Organic Valley in the News

Global food crisis calls for new viewpoint

The year was 1971. Janice Joplin and John Lennon sang to us, brave American soldiers died in Vietnam, and Frances Moore Lappé published her first book, "Diet for a Small Planet." She was 27.

After receiving a D on one of her English papers in graduate school, Lappé couldn’t imagine writing a book that would sell millions worldwide. Holed up in the University of California-Berkeley’s agricultural library, she simply wanted to answer her burning question: Why does world hunger exist?

Lappé hoped to produce a flier she could post around campus informing others of her newfound knowledge. But her inquisitive nature kept her questioning, and the handout grew to a booklet and then a book.

"Diet for a Small Planet" explains how a vegetarian-based diet can more responsibly manage the Earth’s resources and better provide food for all. However, in what she describes as an "oh my God moment," Lappé learned that hunger wasn’t the result of scarcity, but rather poverty, and our failure to provide fair and equal access to the world’s plentiful harvests.

Last weekend, and 16 books later, Lappé joined fellow food justice pioneers at the "Kickapoo Country Fair" in La Farge, Wis. On the grounds of Organic Valley headquarters, hundreds gathered to celebrate sustainable organic agriculture, farmers’ rights to choose independent farming and the 20th anniversary of North America’s largest organic farmers’ cooperative.

At Organic Valley’s helm is George Siemon, who "champions a system of farming that supports family farms, defends the ethical, humane treatment of farm animals, benefits the environment and gives consumers high-quality organic food."

Hospitals Rethinking Their Food Services As 'Preventive Medicine'

Madison hospitals are adding eco-friendly touches to their food services, joining a growing number of hospitals treating food as "preventive medicine," a national group says.

Meriter and St. Mary's have started buying produce from local farmers, and UW Hospital plans to do so soon, moves designed to offer healthier, fresher food to patients and workers.

St. Mary's, which got rid of Styrofoam cups last year, stopped offering water in plastic bottles in June. Meriter will eliminate Styrofoam cups next week, replacing them with cups made of sugar cane, potatoes and corn.

"This is important to our employees, our patients and our visitors," said Mae Knowles, Meriter spokeswoman. "Madison consumers are very in tune with this, probably more so than in a lot of other communities."

Meriter's food vendor has occasionally used local produce for a year, Knowles said. In July, she said, the hospital started buying Wisconsin-grown vegetables for its salad bar from Organic Valley Farms, based in La Farge.

Growing a Home (with Channel 15 video)

Their name is known across the country and is getting more popular by the day.

As the organic food movement gains momentum so too does the business community of one small city tucked away in Southwestern Wisconsin.

It has all the makings of your average county fair but as the people of La Farge will tell you, there's something special cooking here.

Organic Farmer Zach Biermann says, "It's a good opportunity to know and learn where your food comes from and it's right here in Wisconsin."

From their humble beginnings in an old creamery to a new building and a new co-op of 12-hundred farmers in 34 states, Organic Valley has always called the small city of La Farge home.

Organic farms keep growing

Organic farming can be more labor-intensive and expensive than conventional farming, but many Whatcom County farmers have discovered it’s well worth the effort.

Driven by strong demand for organic products and a healthy local market, these farmers have increased their production. The number of acres they farm has almost doubled since 2003, according to statistics from the Washington State University Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Eldridge Farms sells its milk to Organic Valley, a Wisconsin-based farmers’ co-op that distributes the milk regionally. Some vegetable and fruit growers sell to wholesalers in Seattle and Oregon, but most bring their products to local markets such as the Community Food Co-op and the Bellingham and Ferndale farmers markets, Hackett said.

Catching an amber wave

Set in the green hills of this dairy farming state, where a single white church spire rises in the distance, the Beidler family farm looks - and sounds - like an archetype of Vermont agriculture. Twice a day, farmer Brent Beidler calls his cows into the shingled barn for milking, a regular cycle that links him to the state's long dairy tradition.

But later this summer, in a sign of changing times across the region's rolling farmland, Beidler will do something new. He will climb into his big red combine to harvest an American staple rarely seen in a century in the Green Mountain State, wheat.

Spurred to action by sharply rising prices for transportation and animal feed, and surging consumer demand for locally grown foods, more farmers in New England are deciding to grow grains.

In the last five years, the number of Vermont farms producing traditional Midwestern crops, including wheat, rye, barley, oats, soybeans, and corn, has increased from a handful to as many as 15, and more are poised to join them, according to a state estimate. This spring, at a statewide grain-growers meeting where farmers formed a new group, the Northern Grain Growers Association, organizers had to turn away would-be participants after 80 to 100 people showed up, including some from Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Bishop Dairy Farm celebrates industry award

Going organic at Bishop Dairy Farm was truly a move to greener pastures, says the farm's now-smiling owner Gerald Bishop.

"I've been doing this for 50 years, and this is my best year ever," said Bishop, whose family a year ago shifted his dairy's milk sales to Organic Valley CROPP Cooperative.

The move saved the 100-Holstein dairy, making it the first state-certified organic milk producer in Jefferson County.

Before going organic, Gerald Bishop was selling his milk at the same price he got in the early 1970s.

The benefits of going organic included a substantial increase in the dairy's milk price, now at $27.30 per 100 pounds, which has increased more than $2 per 100 pounds over the past year to compensate for rising feed prices.

Cows aren't Legos: Sassy insights from an organic dairy farmer

"Cows aren't Legos," explains Jerri Cook, an organic dairy farmer and writer from the Wisconsin northwoods. "You can't just rearrange genetic parts and expect it to be a cow anymore."

Cook, along with her husband, Wayne, currently milk a herd of 25 cows, selling their milk to Organic Valley Family of Farms, the largest farmer-owned organic cooperative in the country. She represents the rural renaissance of farming women today: smart, sassy, steadfastly committed to educating about the importance of sustainable agriculture — and still the kind of gal who would warmly welcome you into her farmhouse kitchen for coffee, cheesecake and conversation.

Farming organically for over twenty-five years, the Cooks represent a small but dedicated group of farmers who have operated under these principles for their entire agriculture career. "Wayne's family always farmed organically, thanks to his independent grandparents who didn't want any part in what they saw as the government pushing chemicals," says Cook with a smile. "I grew up an army brat in Germany and never experienced conventional American agriculture. When you're never exposed to chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the concept logically doesn't make sense. We ourselves didn't want to eat food laced with that stuff; why would we ever sell it to anyone else?"

Organic rewards keep crop, dairy farm sustainable

For Daniel and Darlene Coehoorn, sustainability is more than staying away from chemicals and leaving the land in as good or better condition than they found it. It also is earning enough money from farm production to be able to stay in business without an off-farm job.

"We didn't even aspire to be organic when we moved here," said Mrs. Coehoorn of the 520 acres of land they own and rent in Fond du Lac County. "We slowly started to convert all the crop acres to organic, because we needed the money, and conventional crops weren't returning enough."

The couple bought the farm in 1989 and in 1994 had their first fields certified as being organic. Both agreed they wanted the crops to be organic, but Mrs. Coehoorn admitted to being leery about shifting their dairy herd.

Volatility in dairy business will begin to affect organic milk prices

Neighboring dairy farmers in Columbus, Wis., thought Jim Miller and his family had embarked on a path to bankruptcy when they decided to produce organic milk. How could you run a farm without chemicals and make milk for a market that barely existed?

That was over a decade ago, and the neighbors turned out to be wrong. Organic became the sweet spot of the milk business, providing farmers like Miller with more-stable prices, and often more profits, than conventional dairy operations.

But over the last year, the milk business has been turned on its head, with many organic farmers getting squeezed like never before and conventional dairy farmers enjoying the best of times. Meanwhile, consumers have seen prices for conventional milk post double-digit increases, but barely budge for the organic stuff.

That's beginning to change, though. Many of the same factors that sent conventional milk prices soaring climbing feed and fuel costs, for instance are also at work in the organic world. It just takes longer for rising costs to wend their way through the organic food market because of its relatively slow-moving pricing system.

Whipped Cream on Top: Relish the Flavors of Real Food

Real butter, real cream cheese, real food. Ecological nutritionist Joan Gussow put it succinctly: “As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.” I agree, craving direct connections to our food source, be it the cow or a crop.