Exploring the conventionalization of organic dairy: trends and counter-trends in upstate New York

• Published in: Agriculture and human values Vol. 26; no. 1-2; pp. 29 - 42
• Main Author: Guptill, Amy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands 01.03.2009; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural Economics; Agriculture; Commodities; Commodities trading; conventionalization; Costs; Dairy farms; dairy products; Education; Ethics; Evolutionary Biology; Farmers; Federal regulation; Food; History; Horizontal integration; Marketing; Milk; Natural & organic foods; organic foods; organic production; Philosophy; Prices; Qualitative research; Rural development; Studies; Trends; Value chain; Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science; New York; USA, New York; Commodity systems; Conventionalization; Value chains; Organic dairy
• ISSN: 0889-048X; 1572-8366
• DOI: 10.1007/s10460-008-9179-0

Stakeholders in traditional dairy-producing states in the upper Midwest and Northeast hope that the boom in the organic milk market will offer family-scale dairy farms a means to escape the cost-price squeeze of the conventional food system. However, recent trends in organic dairy raise questions about whether organic dairy is conventionalizing, which is to say it is coming to resemble the conventional sector as shown in disparities of power in the value chain that pressure all participants to adopt more industrial practices. This paper reports the results of an exploratory qualitative study of whether and how the organic milk value chain in upstate New York is conventionalizing. Findings lend some support to the conventionalization hypothesis in that organic milk from the beginning has been produced, processed, and marketed as a commodity, and the federal regulations governing organic dairy have facilitated the replication of this commodity-based system. However, there is also evidence that some producers are responding to these pressures not by intensifying, but by going deeper into the alternative organic model, forging more direct and local relationships along the value chain and embracing principles of the organic movement.