Is big business changing the organics game?
Yes, and not for the better, according to longtime organic farmers and food producers. Small organic dairy farmers complain, for example, that Dean Foods slaps the “organic” label on its Horizon Dairy brand of milk, even though it comes from cows that spend as little as five minutes a day outdoors. “That might be technically organic,” says Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute, an advocacy group for small organic farms, “but it’s not what people think they’re paying for.” Fruit and vegetable farmers say that agribusiness giants such as General Mills use large-scale industrial-farming techniques on their organic farms, undermining the organic movement’s original small-scale philosophy. “‘Organic’ doesn’t mean what the original users of the word meant it to be,” says Tennessee farmer Jeff Price. Will all our food eventually be organic? That’s highly unlikely. Because organic farms yield smaller crops than conventional ones, they can’t possibly meet the demands of the country’s growing
