{"id":9076,"date":"2018-09-14T19:48:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T19:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2018-09-14T19:48:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T19:48:21","slug":"new-tool-grades-integrity-of-organic-labels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9076","title":{"rendered":"New Tool Grades Integrity of Organic Labels"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9077\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9077\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9077\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gr-63857-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gr-63857-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gr-63857-1-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gr-63857-1-1-405x270.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gr-63857-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9077\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just two Texas-founded companies ranked \u201cexcellent\u201d or \u201cvery good\u201d on a new Organic Dairy Scorecard, Austin-based White Mountain Foods and Whole Foods\u2019 store brand. Photo: UDSA<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>by Eric Galatas<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong>STRATFORD, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Shoppers can now choose between organic dairy products produced by large-scale factory operations and those produced by family farms.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Kastel, co-founder and senior farm policy analyst with the Cornucopia Institute, said there are now essentially two organic product lines. One maintains original standards including better nutrition, care for the environment, humane treatment of animals and economic justice for farm workers. Kastel argues that the other is all about profit and gaming the system.<\/p>\n<p>He said since both lines share the same USDA logo, his institute created a mobile-friendly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cornucopia.org\/scorecard\/dairy\/\" target=\"parent\">Organic Dairy Scorecard<\/a>\u00a0to help consumers spot the difference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo this is a way to vote with your pocketbook for better food for your family and to save the livelihoods of these hard-working farmers,\u201d Kastel said.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to one case in which career bureaucrats at the USDA recommended Aurora Organic Dairy, with large-scale operations in Texas and Colorado, be decertified as organic and banned from commerce after evidence of willful violation of the law. Kastel said political appointees stepped in and let the company off with a one-year probation.<\/p>\n<p>Aurora\u2019s CEO maintains the company strictly adheres to organic guidelines, and notes that the company has been certified throughout its history.<\/p>\n<p>Kastel said the organic dairy movement was founded in part so that family-sized farms could survive by milking cows. He said the scorecard is a way for shoppers to support the livelihoods of small-scale farmers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re now being crushed by the same factory farms with thousands of cows that have driven most of the conventional milk producers out of business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kastel said the good news is that consumers in just about every geographic market can still access authentic organic dairy products. Austin-based White Mountain Foods ranked \u201cexcellent,\u201d and Texas success-story Whole Foods\u2019 store brand ranked \u201cvery good\u201d on the scorecard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas STRATFORD, Texas \u2013\u00a0Shoppers can now choose between organic dairy products produced by large-scale factory operations and those produced by family farms. Mark Kastel, co-founder and senior farm policy analyst with the Cornucopia Institute, said there are now essentially two organic product lines. One maintains original standards including better nutrition, care for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9078,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9076\/revisions\/9078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}