United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a National Organic Program, which issued a notification that herds in organic dairy farming should have access to open pastures. Thus factory farms which confine the animals to a single place and feed them with organic feed, do not qualify for organic labeling according to these regulations.
NOP’s notification on access to pastures is justified given the fact that pasture grazed cows have more CLA, Omega 3 and vitamins in their milk than fodder fed cows.
USDA has also removed its 80/20 herd conversion rule. This rule allowed dairies to convert their non-organic production to organic by feeding the animals on 80% organic feed for 9 months and 100% organic feed for 3 months. The Harvey v. Johanns lawsuit has forced USDA to remove this rule and shift the conversion criterion to 100% organic feed for 12 months. The new rules will be effective from June 9, 2007.
The National Organic Standards Board has found that many organic milk manufacturers are violating the USDA guidelines and are labeling milk obtained from fodder fed cows as organic. The board has hence urged USDA to implement the regulations pertaining to organic dairy production in a stringent manner.
