‘I think if you’re an omnivore,
you probably owe it to know where it came from.’
— JON BANSEN, ORGANIC DAIRY FARMER
grazing time and minimize the milking
time, which takes place on pavement.
Even the herd’s path from pasture to
parlor is designed to get the cows back
to the grass as soon as possible. In total,
milking the Bansens’ entire herd takes
about two and a half hours, with about 15
minutes of pavement and milking time
for each cow. The rest of the time, at least
when weather doesn’t prevent them from
being outside, the herd is on grass.
For Bansen, farming is about treating
each animal as a unique living being. “I
choose to make sure all the animals we deal
with have respect the whole way,” Bansen
says. Part of that respect is knowing each
cow as an individual. Instead of numbers on
their ear tags, each of Bansen’s cows has a
name tag. As they wander behind him in the
pasture, he can turn and recognize them, just
like 180 friends he happens to see every day.
“I think that’s Helen, isn’t it?” She turns, and
it is. “Helen’s a heck of a good cow.”
Since going organic, Bansen has noticed
a signifi cant improvement in the quality of
his milk and in his herd’s general health,
though the quantity of milk yielded per cow
has dropped a bit. “I’m not getting all the
milk I used to,” Bansen says of the switch
from conventional to pasture-intensive
organic. “I’m also not buying all the grain
I used to and not taking care of sick cows.”
Raising healthy cows
aloe vera for infl ammation-related problems
or garlic tincture for infections.
Guy Jodarski, a veterinarian with
Organic Valley, says the average life of a
conventional dairy cow is only four years.
Jodarski stands with Rosie, a Bansen cow
who’s now 14 years old and still milking,
and credits her longer lifespan to an
outdoor, high-forage life.
“This sort of lifestyle and diet is healthy
for the cow, healthy for the land and
healthy for the people,” Jodarski says. It’s
not necessarily the fact that the cows are
outside or organic that is signifi cant to their
health, he says. Making sure the pasture
they’re foraging is high quality also makes
a huge difference.
In many conventional dairies, the lives
of cows are cut short by sickness but also
because the intensity of milk production
shortens the window of time a cow can
produce milk. After that, they’re slaughtered.
At organic dairies, the access to pasture
rule means that a more outdoor-oriented
life is mandatory. Does that mean a life
producing milk for humans can be happy?
Jodarski thinks so. “It’s a high quality
life and it’s more of a natural cow’s
life,” Jodarski says. He says the annual
pregnancy cycle that causes cows to lactate
isn’t something unnatural that farmers
have created; it mimics what’s found in the
wild. “If you look at wild ruminants like
Greener milk
Jodarski thinks that while growing
concern for the welfare of animals and for
more nutritious milk are part of the demand
for organic dairy products, economics and
the environment are also driving factors.
“There are costs that no one is paying for
in the other products,” he says, “pollution
and stuff like that.”
The net effect of organic dairies on their
environment isn’t well established. Part of
this is because organic farming practices
can still vary quite a bit. One consistency
is that organic dairies use feed that’s also
organically grown, and they can’t use
pesticides or genetically modifi ed feed.
A big point of contention for people
who are vegan, or who just eat less dairy
for environmental reasons, is cows’
methane production — those stinky farts
also contain the potent greenhouse gas.
There’s no getting around the product
of their poop — organic cows still
produce methane — but Jodarski says
that the method of managing manure can
determine what’s lost to the environment.
One Organic Center report says that the
best organic farming practices have the
capacity to reduce emissions to about half
that of bad conventional practices.
In addition to dung, organic farms have an
effect on greenhouse gas emissions because
they truck in less grain. Jodarski says that
the dairy industry as a whole is “moving
out of an era with grain prices low,” so the
economic and environmental advantages of
this aspect of organic milk will become more
obvious as gas and grain prices rise.
JON BANSEN
Bansen’s farm is part of Organic Valley,
a farmer-owned cooperative that includes
1,643 farms across the U.S. The dairy
industry calls Organic Valley’s marketing
strategy “aggressive,” and that’s probably
accurate, although aggressive could also
describe the conventional dairy industry
itself. Organic Valley is a collection of true
believers, farmers and workers united in
their faith that smaller scale and organic is
the only way to go.
deer, sheep and bison, they have an annual
cycle of pregnancy,” he says.
Jodarski also says that harvesting an
animal for milk can be a respectful process,
citing India as a place where a major religion
prohibits any disrespect of cows. “They don’t
eat them, but they drink the milk,” he says.
Organic vets aren’t left without medicine
just because antibiotics used by conventional
dairies are not in their arsenal. “There are
herbal things we use,” Jodarski says, such as
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What’s in a name?
Jodarski says one of the basic talking
points of the conventional dairy industry is
“milk is milk” — that there’s no nutritional
difference between conventional and
organic milk. He says such campaigns
try to show this by comparing the content
between conventional and organic milk’s
protein and fat content, which don’t tend
to vary a lot, while ignoring data for omega
three fatty acids, conjugated linoleic acid
and beta carotene. “We’re fi nding that
there’s quite a difference,” he says.
“People say that organic farmers want
to go backwards and nothing could be
further from the truth,” Jodarski says. He
points out that organic farmers embrace
good technology, using advances such
as solar power on tractors and carefully
tracking the health of their fi elds. “They
don’t accept every technology blindly.
Chemicals and genetically modifi ed
organisms are not acceptable.”
Bansen says that making the jump
from conventional to organic brought the
science of dairy farming together with
what’s best for cows and the planet. “It
was an out of balance system. It seemed
in balance to me, but I see the difference
now,” he says. “We slowed it down to the
pace of nature.”
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Northwest 15th Annual
HEALTH & WELL-BEING
2011
Celebration
August 27 & 28
Sat & Sun 10-6
Joins with the Eugene Celebration
for the 10th year!
Outside the West Gate of the Eugene Celebration
ON BROADWAY
between Charnelton & Lincoln
FREE Health Assessments
Healthcare Professionals on site
)UHH
Blood Pressure Screens
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Doctor Consultations
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Samples
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Health Lectures
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Workshops
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Prize Raffles
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EUGENE WEEKLY AUGUST 18, 2011
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