LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

By Liza Gabriel

 

Wendell Berry and Aldo Leopold inspired my deep love for the earth and my obligation to follow a land ethic to maintain hope for the future. Since the passing of the agrarian icon and wisdom thinker, Wendell Berry, I’ve been rereading much of his work. In “A Vision”, he first challenges us, “If we will have the wisdom to survive/ to stand like slow-growing trees/ on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it…asking not too much of earth…”

 

In our upcoming winter issue of The Natural Farmer, focused on agroforestry, I expect the integration of livestock to be central to the practice. So, I was initially surprised to find the same wisdom arise so compellingly in this issue on Organic Dairy. What makes an organic dairy farm work is the relationship of the animals renewing the land and working with the farm ecosystem as a whole. 

 

The separation of livestock is the origin of many of the problems not just in the dairy industry, but in industrial agriculture as a whole. In The Unsettling of America, Berry points out the unambiguous fact that “industrial agriculture fragments the farm by dividing crop production and animal raising into specialized, isolated operations. Instead of animals feeding on farm-grown forage and returning fertility as manure to the same fields, industrial logic treats them separately, creating a systemic disconnect in the natural cycle of fertility.” This “senseless mindset” led us into the development of agribusiness, “which prioritizes endless expansion and productivity at a devastating ecological, economic, and human cost, leaving society estranged from the land and soil.” Agribusiness, he writes, makes drudgery of growing food, “which means to make drudgery of eating.” With this mindset, “we fail to see the direct connection between living and working, eating and working, working and loving.” He offers a solution that we small-scale organic farmers take to heart: “Only by restoring the broken connections can we be healed.” 

 

This is the canvas of organic dairy. Healthy and safe dairy comes from humanely raised animals eating 100% grass. The products these animals provide - milk, cheese, wool, leather, yogurt, butter, whey, meat, companionship, fertility - benefit human health, ecological health, and the farm's economics.

 

Sadly, small family-run dairies are in crisis in the US. In the Northeast, over the last 20 years, the number of small dairies fell from 10,000 to fewer than 2,000, even though consumer demand for high-protein dairy products remains high. This decline is mainly driven by corporate contract cancellations, severe climate-induced feed shortages, underpriced milk, competitive disadvantages against mega-farms, and Extended-Shelf-Life products shipped from outside the region. 

 

Meanwhile, not all dairy is the same, and not all organic realizes the full potential of the principles of care, health, ecology, and fairness. The “Organic” label doesn’t guarantee a product is good for people, healthy for the planet, or safe for livestock. You can see in Cornucopia's Organic Dairy scorecard released this month that the majority, and possibly some of your favorite milk products, are given only 1 or 2 stars.

 

As family farms struggle to survive, consumers struggle to pay higher grocery prices.  Industrially grown beef has risen 80% since 2020; dairy prices have risen nearly 30%. Comparably, organic beef and dairy prices have risen by only 10-20% since 2020. Yet, rather than support family farms in the US, the administration reduced tariffs on beef from countries such as Argentina and Australia and purchased many tons of “boxed beef” so beef prices could stay lower for the general public. Some states, including New York, have introduced Dairy Modernization Programs, but it’s questionable whether small dairies can meet the minimum thresholds or application requirements.

 

We know those of us reading this magazine are certainly not separate from all these ongoings, and we have experienced increased supply costs since 2020. Yet small-scale farmers have not sacrificed our practices because we honor the interconnectedness of it all, and we have tried not to pass higher costs on to consumers because they are our community and our neighbors. 

 

So, the story of organic dairy is similar to many that we share in The Natural Farmer - small-scale farmers are committed to the ‘living, to the eating, to the working, and to the loving’. Berry’s words again: "We know that we are not separate from the industrial economy, which is conventional agriculture’s parent and master. We know its power to destroy what we do, and what we love. But we have also learned that it is not absolute. We have found that we can plow our way forward, doing what we do despite that industry — and, yes, sometimes to spite it." (The Presence of Fear, 2022)

 

We hold an ethic of reciprocity, of whole systems thinking, and of optimism, as offered at the end of “A Vision”, “...[We] will take nothing from the ground [we] will not return, whatever the grief at parting. Memory native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove, and memory will grow into legend, legend into song, song into sacrament. The abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its birds, will be health and wisdom and indwelling light. This is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its possibility.”

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