See Where Your Food Comes From
You want to know where your food comes from (as you should!) and we want to show you. Organic Valley® products start on our organic family farms where cows are always pasture-raised and treated with care. Because we believe wholesome, delicious dairy comes from happy animals that live in harmony with the rhythm of the land. Choose your region below to learn about the farms and farmers near you.
See It to Believe It
We’ve always been proud to show our work. Our cows graze, our farmers care, and now, you can see it for yourself, from wherever you are. Meet some of the farmers (and cows) behind your milk.
Select Your Region. Find Your Farm.
Midwest
Midwest
Organic Valley grew out of rich, Midwest earth nearly 40 years ago. Our headquarters are still here in La Farge, Wisconsin, population 746. Our Midwest farmers work hard to keep the country’s breadbasket full and sustainable by making it organic. The grazing is lush and the soil’s fertile, which is nothing but good news for the farmers and the land and animals they care for.
Featured Farmers
Grazing Acres
Koester Organic Acres
Tranel Family Farms, LLC
Your Milk Money Makes a Difference
Our Animals Spend Lots of Time Outside
Our organic family farmers work hard to create an environment where animals experience the five freedoms of animal welfare and freely express their natural behaviors, like grazing, foraging, roaming, and playing on pasture. Our cows spend at least 120 days outside on pasture under the requirements of the USDA National Organic Program. To take pasture and grass-based agriculture even further, we built a satellite grazing tool to help farmers give cows the right forage at the right time of the year.
Putting Farmers First
Organic Valley is a farmer-owned cooperative existing to save, support, and sustain organic family farms.
Today, we consist of approximately 1,500 small organic family farms that share the same commitment to organic agriculture. We lead with principles, not profit. What does that mean? While it takes income to run a business, our cooperative exists to provide the reliable market needed to keep our member farms farming.
Little Herds and Lots of Love
Our average herd size across our cooperative is 70 cows, which is 4.5 times smaller than the national average.
Our cows get plenty of TLC and holistic animal care. They are supported by animal care professionals, including a ruminant nutritionist. Our cooperative’s organic farmers must comply with both the USDA National Organic Program, which requires farms to provide animals with organic feed, outdoor access, and safe, clean, cage-free living conditions, as well as our cooperative’s own rigorous policies and standards, including our Dairy Animal Care Standards.
Less Carbon, More Grass
Together, our farms average 24% fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to the average U.S. dairy farm!
That makes us one of the lowest carbon dairies in the country! The main reason is that our farms use pastures for grazing and outdoor access, and that pasture-based approach helps sequester carbon under the soil. We are also pioneering new programs such as carbon insetting that pays our farmers to plant trees to further reduce carbon.
Saving Small Organic Family Farms
We are a cooperative of employees and farmers working together to save organic family farms.
Why? We believe family farms are critical to everyone’s future. They farm in a way that is good for people, animals, and the earth, offering a planet-positive way to produce nourishing food. And every time you choose Organic Valley® products, you’re helping to protect these farms and plant the seeds for a brighter tomorrow.
No Toxic Pesticides, No GMOs
By farming organically, we estimate that collectively our farms have kept over 540 million pounds of agrichemicals off the land since our founding in 1988.
Since our start, we have farmed in harmony with nature, which is why you’ll find a vast biodiversity of life on our small farms, including birds, bees, and butterflies. Being organic means our farms never raise food by spraying fields with glyphosate, dicamba, or other toxic pesticides. And our farms don’t use GMOs or artificial growth hormones.
Ethically Sourced from Organic Family Farms
At Organic Valley, we produce nourishing food on organic family farms where families manage the care of the earth. Through our cooperative’s standards and practices, we promote respect for the dignity and interdependence of all life. That is what we consider to be the true definition of ethically sourced.
Deeply Nourishing Food
Our food is nutritious and deeply satisfying — raised on farms full of life by people who care about animals and the earth. It’s organic, wholesome, and made to support your well-being, inside and out. When you eat Organic Valley® products, you’re choosing nourishing food produced in a manner you can feel good about.
Real Stories from Our Farms
Hear the stories behind the Organic Valley farms and farmers who protect the land, care for the animals, and bring delicious food to your table.
Read StoriesSave On Your Next Grocery Run
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Enough Talk, Let’s Eat!
High-Protein Cottage Cheese Cookie Dough Bites
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High-Protein Italian Chopped Salad
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Protein-Packed Mud Pie
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High Protein Lasagna
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Organic Valley® Protein Plus™
Organic Valley® Protein Plus™ Ultra-Filtered Milk dials up the nutrition of our organic pasture-raised milk even further with a state-of-the-art filtering process that concentrates protein and reduces sugar for creamy, delicious nourishment in every drop.
FAQS
Pasture-raised dairy is a philosophy of farming practiced on Organic Valley dairy farms, based on the core principle that cows should spend as much time outside as possible. Learn more.
They are family farmers who live and farm with their families in the Midwest, Southeast, and Northwest United States. Through our cooperative business model, our produce farmers are also co-owners of CROPP Cooperative.
Since grazing is a bedrock principle of our organic farming practices, all Organic Valley farmer-owners nationwide do their utmost to maximize fresh and dried forages to maintain the health and wellbeing of their animals because they know that milk produced from grazing cows contains increased levels of beneficial omega-3 and (CLA) fatty acids.
So while a significant number of Organic Valley farmer-owners around the country do not feed grain, there are several reasons why all Organic Valley® milk is not 100% grass-fed.
Some farms' soils are not ready for full conversion to pasture. Cows must be transitioned slowly from a grain diet, to less grain, to no grain. Some farms do not have the land base to produce additional forages the cows require when grain is taken out of their diet.