Lawmakers from across the Northeast are urging U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to strengthen enforcement and close loopholes in the National Organic Program that put regional farms at a disadvantage.
A bicameral, bipartisan letter from lawmakers, sent to Vilsack on Wednesday, said that the industry is vital to the region and that small and medium organic farms “serve as anchor businesses to many of our local rural economies.”
“For years, however, organic dairy farmers in our region have been put at a significant competitive disadvantage that is now threatening their livelihood and shaking consumer confidence in the organic label,” the letter said.
Recently, Danone, a Paris-based global food company and the owner of Horizon Organic, announced it would pull out of the Northeast United States starting next August, leaving 89 organic farmers without buyers for their milk. The news sent shockwaves through the dairy industry, which was already teetering because rising production costs have outpaced consumer prices.
In Vermont, 28 farmers received letters saying that their Danone contracts would be terminated on Aug. 31, 2022.
“Danone appears to be consolidating their supply to prioritize more concentrated producers for transportation economies and abandoning smaller and more dispersed family farms,” the letter from lawmakers said.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who helped develop the national organic rules when he chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee, led the effort, along with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.
“Nearly every lawmaker who represents the farmers impacted by Horizon’s withdrawal from the region” signed the letter, according to a statement from Leahy’s office.
Organic farmers earn a premium for their product, which makes it possible for them to operate on a small scale. Due to the loopholes, larger farms have also been able to earn that premium, making it more difficult for Northeastern organic farms to compete and prompting the same “get big or get out” dynamic that’s occurred in conventional farming.
Farms in the Northeast can’t typically reach the large scales of farms farther west because of the mountainous, forested landscape and limited availability of land where they are situated.
“We ask that the U.S. Department of Agriculture use whatever funding sources and programs necessary to support organic farmers in our region during this period of market upheaval,” the letter said.
Currently, a loophole in the national rules allows young livestock that are raised conventionally to be transitioned to organic later in life. While the rule was designed to allow conventional farmers to make a one-time transition to organic processes, some farmers have been raising livestock conventionally on a regular basis.
The Origin of Livestock Rule, initiated in 2015, would allow farmers to make that transition only once.
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