Organic dairy cows and milk no better or worse than conventional
 

As I had long suspected, there is no increase in health in organic dairies. The milk is no different, either. It is about the same. Here is the report:


Feedstuffs
August 21, 2014


Cows raised on organic and conventional dairy farms in three regions of the U.S. show no significant differences in health or in the nutritional content of their milk, according to a new study by Oregon State University researchers and their collaborators.

Many organic and conventional dairies in the study also did not meet standards set by three commonly used cattle welfare programs, an announcement from the university said.

"While there are differences in how cows are treated on organic farms, health outcomes are similar to conventional dairies," said Mike Gamroth, co-author of the study and professor emeritus in Oregon State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "Few dairies in this study performed well in formal criteria used to measure the health and well-being of cows."

Nearly 300 small dairy farms - 192 organic and 100 conventional - in New York, Oregon and Wisconsin participated in the study, which was funded by a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food & Agriculture.

The five-year project looked at many aspects of dairy cow health, including nutrition, lameness, udder cleanliness and other conditions. Milk samples were screened for bacteria and common diseases, and farmers were asked about their operations, including the use of veterinarians and pain relief when removing horns from cattle.


Full text:
http://feedstuffs.com/story-organic-conventional-dairies-similar-cow-health-milk-45-116696

Always the same theme with Haypoint. How long have you been working for that organization? Alot easier than farming I guess.

Feel free to throw rocks at me and things you prefer to deny. Of course I had nothing to do with the report. I thought it might be of interest to those pinning their hope of success on the belief that their organic milk or cattle will always bring a premium due to its superiority. Fraid not.
I try to provide factual information. Some prefer to preach to the choir.
Homesteading to me is providing for one's self and family. Others prefer to focus on the commercial organic industry and place it upon a pedestal of superiority. Fraid not.
If it is proven that cows are no healthier on an organic diet than standard commercial feed, why is that fighting words?

I'll agree with the study. Having been both a conventional and an organic dairy operator, I'll take the conventional anytime. Infusing anti biotics to combat mastitis vs oregano oil makes far more sense to me, and saved a lot more quarters as well.

Am I the only one that thinks the 'organic' label is a meaningless bunch of hogwash?

They spent $1 million on this?? I want my money back.

When "organic" got a government definition and became big business, anybody with two brain cells to rub together should have known it wasn't the same thing as what the movement started out to be.

I manage a organic farm, poultry, cattle, row crops, feed business etc... and I'm dangerously close to purchasing a few hundred acres for myself (finally, no more lease) and I won't be certified at all. Too many costs, restrictions, inspections etc.

The best tasting milk I ever bought at a store was organic. But it came in an old fashion glass bottle and I could never make up my mind whether it was the bottle or the milk thatmade the difference.

Just curious; does organic mean you can't use Rompun to knock the heifers out while dehorning? :huh:

My boss sends them off to Dreamyland before he does the deed ... seems the most humane way to go about it IMO.

And ... I wonder how many people who buy organic milk also insist on having antibiotics for THEMSELVES when they get a painful infection?

I had a cellulitis infection in my breast (sorry if that's TMI!) a couple of years ago and almost died. I was hospitalized for 3 days while receiving IV antibiotics. It was excruciatingly painful. Gave me a whole new appreciation for what cows with mastitis go through! :(

I would bet it's the bottle. We buy milk in glass bottles and it is just sooooo good. Since they process and bottle the milk on site, it's fresher. This is the dairy: http://www.shattomilk.com/

However, the best yogurt I have found so far in the store is Kalona, an organic brand.

People became homesteaders to live a natural simple life. Organic is no longer natural or simple, same as many people, homesteading....James

Once you get into it, you soon discover the simple life ain't simple. Growing a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and meat requires many tools and skills. Doing it efficiently enough to be able afford it year after year takes another big skill set.
Keeping it natural while the cabbage worms and potato beetles gnaw away at your garden often drives us to compromises.
I'm old and been at this a good long while. To say I have some history is an understatement. But I remember when organic meant many different things to many different folks. There was no clear organic standard. So the groups from out east met with the folks out west and down south and they came up with a single standard everyone could agree with. It became the USDA Organic Standard. However, big business could smell the money and they adjusted and in a small way made inroads into organic fruits and vegetables. No matter what the standards, if there is profit in it, big business will adapt and make money. You do no good pretending that big business built the organic standards. You do no good wishing they allowed something or didn't allow something. I don't blame the small farmer for not wanting to document everything to be organic. But big organic farming isn't the bad guy just because they out-farm you.

Having worked on both conventional and an organic dairy, I wouldn't hesitate to buy conventional milk at the store (and I do). What I would prefer is to be able to choose milk from a small dairy (like, 60 cows) who primarily pasture their animals. Of course, it's hard to make money with a farm like that when you're selling to the conventional market.

On the organic dairy, we did not allow cows/calves to needlessly suffer. If we couldn't keep them comfy using organic methods, we'd red ear tag them, give them antibiotics (which were kept under lock and key), and ship them to the sale on the next bus out.

Is it legal to ship a cow to a sale with antibiotics in her system in MD? If you hold the cow until the antibiotic has cleared her system, haven't you added antibiotics to the manure pile? Not criticizing, just noting the complexities of such choices.

In my experiences, the management style that is least productive, becomes least profitable and eventually care suffers and so does sanitation. In many situations, grass only reduces production.

I would have enjoyed the study if it would have also included statistics for large and small farms.

Yes. Or at least, I've never seen any way of tracking what meds are in the animals' systems at any auction I've ever attended.

Also, certified organic crop fields can receive conventional manure. AND, certified organic farms can use conventional bedding if they don't have reasonable access to organic bedding. What's the first thing cows do when they get new straw? :o Eat it.

You can ship animals that are treated but you must notify the sales barn so the buyers can be informed.
For organic, you cannot hold a treated animal, it must be shipped and everything documented unless you are playing the outlaw and just sweep it all under the carpet but nobody would ever do that......

I was under the impression that organic allowed the use of antibiotics for curing serious illnesses, not for preventative purposes. Are you sure that after just one treatment they must be sold?

EDITED I checked and you are correct, organic dairies must treat if humanely required, but must sell.

In MI, I have witnessed the paradox of withdrawal times. Ok, you are running a dairy and one of your older cows is suddenly losing weight. You notice a fever. You get her off the milkline and start treating her. You try several types of medications. But while the fever subsides, she just isn't getting better. One of the drugs has a 3 week withdrawal time. The only market is low quality beef. In order to be able to sell as a butcher cow, you have to hold her to the withdrawal time. Without medication, the cow worsens. Finally, the day of the sale, you load her into the trucker's van and say goodby. At the Auction, she is unloaded moved around to a pen with another group of like fated cows. She is run through the sale and into another pen. You get a paycheck. Later that night, she gets loaded into a semi, if she's still walking and rests in one of three levels in the cattle semi trailer. It takes 6 hours, if the trucker doesn't stop to sleep, to get to the slaughter facility. As soon as she steps off the trailer, the buyer gets his paycheck. She belongs to the slaughter facility. If she lays down and refuses to get up somewhere between the truck and the kill floor, production stops and she cannot be butchered until she can walk on her own.


Random drug testing is done and the attached RFID number attached to her ear recorded. If there are drugs in her system, you could get a big fine.

I've some to see that there is a balance to be achieved: I like to stay small enough I know my animals. I can recognize sickness before it really hits (I have a pig i worry has something, but I don't know want. I'm thinking cancer...). If I need to use antibiotics I will, but I prefer to spot things before they get so bad i need antibiotics, and give animals enough room sickness doesn't spread like wildfire. But, its not big enough to live off of.

To me its about doing what is best for the animals. My mostly organic/everyone gets a little grass methods have served me well so far. This winter I will have my pigs housed inside simply because its too hard on the land. Pigs didn't mind, though. some of them choose to sleep outside under the stars when the barn door was wide open.

This morning I looked at whole foods website and they proudly stated their pork had "no use of antibiotics -ever!" It made me sad. Shoot, my gilts all were showing they had UTIs so I was about to pick up some antibiotics to clear it up. My "organic" method (also read: cheap/already in my kitchen) of a few days of acidic water did the trick, but i was about to move to conventional methods if it didn't. Imagine long term UTIs not treated! ouch!

having my own micro dairy i'm not inclined to buy ANY milk from the store: all tastes terrible!

Erika, Don't feel bad. You are doing good work. Homesteading is a journey, not a destination. Besides, Whole Foods just had another recall. This time it was almond butter and peanut butter. Trader Joes, too.

I don't quite follow. Are you saying that after (but barely) the allotted withdrawal time that drugs are still detectable? I usually don't work with a vet, but on such cases I imagine it would be nice to have one covering your 6.

Sorry, two thoughts seprrated by one line space. I edited it so there are two lines separating these two thoughts.
What I was trying to convey is that it is a difficult series of choices from the first signs of health troubles all the way to the slaughter facility. Some try to blame the farmer for selling an old cow, the auction for allowing it, the buyer for providing a profit to a company, the slaughter house for processing healthy meat from tired old cows.

THen my next thought is that those that don't seem to know or understand withdrawal times, could get in trouble if a cow they sold ends up in a slaughter house prior to safe withdrawal times. This is a huge no no.
If you follow the withdrawal time for the drug you use, you should be fine.

Got it. That idea had me in a pickle because I'm certain I would haul her off right at the prescribed time. Having dairy cows and goats, I am keenly aware of withdrawal times.

On a side note, in doing some research for penicillan withdrawal times for hogs, I learned different countries have different withdrawal times. Apparently this is not an exact science by any means. Personally, I use them when needed, as I belive was the intended purpose. It is a rarity but when needed, a life saver many times.

I do think there's much to he said for the definition of organic. I know of two organic dairys. One, the owners are smart and caring. Bottom line is important but the journey is, too. The other one, the bottom line is the end. Actually, I am not sure he is still organic.
I know of a gal with beefers that cannot get organic vertification b/c of such"bad" practices as using Gatoraide for scouring calves. I guess I don't put much into studies, who paid for it, what criteria for each side, size of dairy, experience of managers, on and on the questions.....my practical, limited maybe, experience shows me too many variables.

because my weird little brain thinks on the other side, my first thought was "well, if the health of the organic cows was the same as the health of the conventional cows, are all the antibiotics and other things really necessary?" I just think, garbage in, garbage out....but it is tough and expensive and aggravating at least for organic chickens, veggies and bees!

I think to come to any sort of personal conclusion, you need to understand that conventional dairies don't use "all those antibiotics". They are used, but not as common as some would have you believe. Also, remember that an organic dairy culls out their sick and cured cows. It would ber wrong to believe that organic dairies are somehow healthier. Health is generally the same for both. One gets treated, cured, drugs leave the cow and they are milked. The other gewts treated, cured, drugs leave the cow and sold.

Rumincin (sp?) is classed as an antibiotic and is fed regularly on many dairy farms, you know the stuff in feed that will kill a horse? Coccidiostats are a given for any calves on milk replacer. In fact, a short time ago was talking to a local dairy farmer, a big dairy farmer, his comment was that very few calves make it to heifer status w/o antibiotics. Just his experience, mileage may vary. So, yes, drugs are used regularly.

Just to be clear, it isn't an antibiotic. It is used to treat coccidiosis in calves that have coccidiosis. If you are managing your farm with an ongoing coccidiosis problem, then drugs would be the norm. But such dairies are, thankfully, rare.:cow:

I think there is some difference of opinion as to whether rumensin is an antibiotic or not. Most scientists seem to think it is as it is derived from bacteria sources.

It is an antibiotic, used to change the bacterial population in the rumen to what is needed to handle the high grain diets that are fed in dairy and feedlots. Which diets produce acidosis and rumen ulceration and liver abscesses, etc. Acidosis also contributes to lameness.

https://www.extension.org/pages/1133...s#.VAVGVCx0zIU

Here is my take on this.

The question is how do you measure nutrition.

I suppose if you have a diet of twinkies, and take vitamin/mineral/protein/fiber pills, that is a complete and healthy diet, right? I mean, if a university studied such a diet, that is what they would conclude, because they would measure whether you are getting all the vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber that you need.

Now suppose that you were to eat twinkies made from organic ingredients, and took organic vitamin/mineral/protein/fiber pills. Would that be any better? Probably not. I guess you could eat sugar from organic sugar beets, but it is still sugar.

I happen to believe there are micronutrients in a diet full of vegetables, etc, that you won't get in a pill.

Seems there would also be more of such nutrients in a cow actually eating grass, as opposed to a diet of whatever cheapest ingredients the dairies (organic or otherwise) can find.

In addition, sounds like most organic dairies are operated like conventional ones. I wonder how much grazing is required? Two minutes a day?

Bottom line is if you want more nutrition, you need to know your food source. I knew guys selling high priced "natural" milk and saw a pickup full of old donuts and pastries they were feeding to the cows.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Thank you DJ for posting that. Rumencin is classed as antibiotic. Totally different drug than a coccidiostat. My horse, at 1000# cannot eat even a small amount of cow grain with rumencin, it would kill them.
A coccidiostat is NOT an antibiotic, that is why I differentiated in my post above. On the label of the milk replacer it warns against feeding the medicated type to any other animal.

For every study that says something, there seems to be a second study that says the opposite.

http://csanr.wsu.edu/program-areas/m...8-month-study/

I personally buy the normal stuff.

Interesting. Thank you. I now know what this advocacy organization PLOS One is.


"All submissions go through an internal and external pre-publication peer review, but are not excluded on the basis of lack of perceived importance or adherence to a scientific field. The PLOS ONE online platform employs a "publish first, judge later" methodology, with post-publication user discussion and rating features."
I guess we are in the early stages of judge later.:pound:

When I click on the full article, I get Capital Press, but no author to the article and the WSU researcher is also un-named. Strange. Further into the story, the Lead Author, Charles Benbrook, is mentioned. Just for your information, he is also Chief Scientist for The Organic Center.:bandwagon:
Most of the organic milk came from cows managed by farmer-owners of the Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools, the same folks that funded the "publish first, judge later" so called study.:yawn:

That's interesting, I assumed since it was a .edu website the study was "legit".

I guess I just proved the old saying about assuming stuff...

Edit: actually where did your quoted text come from (Wikipedia it looks)? I'm reading http://www.plosone.org/static/information and may be interrupting things differently than you.

"Often a journal's decision not to publish a paper reflects an editor's opinion about what is likely to have substantial impact in a given field. These subjective judgments can delay the publication of work that later proves to be of major significance. PLOS ONE will rigorously peer-review your submissions and publish all papers that are judged to be technically sound. Judgments about the importance of any particular paper are then made after publication by the readership, who are the most qualified to determine what is of interest to them."

So what I'm reading seems to be they let the reader decide what is study is "important" versus an editor.

"PLOS ONE features reports of original research from all disciplines within science and medicine. By not excluding papers on the basis of subject area, PLOS ONE facilitates the discovery of the connections between papers whether within or between disciplines. "

So when Wikipedia says "adherence to a scientific field" I think that means they don't specialize in one scientific field...i.e the statement "adherence to any scientific field" would be a much different statement.

Your horse also would not be able to eat lasalocid or decoquinate either. I'm not sure what your point is about the horse not being able to eat Rumensin (monensin)?

Rumensin may technically be classified as an ionophore, but it is an anticoccidial. That's the intended purpose. It may be classed as an "antibiotic", but it is not used to treat diseases like penicillin or the more typical antibiotics.

I re-read the article Haypoint linked to, I saw this section

"Milk from organic and non-organic herds also showed few nutritional differences, the researchers found. Organic milk can occasionally contain more omega-3 fatty acids, which may improve heart health. However, those increases come from seasonal grazing and are not present when cattle are fed stored forage, according to Gamroth."

This is the subject of the article I linked to above. So maybe the studies don't disagree as much as I thought.


"Other project collaborators include Pamela Ruegg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Linda Tikofsky and Ynte Schukken of Cornell University and Charles Benbrook of the Organic Centre in Oregon."

So it seems Charles Benbrook contributed to both studies


As I stated above I buy "regular" dairy ...just trying to point out there seems to be a study that backs up a person position on most topics. Which ones to believe are left up to the individual.

Since Rumensin has different actions, its "intended purpose" depends on what is eating it. Coccidiosis is primarily a problem in young cattle, before they develop immunity, so Rumensin is beneficial as anticoccidial in feedlot calves, and dairy calves and heifers.

In mature dairy cows, Rumensin's purpose is to improve feed efficiency, and reduce rumen acidosis which results from pushing high concentrate/grain diets. As I posted, Rumensin accomplishes all this by inhibiting certain classes of bacteria, just as we do when treating for disease with other antibiotics.

Milking cows are not given Rumensin to enhance appetite or increase feed efficiently.
While this side discussion about Coccidiosis is interesting, let's not lose focus of the fact that drugs in milk is a rare event. For years we have heard the organic milk advocates tell about the extra nutrition in organic milk or how much better organic cows are treated. We now have a study and report that says there isn't any difference.

IMHO, when there is a study on milk nutrition that tests raw milk and pasteurized, we will be able to put to bed the myth that pasteurization kills valuable nutrients. But that's another topic.

I found it a very interesting article. I will say the one thing I left with was I am VERY grateful to have my own milk cows. Nutrition aside, at least I know what is going in them and how they are treated. It may be no better for us than the milk at the store but I sure love my cows and the butter and cheese I can make from the milk they give me. As well as the beef from the calves they have and the pork from the pigs I feed the extra milk to.

Here is yet another study:

OSU: Organic v. conventional - no difference in cow milk, health
Natural Resource Report
September 8, 2014


Cows raised on organic and conventional dairy farms in three regions of the United States show no significant differences in health or in the nutritional content of their milk, according to a new study by Oregon State University researchers and their collaborators.

Many organic and conventional dairies in the study did not meet standards set by three commonly-used cattle welfare programs.

"While there are differences in how cows are treated on organic farms, health outcomes are similar to conventional dairies," said Mike Gamroth, co-author of the study and professor emeritus in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences. "Few dairies in this study performed well in formal criteria used to measure the health and well-being of cows."

Nearly 300 small dairy farms-192 organic and 100 conventional-in New York, Oregon and Wisconsin participated in the study, which was funded by a $1 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).


Full text:
http://naturalresourcereport.com/2014/09/osu-organic-v-conventional-no-difference-in-cow-milk-health/