Organic Valley is dedicated to being transparent with our citizen-partners about our cooperative—below you will find our response to the recent Cornucopia Egg Report and Scorecard including important information about our egg program and corrections to misinformation.
Organic Valley currently has 75 egg farmer-owners. Flocks range between 650 and 17,500 hens with an average flock of 5,297 birds—very small when compared to conventional caged bird houses that often have between 100,000 and 250,000 hens. You can view our Flock Size Chart by clicking here.
Organic Valley’s Dedication to Access to the Outdoors
Organic Valley agrees that the National Organic Program needs to clarify their access to the outdoors standard for poultry. Organic Valley believes access to the outdoors is an important tenet of organic production, and we have our own standard that goes above and beyond the National Organic Standards.
We require our farmer-owners to provide 1.75 square feet per bird indoors and five square feet per bird outdoors. Organic Valley egg farmers have implemented a set of Animal Care Guidelines that address humane animal treatment practices on their farms. All Organic Valley egg farmers provide scratch areas, roosts, plenty of nests, a mixed organic food ration and constant access to clean water.
Our Egg Farmer-Owner in California
An exception to our access to the outdoors standard is made for our egg farmer-owner in California, where state veterinarians and the California Department of Agriculture strongly advocate that birds not have free-range outdoor access because of the serious risk of Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease transmission. Their organic certifier, Oregon Tilth, approves of their outdoor access practices.
Our California farmer-owner has screened houses with exceptional air quality, lots of natural light, and adequate indoor space and roosts for their birds. The birds are healthy and look great.
We have always been transparent about this exception to our standard and, when this producer joined our cooperative, we posted information about their outdoor to access practices on our Transparency page.
Before welcoming this farm family into our cooperative, we spent 18 months researching, visiting the farm, examining the health of the birds and assessing whether this was an egg producer of high organic integrity. This family farm that has been in the egg business for multiple generations. They have produced organic eggs with high quality animal husbandry for 26 years. We are proud to have this farm family as a member of our cooperative.
Organic Valley and Certified-Organic Pullets
Some of our egg farmer-owners raise their own pullets but most purchase them from farmers who focus on raising pullets. Organic Valley has a set of recommended practices for raising pullets and our farmers have elected to keep pullet sourcing outside of the cooperative. All pullet farmers that our farmers source from are certified organic.
Organic Valley’s Participation in the Egg Report and Scorecard
Although Organic Valley continues to score “very good” or better in the Cornucopia Institute’s scorecards, our Farmer-Owner Board of Directors has chosen not to participate in surveys, based on single party, subjective interpretations of organic, which disparage organic and attack other organic producers—Cornucopia Institute’s communication tactics lack community spirit and have little tolerance for “continual improvement,” a tenet of the organic standards.
Organic Valley has reviewed the questions in Cornucopia’s egg survey and made sure that all of the information asked for in the survey (with the exception of our egg farmers’ contact information) is available to our citizen-partners on our website. Please continue to tour our website for more information about our eggs and much more about our cooperative.
Inaccuracies about Organic Valley in the Egg Report and Scorecard
1. The report states that “in one case, a 12,000-hen facility near Genoa, Wisconsin, less than five miles from the cooperative’s CEO’s home, had absolutely no access to the outdoors for any of their birds, nor do they pro- vide any natural light within the facility.” This is simply not true. In fact, this farmer-owner has 10,000 birds in a house with windows lining one side, which allow for plenty of natural light and four doors giving ample access to the outdoors.
2. The report states that “[Organic Valley’s] members are generally small, and the cooperative historically had a limit of 10,000 birds per house. This has since been modified, and some of their farms house as many as 17,000 birds per building.” It is not correct that we modified our bird per house limit, we have always preferred houses with 10,000 birds or less and for farmers that want to have more, our Farmer-Owner Egg Executive Committee must approve.
Thank you for taking the time to read. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at 1-888-444-MILK or email organic@organicvalley.coop.
