The organic dairy market in the U.S. is going through a big change. After growing in the 2000s and 2010s, sales of organic milk in the U.S. have been going down steadily for the past 5 years, by 2.3% in 2022 alone, and prices have gone down by 25% from 2017 to 2022, according to data from the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. Most of the drop is due to a mismatch in the market between the growing supply of organic milk and the falling demand for all dairy milk in the U.S. But problems for New Hampshire’s small organic dairy farms with 100 or fewer milking cows have been made worse by rising feed costs and the fact that large organic milk processors like Horizon Organic and Maple Hill Creamery are now buying more milk from larger dairy farms in other parts of the United States.
Andre Brito, a scientist at the NH Agricultural Experiment Station and associate professor in the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems department, says that organic dairy farmers in New England can make their farms more sustainable and competitive in the market by coming up with new ways to run their farms.
The organic grass-fed (OGF) sector of the organic dairy market has not only grown, but has grown quickly in the past few years. Traditional organic dairy farms don’t have to follow as many rules as OGF-managed farms do. But Brito says that there are two major benefits to OGF management. One is that it is more resistant to rising costs of feed grain, and the other is that the price of OGF milk is usually higher than the price of regular organic milk.
But until recently, there hadn’t been much research on the organic grass-fed management systems to find the best ways to make more milk. Brito was one of several Northeast scientists who recently worked on a paper about how OGF dairy farmers manage their farms. The paper was published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. The study, which was led by researchers at the University of Vermont, gives us a better idea of how this sector works and what it needs.
As part of the research, 167 OGF farmers across the country were asked questions about general farming practises, herd management, and foraging and grazing management. The main findings showed that most OGF dairy farmers are from the plain, or Amish-Mennonite, community, and that farms with more milk production used Holstein cows, had a strict rotation of pastures, and added molasses and kelp meal to the grazing diets of their cows.
“Organic dairy farmers’ profit margins have been going down over time. One way to fix this has been to lower feed costs, switch to 100% forage diets, and make a type of milk that sells for more money.
“The cheapest way to feed cows on a dairy farm is with pasture and forage, since imported grains can be very expensive,” he says. “Organic dairy farmers’ profit margins have been going down over time. One way to fix this has been to lower feed costs, switch to 100% forage diets, and make milk that sells for more money.”
Brito says that most of the responses to the survey came from the Northeast (especially New York) and the Midwest, which suggests that most OGF farms are likely in those areas. The researchers are seeing that more and more organic dairy farms are switching to OGF management as a way to stay competitive in an organic dairy industry that is otherwise not growing.
Brito says, “I’m sure that the organic dairy business in New England has helped and is helping a lot of farmers stay in business.” “Otherwise, these smaller businesses wouldn’t be able to stay in business.”
Brito’s and others’ research on OGF management gives dairy farmers another tool. This helps many small and medium-sized New England dairy farms — some of which have been run by the same families for generations — stay competitive and strong.
