In the rolling hills of central Vermont on Wednesday, a tanker truck rolled backward into the driveway of the Rooney family’s organic dairy farm. Standing nearby, a group of farmers, state officials and staffers for Vermont’s federal delegates applauded.
Last summer, Horizon notified its 28 organic dairy farmers in Vermont and 89 in the Northeast that it would pull out of the region. With a glut of milk on the national market and loopholes in the organic program that have put small family farms at a disadvantage, the situation looked bleak for many of the Vermont farmers affected by the company’s decision.
“A year ago, we found out we didn’t have a place to ship our milk,” Selina Rooney, who runs the farm with her parents, told the crowd. “We were really worried about it. Things looked pretty dire.”
On Wednesday, after the driver sucked milk from the Rooneys’ barn into the truck through a large hose, the product was sent off to Organic Valley’s processing facility, rather than that of Horizon, which is now owned by the global food corporation Danone.
In March, Organic Valley announced it would take on many of the farmers dropped by Horizon and Maple Hill, which cut off another 46 farmers in New York, and on Wednesday, the group celebrated the beginning of those contracts.
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