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USDA Secretary Vilsack visits Vermont, hears much about mitigation The two administration officials, and others at the roundtable, presented much data to support the steps Vermont has made and is continuing to make, on phosphorus and carbon sequestration - basically letting the land hold these environmental impacts instead of letting them run off into the states waterways or lift into the atmosphere. Vermont is in the middle of vigorous and expensive mitigation efforts to reduce pollution and restore the land and water. Two of the main themes at the discussion were Vermont's diversification of its agriculture industry and environmental impacts of farming on the state's waterways. Meanwhile in an effort to help local farmers survive and thrive, the state of Vermont and its partners, including the federal government, are putting a lot of money and effort into offsetting farming costs, including those associated with phosphorus and carbon mitigation.Īgriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts and Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore laid out those efforts during a visit to Vermont by USDA secretary Tom Vilsack on August 19 at a roundtable at the Echo Center in Burlington hosted by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. Champlain Valley Creamery, LTD - cheese and cream cheese.In addition, the following businesses process organic milk from Vermont farms: Strafford Organic Creamery - bottled milk, egg nog, half & half, heavy cream, and ice cream.Rogers Farmstead - milk, yogurt, egg nog, and cheese.Larson Farm & Creamery - milk, gelato, butter, skyr, and yogurt.Does’ Leap Farm - goat milk, goat cheese, and kefir.Butterworks Farm - milk, buttermilk, cottage cheese, cream, kefir, and yogurt.Cellars at Jasper Hill also uses Vermont organic milk for some of its high-end cheeses.Īccording to NOFA-VT, Farmers who process their own dairy products include: Several of the Vermont farms themselves process their own organic dairy into milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream, etc. The Upstate Niagara Cooperative Inc (a very small co-op), Organic Valley and of course New Hampshire-based Stonyfield also process Vermont organic milk. Plus, there are other options, but which could have limited capacity. Horizon is also giving the Vermont organic dairies a one-year heads up before it ends its supply contracts on August 31, 2022. Idaho: 29 farm gathered 364.5 million pounds.New York: 607 farms collected 386.7 million pounds.Wisconsin: 525 farms shipped 440.9 million pounds of milk.Texas: Nine farms produced 821.9 million pounds of milk.California: 150 farms produced 889 million pounds of milk.Indeed, nine organic farms in Texas produce about a third (821.9 million pounds) of what all 581 dairies in Vermont produce in a year. Organic dairies follow a similar pattern to overall production, but is weighted more heavily toward the big western states and also toward larger individual farms.Īccording to Hoard’s Dairyman, the average organic dairy produces nearly twice as much milk as the average conventional dairy. The US in 2020 produced 223.2 billion pounds of milk. This output ranks the state 18 th largest in the nation. Vermont produced 2.6 billion pounds of milk last year. There is then another big drop off to the next three: Idaho at 15.6 billion, New York at 15.1 billion and Texas at 13.8 billion. Wisconsin was second at 30.7 billion pounds. California and Texas are by far the largest organic milk producers.Ĭalifornia is also the largest overall milk producer with 41.3 billion pounds produced in 2020, according to the USDA. Horizon said they can get cheaper milk closer to home. It is the shipping that led Horizon to cut its eastern suppliers, 79 dairies in all. This will be a difficult task considering that cows produce a lot of methane during their complicated digestive process, create a lot of manure and require a lot of energy along the entire production and transportation stream. Horizon is a B Corp that wants to become carbon neutral by 2025. They also produce Silk and several other brands of yogurt (Danimals, Too Good, Activia). It, in turn, is a subsidiary of Paris, France-based Danone. Horizon, based in Broomfield, Colorado, is the largest organic dairy company in the US. (NOFA-VT estimates they sell about 3 million gallons of milk per year to Horizon.) By Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine Last week, Horizon Organics notified its Northeast organic milk suppliers that it would be dropping all of its eastern suppliers, including 27 dairies in Vermont.
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