Articles by Tom Philpott

The case for boycotting factory-farmed ‘organic’ milk

Of all the environmental gaffes the species homo sapien commits in the process of feeding itself, the practice of cramming megafauna into huge pens and plying them with corn may rank as the most imbecilic.

The excellent web site Eat Wild documents the environmental ills of confinement dairy and meat production; here are a few. Cows evolved to eat prairie grass, not grain, which makes them sick. Huge concentrations of large ravenous animals create huge concentrations of shit -- which is a critical resource for maintaining soil health in reasonable amounts, but a fetid nightmare when produced at mountainous levels. Industrial corn production requires titantic annual lashings of natural gas-based fertilizers, much of which leaks into groundwater and wreaks havoc clear down to the Gulf. And so on.

Appallingly -- though not surprisingly, given its habitual fealty to agribiz interests -- the USDA has not seen fit to demand that organic dairy production be pasture-based. The agency's organic code stipulates that cows be given "access to pasture," but its bureaucrats tend to give that rule a lackadaisical reading -- one fully exploited by Dean Foods and Aurora Organic, the dairy giants that together produce more than half of U.S. organic milk.

In response to such official laxity and corporate opportunism, the scrappy Organic Consumers Association has launched a boycott against companies that sell "organic" milk from factory-style farms.

Not to get all grassy knoll, but …

From the I-don't-want-to-get-all-grassy-knoll-on-y'all-I'm-just-sayin' department, I offer two items buried in the business page of today's New York Times:

* On page C3, we learn that Ken Lay isn't the only businessman involved in the Enron mess who came to an untimely end. Here is the NYT:

A British banker who provided evidence to the F.B.I. and the United States Department of Justice about Enron-related transactions has been found dead in an East London park, days ahead of the politically charged extradition of his former colleagues to Houston to stand trial.

Scotland Yard, the Times goes on, "said the death was being treated as 'unexplained' and that officers from its homicide and serious crime units were investigating."

An innovative Alabama CSA shows the way forward.

When Wal-Mart announced plans to become the world's biggest purveyor of organically grown food last week, the polite applause from the enviro gallery grated on my ears. (Here's a spirited recent debate on Gristmill.) Even the New York Times editorial page could see through this move. While some greens cooed at at Wal-Mart's magnamity, the Grey Lady unleashed an appropriately cynical analysis:

There is no chance that Wal-Mart will be buying from small, local organic farmers. Instead, its market influence will speed up the rate at which organic farming comes to resemble conventional farming in scale, mechanization, processing and transportation. For many people, this is the very antithesis of what organic should be.... For "Wal-Mart" and "organic" to make sense in the same sentence, the company will have to commit itself to protecting the Agriculture Department standard that gives "organic" meaning.

I have no doubt that Wal-Mart's greenie admirers will hold the company's feet to the fire on that one. But the USDA's organic standards are already being drained of meaning. Rather than chide Goliath to behave nicely, enviros should consider helping David get his shit together. Check out what they're getting up to over in Birmingham, Ala.

A speculation about why ADM’s HFCS business is booming.

In the first quarter of 2006, as I reported yesterday, Archer Daniels Midland somehow managed to boost the price of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) despite mounting concern over the sweetener's health effects.

The company booked a cool $113 million profit from HFCS over the quarter, more than three times more than it netted in the same period a year before ($33 million). This, despite a slowing domestic market for sweet soft drinks, as consumers increasingly switch to juice and bottled water. The company's official explanation -- "increased sweetener and starch selling prices" -- doesn't explain how it managed to make price hikes stick.

I think I've figured it out. And the explanation has everything to do with Brazil, sugarcane, and ethanol.