Friends of Rural New York

Organic foods are good for our children and they help preserve our rural environment.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that one of the main sources of pesticide exposure for U.S. children comes from the food they eat.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, half of produce currently tested in grocery stores contains measurable residues of pesticides. Laboratory tests of eight industry-leader baby foods reveal the presence of 16 pesticides, including three carcinogens.

According to EPA’s “Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment,” children receive 50% of their lifetime cancer risks in the first two years of life.

In blood samples of children aged 2 to 4, concentrations of pesticide residues are six times higher in children eating conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables compared with those eating organic food.

(Sources and more facts here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/wic-faq.pdf)

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An Associated Press news article reported that an Idaho county commissioner is filing a RICO racketeering lawsuit against businesses that hire illegal workers. Illegal aliens cost taxpayers millions of dollars for education, social services and law enforcement. Basically, hiring illegal workers is another way that businesses externalize their costs to the community.
We mention this in light of the recent unfortunate drowning of a farm worker at Willet Dairy in Cayuga County. It turned out that the worker was an illegal immigrant as were his companions.  It is suspected that a large percentage of laborers on factory farms are illegal workers.
Curiously, when factory farms present their rationale to politicians they claim that they are contributing to the local economy. In a stunning display of shortsightedness, politicians and residents accept the rationale. Factory farms often hire illegals. They get the cheaper labor. We pay the costs.

Newsday writer, Sylvia Carter, switches to grass fed meat.

Let me say it plainly. This whole mad cow thing has gone far enough.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture keeps saying the United States has the safest beef supply in the world, but last month, a long seven months after material from the brain of a suspect Texas cow first tested positive for mad cow, the public learned that the cow did, indeed, have bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the scientific name for mad cow disease. That was seven months too long.

After the first test, the cow’s tissue had been rechecked using what the USDA called the “gold standard test,” and that indicated no disease. The USDA claimed the earlier, positive test had been “experimental.”

But in June, a third and more sensitive test, conducted in Weybridge, England, finally confirmed without doubt that the cow had BSE.

Maybe you missed this news. Many newspapers buried it or did not even run a first-day story. To their credit, newspapers such as the Des Moines Register and the Los Angeles Times, in states where there are lots of cattle, did let their readers know about the “mad cow.”

The finding was significant, because this was the first confirmed case of the disease in an animal born and bred in the United States. This time, there was no blaming Canada.

The USDA maintains, however, that there are no proven human cases of illness as a result of people consuming meat from cattle that had BSE.

Maybe that’s true, but why take any chances? Why not test every cow, as Japan does? How gullible we, the public, must seem to the authorities. Only about 1 percent of the cows that are slaughtered are tested, so how would the USDA know? Reassurances ring hollow.

Remember some other things the government has told us? The Food and Drug Administration approved Vioxx as safe, and our government once insisted that Agent Orange was nothing to worry about. Neither turned out to be true. Already, we know that the USDA’s supposed “gold standard” test for mad cow may have been standard but was far from golden. Only last month did the USDA finally bow to pressure, mostly from Consumers Union, for a third test. That one gave the positive confirmation.

As the Los Angeles Times said in an editorial earlier this month, “The more federal officials downplay mad cow disease, the scarier things get.”

The 12-year-old cow in this case, a “downer” (one that couldn’t walk), showed up in November at a Texas slaughterhouse, dead on arrival. It was left for use as pet food; downer cattle are not butchered for human consumption.

That’s good, so far as it goes, but there is no proof that downer cattle are the only cattle likely to have the disease.

In the wake of this case, the feds have agreed to use the most accurate and sensitive Western Blot Test along with the so-called gold standard immunohistochemistry test when confirming a suspect case. That is good, too.

There is a ban on feeding of beef and its byproducts directly to cattle. That, too, is good, because it prevents possible animal material that carries mad cow disease from being recycled. But such byproducts still can be put into feed given to pigs and chickens, and waste left after butchering chickens, including leftover poultry feed containing cattle meal, can be fed to cattle.

Hello. If we are what we eat, so are animals. And we eat them. You see where this line of reasoning is going, don’t you? As someone who grew up on a farm, I know that 50 years ago, farmers would have been as likely to feed such things to cattle as they would have been to fly to the moon.

Cattle’s natural food is grass; in winter, it’s hay, often combined with corn and other grain, but never with other animals.

There is only one explanation for feeding animal parts to animals: greed. After all, so corporate-farm thinking goes, if you can take something that had no value and turn it into animal feed, you are ahead of the game.

There is no excuse, either, for the government’s secrecy. At first, they hushed up news of November’s positive test. Then, last month, when we learned the truth, they refused to say where the cow had lived. In CounterPunch, an online, liberal-leaning political newsletter, John Stauber asked on June 29 in an open letter to Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns if there was any truth to the rumor that the USDA would “soon print a photo of U.S. mad cow #2 [’Cow Jane Doe’] onto the side panel of milk cartons? ... Are you hoping that some member of the milk-drinking or cow-milking public will recognize her image on a carton and call you?”

As the L.A. Times said, “the Bush administration has been dragged ... into every protective step.” Example: Two years ago then-Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced plans for a national system to track animals coming to the nation’s feed lots. It never happened.

Some time ago, I began to feel queasy about eating beef that received dubious feed. I sought sources of grass-fed beef or organic meat. Now, my freezer holds pork and lamb from Valley Farmers upstate, and beef short ribs from Amish farmers in Pennsylvania. All the animals were grass-fed and never ate junk. Sometimes, I saw the pastures where the animals grazed, and the bales of sweet-smelling hay that would become their winter meals.

I buy milk directly from farmers, too, and it comes from pastured cows. I buy eggs from farms where hens roam about eating juicy insects and other natural food. I took a share in an organic farm, which supplies me with vegetables all summer. I’m almost liberated from the supermarket. With a farmer and a handshake, I can establish a trust that is lacking with a government that prefers to keep me and every consumer in the dark.

Others are like-minded. Sales of organic milk, for example, are soaring so fast that the supply can hardly keep pace.

Whether you want to go to the trouble of finding alternative meat sources (it’s not too hard; just Google “grass-fed"), you can join in demanding that the government take these actions:

Require that all cattle more than 20 months old be tested at slaughter for mad cow. Even test animals that seem healthy.

Ban animal feed ingredients that may transmit mad cow, closing loopholes in rules that now allow feeding of bone meal, cow’s blood and chicken coop floor waste to livestock.

Enforce the proposed tracking system.

Allow cattle farmers who want to test all their cattle to do so; the USDA has barred Creekstone Farms, a Kansas meat packer, from such testing on the rather dubious basis that testing of younger cattle is unwarranted. Testing of all animals would have enabled the packer to market its meat in Japan.

To lower risks, you also can buy ground meat that a butcher grinds in front of you, so you know it came from a larger cut and thus contains no material from the spine, brain or central nervous system, which have the highest risk of infection. Avoid processed beef products, such as sausages and hot dogs, that are made using machines that scour a cow carcass for all available meat of any kind.

Or go the grass-fed route. I patronize Valley Farmers, a cooperative near Millbrook, N.Y. Visit http://www.valleyfarmers .com or call 845-868-1826.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

Business calls it “shoddy science” (this is what they usually do- name calling instead of reasoned debate)

Issue Date: July 6, 2005

By Ching Lee
Assistant Editor

Dairy producers in the San Joaquin Valley expressed frustration and dismay over the latest findings that suggest their farms produce more smog than cars.

The findings were released last week by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which proposed an emission factor quantifying smog-forming gases from the valley’s 2.5 million dairy cows. If adopted by the California Air Resources Board, the proposed estimate of 20.6 pounds of volatile organic compounds per animal per year would be used in determining how many dairies in the eight-county San Joaquin air basin will require air quality permits.

Prior to this news, the air board established a new state rule that requires dairies with 1,000 or more cows be regulated for air quality. By using the 1,000-cow threshold to define “large confined animal facilities,” local air districts will have until July 1, 2006 to adopt rules that require these facilities to reduce their emissions.
See California Farm Bureau: Ag Alert Archives 2005
http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=390&ck=A01A0380CA3C61428C26A231F0E49A09

Spokesperson for Rochester activist group is fired by Wegman’s auditing firm.

Jodi Chemes who is a spokesperson for Compassionate Consumers has been fired from her job at Deloitte and Touche. The activist group filmed atrocities at Wegmans egg factory.
Why would Wegmans object to a video documenting their treatment of laying hens?
Take a look at the video and judge for yourself.
See: http://www.wegmanscruelty.com/

See http://www.foodlinkny.org

Senator Clinton, Foodlink and others launch major initiative to expand markets for
New York’s farmers and growers

Rochester, NY, July 11, 2005 – U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today joined Foodlink - the foodbank of the Genesee Valley and Finger Lakes region - to launch the Farm-to-Fork Fulfillment Center partnership to facilitate the distribution of locally grown produce from at least 10 counties in the Greater Rochester and Finger Lakes region to markets in the state’s regional centers and beyond. The partnership is a result of Senator Clinton’s Farm to Fork initiative in conjunction with Foodlink and others.

At a press conference at Foodlink’s headquarters in Rochester, Senator Clinton and Foodlink spoke of how, by utilizing their regional food bank assets, Foodlink will act as a facilitator to help local farmers ship quality fresh produce from their farms to a central location in the City of Rochester. Growers can then sell their quality produce in local upstate markets or, with the help of distributors coordinated by Foodlink, take it to retailers, restaurants and more, in New York City and beyond.

BANNING LOCAL DEMOCRACY
Consumers and farmers in California and New England have been taking action over the past year to protect their local communities from genetic pollution by passing local, city, and county ordinances banning genetically engineered (GE) crops. Cities, counties and townships that have passed such laws say this regulatory need stems from the fact that organic farmers and non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) farmers have been increasingly losing money every year as GMO pollen from neighboring fields contaminates their crops. In response to these ordinances, the biotech industry and corporate agribusiness are striking back with a vengeance. At least 12 states have recently passed “Monsanto laws” taking away the rights of cities and counties to ban GE crops. Now legislators in California, the nation’s most important agricultural producer, are responding to the lobbying power of the biotech industry and are threatening to pass a controversial law that would take away local rights to regulate GMOs. The OCA is actively involved in trying to stop these “Monsanto Laws” from being passed . Get involved: http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge-free.htm

MSNBC.com
What We Owe What We Eat
Why, Matthew Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference?

By George F. Will
Newsweek

July 18 issue - Matthew Scully, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, is the most interesting conservative you have never heard of. He speaks barely above a whisper and must be the mildest disturber of the peace. But he is among the most disturbing.

If you value your peace of mind, not to mention your breakfast bacon, you should not read Scully’s essay ‘’Fear Factories: The Case for Compassionate Conservatism—for Animals.” It appeared in the May 23, 2005, issue of Pat Buchanan’s magazine The American Conservative—not where you would expect to find an essay arguing that industrial livestock farming involves vast abuses that constitute a serious moral problem.

The disturbing facts about industrial farming by the $125 billion-a-year livestock industry—the pain-inflicting confinements and mutilations—have economic reasons. Ameliorating them would impose production costs that consumers would pay. But to glimpse what consumers would be paying to stop, visit factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm. Or read Scully on the miseries inflicted on billions of creatures ‘’for our convenience and pleasure”:

“... 400- to 500-pound mammals trapped without relief inside iron crates seven feet long and 22 inches wide. They chew maniacally on bars and chains, as foraging animals will do when denied straw… The pigs know the feel only of concrete and metal. They lie covered in their own urine and excrement, with broken legs from trying to escape or just to turn ...”

It is, Scully says, difficult, especially for conservatives, to examine cruelty issues on their merits, or even to acknowledge that something serious can be at stake where animals are concerned. This is partly because some animal-rights advocates are so off-putting. See, for example, the Feb. 3, 2003, letter that Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—animals other than humans—sent to the terrorist Yasir Arafat, complaining that an explosive-laden donkey was killed when used in a Jerusalem massacre.

The rhetoric of animal “rights” is ill-conceived. The starting point, says Scully, should be with our obligations—the requirements for living with integrity. In defining them, some facts are pertinent, facts about animals’ emotional capacities and their experience of pain and happiness. Such facts refute what conservatives deplore—moral relativism. They do because they demand a certain reaction and evoke it in good people, who are good because they consistently respect the objective value of fellow creatures.

It may be true that, as has been said, the Puritans banned bearbaiting not because it gave pain to the bears but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. And there are indeed degrading pleasures. But to argue for outlawing cruelty to animals because it is bad for the cruel person’s soul is to accept, as Scully does not, that man is the only concern.

Statutes against cruelty to animals, often imposing felony-level penalties, codify society’s belief that such cruelty is an intrinsic evil. This is a social affirmation of a strong moral sense in individuals who are not vicious. It is the sense that even though the law can regard an individual’s animal as the individual’s property, there nevertheless are certain things the individual cannot do to that property. Which means it is property with a difference.

The difference is the capacity for enjoyment and suffering. So why, Scully asks, is cruelty to a puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference? There cannot be any intrinsic difference of worth between a puppy and a pig.

Animal suffering on a vast scale should, he says, be a serious issue of public policy. He does not want to take away your BLT; he does not propose to end livestock farming. He does propose a Humane Farming Act to apply to corporate farmers the elementary standards of animal husbandry and veterinary ethics: “We cannot just take from these creatures, we must give them something in return. We owe them a merciful death, and we owe them a merciful life.”

Says who? Well, Scully replies, those who understand “Judeo-Christian morality, whose whole logic is one of gracious condescension, or the proud learning to be humble, the higher serving the lower, and the strong protecting the weak.”

Yes, of course: You don’t want to think about this. Who does? But do your duty: read his book ‘’Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.” Scully, a conservative and hence a realist, knows that man is not only a rational creature but a rationalizing creature, putting his intellectual nimbleness in the service of his desires. But refraining from cruelty is an objective obligation. And as Scully says, ‘’If reason and morality are what set humans apart from animals, then reason and morality must always guide us in how we treat them.”

You were warned not to read this. Have a nice day.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8525632/site/newsweek/page/2/

This is the DEC response to a citizen’s inquiry about the Barton dairy CAFO. Barton is a head honcho with the County Farm Bureau.

Here are some numbers from the DEC on the number of cows housed at the Church Street Dairy Farm in Eden, NY:

320 milking cows. (Jim Vogel Region 9 DEC, 1999 permit numbers)

“Up to 699 animals” (Bill Smythe Region 9 DEC)

“380 dairy cows and 160 heifers” (woman at DEC on telephone)

“360 milking cows and permitted for up to 699” (T. S . Manickham DEC Administration region 9)

“Over 600 cows” “Doubled in size” (talk around town)

We can loan them an abacus if they need it.

Funds should shift to environmental and economic development programs.

National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” featured a story (July 11) on commodity subsidies and green payments. 

A FOLLOWUP Was AIRED ON JUly 11 “All Things Considered”. 

The Morning Edition story can be heard at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4735566 ;

Or follow the link on the NPR homepage today (http://www.npr.org). There is more in the audio story than shows up in the written synopsis.

There was remarkable consensus among participants at the Agricultural Policy Summit organized by and held at Iowa State University last week.  Iowa’s congressional delegation (both political parties), farm organizations (including the Iowa Farm Bureau and others), ISU faculty, and NGO’s all indicated a need for major change in the current farm support system, ranging from commodity payment limits to a significant shift of funds to environmental and rural development programs.  The rural development emphasis was strong, since the current Farm Bill is doing little to stimulate job growth and stabilize rural communities, the top priority for most participants.  Summaries of the summit will be available when completed through the ISU College of Agriculture web site.

National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture
110 Maryland Avenue, Suite 306
Washington, DC 20002
Phone:  202-544-5466

http://www.sustainableagriculture.net

Could someone explain why the Ithaca Journal, which sits on the doorstep of the largest dairy CAFO in the Northeast prints this article and makes no comment about the neighbors complaints about Willet Dairy CAFO?????????

Ithaca Journal

By TAMMY WEBBER
Gannett News Service
ANDREWS, Ind. — Family barbecues are a thing of the past at Don and Jackie Lindsey’s rural Huntington County, Ind. home because their grandchildren no longer want to visit — and the Lindseys don’t blame them.

They never know when the stench from a nearby 1,400-cow dairy will ruin their plans, like the outdoor Easter egg hunt they canceled this spring.

Fumes sometimes burn their eyes and noses and make them gag. Odors generated by millions of gallons of manure stored in an uncovered lagoon and spread on surrounding fields force them to stay indoors with windows closed, even on the nicest days.

“If we go outside, it can smell so bad it makes your nose hurt to inhale. It’s so thick, you feel like you can almost taste it,â€? said Jackie Lindsey, as several neighbors gathered in her home’s glass-enclosed patio nodded in agreement.

Such complaints, and emotionally charged battles, are becoming routine as the livestock industry shifts from small family enterprises to super-sized operations — some with millions of chickens, tens of thousands of turkeys or hogs or thousands of cows.

Some of the farms — called confined animal feeding operations because the animals never leave the barn — are capable of emitting more ammonia than all major industrial factories in the state combined, based on emissions estimates developed by researchers.

Laws strictly limit emissions at most industrial factories, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not regulate farm air pollution because rural air pollution has not been studied extensively. The EPA earlier this year made a controversial agreement exempting livestock farms from Clean Air Act rules until an industry-funded study is completed to measure emissions around farms.

“You don’t regulate without some science to regulate from,â€? said Terry Fleck, executive vice president of the Indiana Pork Producers Association. “We don’t know the (exact) level of emissions coming from the operations, so we need that information.â€?

Residents and environmentalists across the state have begun demanding changes, starting with a moratorium on new confined farms until health and environmental questions are resolved.

And answers couldn’t come too soon — because the stage is set for even more dissension.

Gov. Mitch Daniels has given the state’s new Agriculture Department the goal of doubling hog production within five years. He also signed a law limiting citizens’ ability to file nuisance lawsuits against farms and is discouraging counties from adopting regulations more stringent than the state’s.

Although most livestock operations receive no complaints, large farms increasingly are meeting resistance from family farmers and transplanted suburbanites. Those calling for more regulation say agriculture is important, but the new farms cannot be compared to traditional farms.

“I call them factory farms, because I think that is the essential message,â€? said Rae Schnapp, water quality expert at the Hoosier Environmental Council. “Everything is getting more mechanized, but corporate-scale, industrial-scale farms are different from what we’ve seen throughout our history

Dr. Arden Nelson and his wife, Dr. Meg Cattell, are owners of Windsor Dairy, which produces and sells organic milk products under the Organic Valley Rocky Mountain Pastures label. Their 1,000-acre farm boasts 400 cows that produce 16,000 gallons of milk a week. The dairy also is working with Fort Collins’ Bingham Cheese Co. to produce gourmet cheeses.

Couple say organic products are all about healthier animals

By Linda Black, Special to the News
July 5, 2005

Veterinarians Dr. Meg Cattell and Dr. Arden Nelson have dedicated their careers to studying and promoting preventive medicine and nutrition for animals, specifically dairy cattle. It’s an interest that has led them to research, teaching, clinical practice and consulting.

Now the married couple is applying more than 20 years of education, research and scientific theory to a very practical venture. In 2000, they started Windsor Dairy, a 1,000-acre spread in Northern Colorado that sells organic milk under the Organic Valley Rocky Mountain Pastures label. The dairy boasts about 400 cows that produce 16,000 gallons of milk a week. Its milk products are sold through Stinton Dairy and the Whole Foods distribution system.

“It fits perfectly with what we were doing (in veterinary medicine),” Cattell says, adding that organic milk production is all about maintaining healthy animals. “We figured we had a good chance to do it right.”

They certainly had the background.

Cattell, who worked on her grandfather’s dairy farm in her youth, received degrees in veterinary medicine, epidemiology and environmental health from Colorado State University. As a Fulbright Scholar, she studied dairy farms in India. She also worked at dairies in England and Scotland and conducted archaeological reconstruction on an Iron Age farm in Great Britain. All of which, she says, “fits into a longstanding interest in farming systems.”

After graduating from veterinary school, Cattell developed an interest in preventive medicine, specifically in dairy cattle. That led to conducting clinical trials for private companies as well as CSU, where she was on the affiliate faculty. Cattell is board certified in dairy clinical practice.

Nelson, a native of Bemidji, Minn., also spent summers on his grandfather’s dairy farm, received his veterinary degree from the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine and practiced in upstate New York, where he studied and then taught preventive medicine and nutrition.

Cattell says it was inevitable that she and Nelson would ultimately go into dairy farming.

“We went to vet school to become farmers,” she says.

In 2002, they transitioned from traditional dairy farming to organic. Cattell maintains the core difference is “very philosophical,” that organic dairy farming is about sustainability and adapting to the environment.

It’s a system that starts from the “ground up,” she adds, starting with improving the soil, selecting the right crops and designing a grazing system. The cows are outside. They’re grazing and putting manure on the pastures, she says. “It’s a much more natural system.”

To adapt to the region, Cattell says, the operation is breeding Holstein cows with Brown Swiss and Tarentaise cattle, which come from the Alps and are, therefore, hardy in the cold and used to high elevations. The pastures are planted with perennial grasses that are well-adapted to the area and build up organic matter that holds moisture.

“That’s a good example of finding something that works for the livestock and that’s good for the environment,” she says.

At the same time, they have adopted a rotational grazing system, in which all the cows are put on a different small fenced two- to three-acre pasture each morning to graze and are moved to another pasture in the afternoon. That allows the cows to eat the grasses down to the ground and move on. The grasses grow back in a few weeks and the cows can return.

The couple also plant winter crops, such as rye and triticale, so the cows can graze year-round.

Cattell says pasture grazing not only keeps the cows healthier but also makes the milk they produce healthier.

Benefits include higher levels of Omega 3 fatty acids, antioxidants and conjugated linoleic acid in the milk, she says.

“The nutritive value from grass-fed cows is phenomenal,” Cattell adds.

She says conjugated linoleic acid is a potent anti-cancer agent and notes that grass-fed cows have 20 times higher levels of CLA in their milk.

“That’s very exciting to us,” she says.

The focus is to keep animals healthy through nutrition, which then leads to keeping people healthy through nutrition.

“We’re very excited about that idea, and there’s some great science behind it,” Cattell says. “We see it as a growing trend.”

In December, Cattell and Nelson made a move that allows them to focus all their attention on the farm. They became members of a farmer-owned cooperative, Organic Valley, based in La Farge, Wis., which represents 689 dairy farmers in 20 states. The cooperative handles just about everything on the business side of the operation.

“This way we can focus on being a farmer,” Cattell says.

The cooperative picks up the milk from the farmers, manages the processing plants, markets and sells the milk, distributes it and writes the farmer a check, says Theresa Marquez, director of public affairs and chief marketing executive for Organic Valley.

“We do all the arrangements for the farmers,” she says. “All they have to do is provide us with quality milk.”

The price paid to its farmers ranges from 15 percent to 50 percent higher than the price conventional farmers generally get, she says.

And it’s a booming business.

Although organic milk makes up only 1.1 percent of the total milk market share, 29 million gallons of organic milk were sold between January and August in 2004, says Stephanie Smith, spokeswoman for the Western Dairy Council.

Eighteen brands of organic milk are sold at supermarkets across the United States, Smith says, but added the three major players - Organic Valley, Horizon Organic and Organic Cow - account for 83 percent of all organic milk sold in the supermarkets.

And the market keeps growing. Sales increased 21.8 percent between January and August 2004 compared to the same period in 2003, Smith says.

And through June of this year, organic milk sales are up 28 percent from the same period last year, according to Caragh McLaughlin, senior brand manager for Horizon Organic.

Organic Valley reports that its sales increased from $156 million in 2003 to $206 million in 2004. Marquez says the sale of organic dairy products increased 36 percent last year, and, when it comes to organic milk, there’s not enough to meet the growing demand.

Although she says she can’t pinpoint any one thing to explain its increasing popularity, she notes that about 70 percent of the new consumers are young mothers.

She speculates that the “cautionary principle” may be a factor: They’d rather be safe than sorry when it comes to possible risks involved with the pesticides used in conventional dairy farming.

McLaughlin, of Horizon Organic, also believes more consumers are concerned with the impact of diet on their overall heath.

“In a study we conducted earlier this year, we found 87 percent of Americans said they plan to practice healthier eating habits this year, and of those, 45 percent plan to do so by adding more organic foods to their diet,” McLaughlin says.

Windsor Dairy

• What: Producer of Organic Valley Rocky Mountain Pastures milk products

• Where: Windsor

• Production: Dairy has 400 cows that produce 16,000 gallons of milk a week

• Owners: Dr. Meg Cattell and Dr. Arden Nelson

Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

New York Governor George Pataki has expressed his support of the Community Preservation Act, which would provide New York cities, towns and villages with a locally derived, dedicated source of revenue for funding local farmland protection and open space initiatives. The act would allow local governments to impose a real estate transfer fee of up to two percent to fund the preservation of open space, agricultural land and other natural areas. Over decade, New York State has protected more than 910,000 acres of open space and created new parks and recreational facilities. This legislation will provide all communities with the means to build on and continue this work on the local level. The Governor submitted his version of the Community Preservation Act legislation to the New York State

Senate and the New York State Assembly on May 20. (CCE News June 21)

Egg Factory in Wolcott, NY featured in 30 minute film.
You can download the film from their website.

7/2/05

Wegmans is denying accusations that it’s mistreating hundreds of thousands of chickens to sell eggs. The vegetarian activist group Compassionate Consumers is admitting to breaking in to the Wegmans egg farm in Wayne County. The groups say it wants to show consumers what’s going on. The activist group wants to point out it’s not just Wegmans egg farms that are abusive to birds, but 98% of wire cage farms across the country.
See:
http://www.wegmanscruelty.com/

The old fashioned way yields a better tasting milk- cows are far less stressed.

Fresh from farm

Dutchess farmer joins distributor to sell milk in local stores

By Craig Wolf
Poughkeepsie Journal

July 3, 2005
At first glance, news that fresh local milk is now being bought by local families in local stores hardly seems like news.

Isn’t that the way it always works?

Not necessarily.

Most milk travels a longer way and a longer time before it gets to you, even if some of it came from the few dairy farms remaining in Dutchess County. And, getting strictly local milk is difficult as much of the local milk is mixed with other milk before being bottled and distributed to local food stores.

So Sam Simon put a stake in the ground here at his Plankenhorn Farm and, with a nonprofit group called Hudson Valley Fresh, decided to take one good shot at revitalizing the ebbing economics of the dairy industry.

Through Hudson Valley Fresh, local milk is being sold at local markets.

“It is really to preserve farmers that want to go on,” Simon said.

Eventually, Hudson Valley Fresh plans to sell other farm products, including produce and meats.

Simon is a retired orthopedic surgeon who was born and raised on a farm in Middletown. He bought this 150-acre spread on Gretna Road to do what he loves and see if a band of visionaries could make a difference. The goals: help farmers, preserve agricultural open space, keep money in the local economy and make your milk fresher and better.

It’s early, but that difference has begun to show up on local shelves in plastic half-gallon bottles with a typical price of $2.69, about halfway between lower mass-market milk prices and the premium cost of organic milks. The jugs bear a simple, straightforward name that tells the story: Hudson Valley Fresh.

To accomplish this, the group has had to restore what was once the norm: a local distribution system. A refrigerated truck, bought this spring with a $65,000 grant from the Dutchess County Industrial Development Agency, solves this problem.

Milk is delivered within 36 hours of milking. Participating farms must meet standards for cleanliness, how cows are treated and avoidance of bovine somatotropin hormones, commonly called BST or BGH, which much of the commercial milk industry uses to increase how much milk the cows give.

Quantity doesn’t mean quality, and Simon said it often runs in reverse. The old-fashioned way, he said, yields a better-tasting milk. Because it’s not traveling for hundreds of miles and sitting for days, it needs minimal pasteurization, the cooking process that destroys bacteria but changes the flavor, he said.

The milk is not organic, but Simon believes consumers should note two points.

First, the cows are fed a varied diet that includes corn, oats and grazing time in the fields. Also, they typically get 15 pounds of hay a day to produce a lot of cud chewing, which is normal cow behavior. Big-scale operations feed less hay, he said, preferring a very rich diet partly because it takes less labor to feed it to the cattle.

Second, Simon points to a more technical measure called somatic cell count, commonly used in the industry to see how stressed the cows are from disease or other factors. The federal government allows the count to run as high as 750,000 cells per milliliter, but Hudson Valley Fresh requires counts below 200,000.

Technical talk aside, what it means is that the milk tastes better, said Susie Gibbs, hired recently as executive director for the organization.

“People say it tastes like the milk they remember when they were kids,” Gibbs said.

Product ‘taking off’

Renee Ricciardi, manager of the K&D Deli in Salt Point, said “It’s been taking off,” and was sold out when interviewed Thursday. She’s also tried it for herself and family.

“It’s more creamier. It’s more of a cleaner taste,” she said. “It’s not watered down. My son tried the chocolate milk and it’s really thick.”

Only a few thousand pounds flow through this system now. A gallon of milk weighs about 8.6 pounds. The business is just a baby, with the first jugs hitting the market less than two months ago.

Gibbs rated it a very good start: “It’s beyond our wildest expectation,” she said.

As for the future, it looks big to Simon. The group’s vision is to grow volume twenty-fold, a target that can easily be handled by the six participating farms, the new refrigerated delivery truck and a processing deal with Ronnybrook Farms’ Ancramdale plant.

After that, Simon said, it could grow to up to 10 million pounds a year, reaching from Albany to New York City.

That would still be a niche market in the regional scale of things. New York state’s total production was about 12 billion pounds in 2003, according to tables published by the Department of Agriculture and Markets. Dutchess produced about 45 million pounds of milk in 2003, the department said.

One buyer is John Marona, whose family has run Marona’s IGA grocery in Millbrook for about 50 years, and who started stocking Hudson Valley Fresh milk recently.

“It’s been slow starting, but it’s building up fairly nicely,” Marona said. “They give us two or three deliveries a week. Everybody seems happy with it.”

“It’s something for the local farmers,” Marona said. “We’ve lost a great many good farms and we don’t like to see housing development on top of that nice land.”

Noah Katz, vice president of Foodtown Stores, based in New Jersey, took on the new milk label because he finds customers favor locally produced foods.

“I’m sure it’s going to become a big product,” Katz said.

‘Stay on the land’

Assemblyman Patrick Manning, R-East Fishkill, is one of the founders of Hudson Valley Fresh. He got into this from his work on open space preservation.

“The only way I was going to help save that farm down the road is to make sure that the farmer can stay on the land,” Manning said, “and to stay on the land, they’ve got to make money.”

Hudson Valley Fresh pays dairy farmers $20 per hundred pounds, of milk. That’s better than the $15 paid by Agri-Mark, the cooperative that is the usual buyer. Simon said the co-op price is expected to drop, too. Simon sees $20 as a floor price because Hudson Valley farmers need to get more than $19 to stay in business.

The set-up is unusual. Agri-Mark is still part of it, handling the transportation from farm to processor. But the milk from participating farms is not mixed with milk from other farms.

Ronnybrook pasteurizes, bottles and labels the milk. Hudson Valley Fresh buys this milk, which it then sells and trucks to the stores.

Keeping local farms alive will help the economy in another way, too. Tom Manning, a cousin of the assemblyman, works as a herdsman at Plankenhorn, and loves being on the farm for a job.

He believes others would take up the trade. “I’m sure there are plenty around who would if they could make a living,” he said.

Gibbs is promoting the milk to large chain stores and hopes to have successes to announce soon.

“We would love to be the milk supplier for the Hudson Valley,” she said.

Craig Wolf can be reached at