Organic Consumers Association (OCA) recommends Organic Valley's Whole Milk Grassmilk.
• The organic milk with the highest level of animal welfare comes from Animal Welfare Approved farms. Unfortunately, few farms are certified to this standard.
• Unpasteurized milk is more nutritious than pasteurized milk, but buying raw milk is illegal in most places.
• Going vegan is the surest way to boycott factory farms. The best non-dairy milk is organic hemp milk. OCA recommends Manitoba Harvest's Hemp Bliss. 

Organic trumps non-organic, but "grassfed" trumps "pasture-raised"

Buying certified organic milk is a good way to avoid the worst aspects of factory farms. Organic standards don't allow the routine, preventive use of antibiotics. Farmers have to give sick dairy cows antibiotics if they need them, but they can't sell their milk as organic until the antibiotics have left the animal's system. That means organic dairies aren't contributing to the public health crisis that's causing 23,000 people in the U.S. to die every year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 

Organic standards for milk also don't allow the use of the genetically engineered growth hormones rBGH or rbST, which are associated with lower nutritional value, and higher levels of pus and IGF-1, a growth factor linked to cancer. Organic standards also don't allow the cows to be raised on genetically engineered feed, which means the animals don't suffer from the deformities, sickness and deaths common in animals raised on genetically engineered grains. 

So to avoid milk from factory farms, the first step is to go organic. But not all organic milk is created equal. You'll also want to look for "grassfed organic," which has a number of advantages over "pasture-raised" organic. 

It's safe to say that all organic dairy cows are "pasture raised." Organic rules for pasture-raised set a minimum standard requiring cows to get at least one-third of their diet from grazing on pasture for at least one-third of the year. You'll need to read the claims made on the milk carton and on dairy brand websites carefully to see if they're meeting or exceeding the organic pasture requirements.

If your organic dairy farm doesn't make any claims beyond "pasture raised," then you can expect that it's just meeting the minimum standard. Horizon Organic and the store-brand organic milks fall into this category. For a review of organic milk brands across the country, check out the Cornucopia Institute's Organic Dairy Ratings. The report is a little out of date—it's from 2008, before the organic pasture rules were finalized—but it's useful to know which brands have been doing the right thing all along. 

Milk from dairy cows that are "grassfed" is superior to milk from "pasture-raised" cows. Under the USDA's definition of "grassfed," dairy cows must be raised on grass and forage exclusively, for their entire lifetimes. That means a higher quality of milk. So look for "grassfed" on the label. But also know that while the "pasture-raised" claim must be verified by a third-party certifier, verification of the grass fed claim is voluntary. 

Organic Valley is the first brand to distribute nationally a 100-percent grassfed milk, called Grassmilk. The OCA encourages consumers to choose Grassmilk over "pasture-raised" organic. But we would also like to see Organic Valley take the extra step of earning a "USDA Process Verified," an "American Grassfed," or a Food Alliance Certified "Grassfed," seal, any of which would serve as verification of the brand's claim that all of its cows meet the USDA's definition of "grassfed."

Organic, yes, but read the label

We also recommend Organic Valley's Grassmilk because it doesn't contain Arachidonic Acid (ARA) and Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA). Both of these synthetic nutrients are currently allowed in milk that has been certified organic, even though they aren't on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) list of essential vitamins and nutrients, and they haven't yet been added to the National Organic Program's (NOP) list of allowed non-organic substances. (ARA and DHA remain in legal limbo as Obama's USDA tries to clean up the mess left by the Bush Administration. One of the strongest arguments against ARA and DHA has been dismissed by the NOP: that they were created through mutagenesis, a genetic modification technique that can have the same dangerous unintended effects as genetic engineering. Earlier this year, the NOP announced that mutagenesis is allowed in organic as a classical breeding technique.)

If you want to avoid DHA, don't choose Horizon Organic milk. The label says it contains DHA Omega 3, which the company claims "supports brain health." A consumer lawsuit alleging this claim is false and misleading is pending.

Other reasons to read the label on organic milk? Organic standards allow Vitamins A, C, K, D, E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, B12, biotin, folate, pantothenic acid, calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, iodine, copper, potassium, selenium, manganese, chromium, molybdenum and chloride in certified organic milk. Synthetic versions of some vitamins also are allowed in organic. Whole milk is not required to be supplemented with vitamins, but two percent and skim milk are. Organic Valley's two percent and skim Grassmilk contain Vitamin A Palmitate and Vitamin D3, both synthetic. 

One thing the USDA certified organic symbol won't guarantee? That the cows that produced your organic milk were humanely treated. So in addition to checking labels for "grassfed" and non-synthetic versus synthetic vitamins, look for products that are Animal Welfare Approved (AWA), in addition to USDA Organic. AWA standards prohibit inhumane practices that are allowed in organic, like dehorning. To check for products in your area, click here. 

Raw milk and goat milk rarely come from factory farms

Raw milk and goat milk rarely come from cows raised in factory farm-like conditions. And there's a case to be made that both provide health benefits over and above grassfed organic milk from cows.

Natural health guru and OCA ally Dr. Joseph Mercola warns against pasteurized milk of any kind. According to Mercola, "once milk has been pasteurized it's more or less 'dead,' and offers little in terms of real nutritional value to anyone," because important enzymes and proteins are destroyed by the pasteurization process.

Raw milk from grassfed cows contains every important digestive enzyme. Not so for pasteurized milk. According to Mercola, the pasteurization process destroys lactase, which is necessary for the assimilation of lactose; galactase, required for the assimilation of galactose and phosphatase which helps the body assimilate calcium. This is why pasteurized milk is difficult to digest, which places stress on the pancreas, which can lead to diabetes and other health problems. 

What about goat's milk? Is it a healthier choice? Does it guarantee humane treatment of the animals?  Prevention magazine compared the nutritional value of goat's milk to cow's milk and declared a tie. 

As for buying goat's milk in order to boycott factory farms, livestock Rancher, lawyer and author, Nicolette Hahn Niman says, "There is no such thing as a goat factory farm." But that doesn't mean that goats can't be confined or treated cruelly. An investigation by the U.K. group, Viva, revealed industrial-style milking parlors and cramped conditions at goat farms. So again, if your goal is to avoid milk from factory farms, you'll want to check the source, even if you're buying goat's milk.

If in doubt, go vegan

One way to guarantee that you aren't buying milk from a factory farm is to go vegan. That means finding a vegan, non-dairy alternative to milk from cows or goats. Start by looking for non-dairy milk that is organic, free of synthetic ingredients, high in nutrition and is not made from soy (which is likely to be genetically engineered), or rice (which probably contains arsenic).  

We recommend Manitoba Harvest's Hemp Bliss. But there's a catch. It's no longer sold in the U.S. You can buy direct online, but as the website explains, "due to product freezing" it can't be shipped (it comes from Canada) from November 1 through April 15. If you weren't able to stock up on Hemp Bliss before the snow started falling, there's an easy alternative: 

Simply Hemp, a dry hemp milk mix ready for the blender. (Learn more about hemp's nutrition here). 

Al Gore recently made headlines with his decision to go vegan. While he hasn't said so publicly, it's likely that his dedication to solving the problem of climate change contributed to his decision. As Ben Adler says in his recent article, "Al Gore is a vegan now-and we think we know why," a new National Academy of Sciences study shows that U.S. methane emissions from the factory farming of animal products may contribute as much to climate change as the entire U.S. transportation industry. According to a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the global dairy industry's share of total greenhouse gas emissions at four percent.

Whatever your motivation—your health, public health or concerns about animal welfare or climate change—there are alternatives to buying milk from industrial CAFOs. Check sources and brands, and read labels, carefully. And if you're dining out, avoid milk products completely, unless the restaurant can at a minimum, guarantee that all its milk products are certified organic.

Visit EcoWatch’s FOOD page for more related news on this topic

Factory farms, where large numbers of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost, affect all of us.

Huge meat companies have steadily driven down the prices farmers receive for the livestock they raise, forcing farmers to get big or get out. Small farms have been replaced by factory farms that pollute nearby air and water, undermine rural economies and reduce the quality of life for neighbors.

 The meat industry tells consumers that factory farms are modern, efficient and produce cheap food. But factory farms leave consumers with fewer choices and make them pay more for meat, poultry and dairy products, while farmers get paid less.

Factory farms increase the risk of pathogens like E. coli and salmonella that cause food-borne illness in people. And bad practices on even a few factory farms can end up on everyone’s plate.

Food-borne illness isn’t the only health threat from factory farms. Overuse of antibiotics can fuel the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the use of arsenic and growth hormones can increase the risk of cancer in people and crowded conditions can be a breeding ground for disease.

Chickens and hogs on factory farms have no access to the outdoors, fresh air or natural light. Cattle on factory farms do not graze on pasture. And the pressure put on animals to grow quicker and produce more meat or milk results in frequent health problems.

An interactive Factory Farm Map, a project of Food & Water Watch, gives the details on livestock operations down to the county level. Click on a state in the map and choose a county to learn the number of animals—whether cattle, dairy, hogs, broilers or layers—and the average per site over several years. The map has a key to show where the animal density levels are highest and you can filter the information for types of livestock. Below the map, you can choose a state for charts, rankings and facts specific to that area.