A Hopeful Failure: Understanding the Crisis in Organic Dairy and Why a Mission-Driven Coop Couldn’t Buck the Agricultural Treadmill

• In Event: 1246 - Food and Agriculture II: Food Production and Labor

Abstract

For 25 years, the organic dairy sector bucked agricultural boom bust cycles and staved off the treadmill of production. While the rate of farm loss grew across the country, organic dairy families could be hopeful about the future and plan for the next generation to take over the farm. Scholars and stakeholders alike have attributed this success largely to Organic Valley, a mission-driven cooperative committed to carefully managing supply and keeping farm prices stable and high. In 2016, prices started to fall and a crisis settled in that persists today. Even Organic Valley now faces the possibility of dropping its small and remote producers. This paper explains what went wrong, detailing the mechanisms of the modern agricultural treadmill and the inherent need for government - not any one firm or producer association - to manage supply. I draw on 80 interviews with organic dairy farmers and processors in California and Wisconsin and 10 days of participant observation at producer association meetings.

Author

• Kathryn Gregory Anderson, University of Wisconsin