By Elodie Reed
Organic dairy farmers are sounding the alarm: They need help. They're also trying to build a new, regional organic dairy cooperative.
Historically, organic milk has gone for a higher price than conventional milk. Raising dairy cows under organic standards is more expensive — you can't use antibiotics to treat cows, and have to use feed grown without chemicals.
But according to new federal data, the average retail price of a gallon of conventional whole milk is only 30 cents less than a half gallon of organic whole milk. That’s the smallest gap between the two products in five years.
And while organic milk prices are generally higher right now, organic farming organizations say the price farmers are receiving is not rising accordingly.
State data show that nine of Vermont’s organic dairy farms have stopped shipping milk since last year.
Organic farming nonprofits say more could leave the business, due to high feed and fuel costs, plus an increasingly non-competitive market after Horizon Organic's parent company, Danone North America, terminated its contracts in the Northeast. Only one organic dairy cooperative — Organic Valley — is left in the area.
“Something needs to be done immediately," said Ed Maltby, the executive director of Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA). "Otherwise, we're going to have large numbers of organic dairy farms leaving dairy, leaving organics, returning to conventional."
He added: "We're in a disaster situation... producers are having to pay grain bills with credit cards."
Proposed solutions
Maltby's organization and others are working on several solutions. For starters, they are seeking money from the federal government to go directly to farmers.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency (FSA) sent in September, NODPA and nine other organizations are asking for a "short-term targeted solution using federal funds."
"The organic dairy industry is an important economic engine in the [N]ortheast and organic dairies serve as anchor businesses to many local rural economies," the letter reads. "Organic agriculture is also a climate-smart system of agriculture worthy of federal investment and support."
Maltby says the FSA has not responded. The federal agency did not return an email from Vermont Public.
More from Vermont Public: Vermont Organic Dairy Farms Fight To Survive As Industry Consolidates
In the longer-term, NODPA and other organizations want the 2023 Farm Bill to include a safety net program specifically for organic dairy farmers. Maltby says the Dairy Margin Coverage Program, based on the gap between conventional dairy prices and conventional production costs, doesn't always work in organic dairy farms' favor.
"If the conventional market is doing badly, then organic dairies can benefit from it by signing up. If it's doing well like it has in the last year, then there is no coverage, because [conventional] margins have been very good this year," he said. "And what we're pushing for now is something that can be based on organic cost of production and organic pay price."
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