Editor’s note: This commentary is by Emerson Lynn, the editor of the St. Albans Messenger. It was originally published as an editorial in the Messenger on Dec. 15.
[W]hen something seems too simple, it most often is. That applies to a Vermont group calling on Gov.-elect Phil Scott to flip all the state’s conventional dairy farms to organic.
The group, led by Roger Allbee, Vermont’s former secretary of agriculture, and Michael Colby, co-founder of Regeneration Vermont, sent an open letter to the governor-elect earlier this week, that labels our conventional farmers as mired in a doomed business model, and the ones responsible for key environmental and social issues bedeviling the state.
They say the only way forward is to have all our milk produced organically. They would depend on those who use our milk – like Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot – to pay much higher prices, and they would capitalize on the Vermont brand to justify them.
The group’s logic flows like this: Because organic milk commands a much higher price than conventional milk, the profession would become profitable, there would be no GMO products, which would promote better health, the phosphorus spilling into our waterways would end, and the humanitarian concerns of forced migrant labor would disappear.
It’s a quadruple win.
If it were that easy, or that sure, it would have been done long ago. And it’s annoying to see the group falsely charge many of our farmers with sins they don’t commit or for practices for which they are not guilty.
As the scientific community has proven time and time again, GMO products are as healthy as non-GMO products. Period. It’s incredible that this group contends otherwise. And suggesting that conventional farmers are guilty of “social and worker justice issues” is such a broad and unfair overstatement that it has the effect of creating division where none need exist.
And blithely suggesting that the burden for this conversion should be borne by Ben & Jerry’s, Cabot and other producers, is deeply ignorant of the market and consumers.
If all Vermont’s dairy farms produce the same product in the same way how is it that this group can forever guarantee a profitable market? Is Vermont’s milk really so special that consumers will willingly pay double the price for organic? And if the group’s logic applies to Vermont, it applies elsewhere, which invites the obvious conclusion: As the supply of organic milk expands the price eventually declines and we’re right back where we were – except much less diversified.
It’s also wrong to mislead the public and the industry into believing that organic dairy farming is an easy, highly profitable business. It isn’t.
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It’s also wrong at a fundamental level to conclude that conventional dairy farming in Vermont is without hope, that it can’t find its way forward. It’s an industry like many others where economies of scale have to be found and one that new technologies need to be applied. And that is happening. There are a number of tech-enabled practices that are changing the face of the business and making the process more efficient, less dependent on labor, and healthier for the animals.
It’s wrong to claim there is only one way to do anything, and that applies to the dairy industry as well.
It’s also wrong to mislead the public and the industry into believing that organic dairy farming is an easy, highly profitable business. It isn’t. The organic milk business is still a very small percentage of what Vermont produces and many of our organic farmers are also financially stressed. The ones that are doing well are usually those who have the largest herds. It’s not typically something that is financially rewarding for those with small herds and it’s just as hard for them to pass the operation on to the next generation as it is for conventional farms.
And, yes, there will always be bad actors, those whose practices do not meet acceptable standards. But that applies to organic dairy farming as it does to conventional. Suggesting that one has a moral superiority to the other is not only wrong, but misguided and divisive.
No one suggests challenges don’t exist, and king among them – aside from a low-priced market – is the continual effort to reduce the farm-produced phosphorus that pollutes our waters.
That challenge needs to be met, which includes the strict regulation of runoff. But to pretend that the answer to our polluted waters depends on switching from conventional farming to organic farming is essentially ignoring the issue, which only makes things worse. That’s ridiculous.
Dairy farming in Vermont is a $2 billion a year industry. For anyone who saw the St. Albans Coop Creamery’s Tractor Parade last Friday, it was easy to see the investments farmers make in their businesses. From a cost perspective, it was like watching a trail of homes being wheeled down Main Street. And that’s only a fraction of what they spend.
Organic farming is a small, and growing percentage of this total. That’s wonderful. May their tribe increase. But let’s not pretend that organic dairy farming in Vermont is the only way forward, or that it even needs to be.
Contrary to the authors’ claims, that’s not a bold plan. No singleminded plan can be. It’s important to push the industry forward and to support what they do. This isn’t the plan.