© 2024 Maine Public | Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

Organic Milk Scarce on Maine Store Shelves as Demand Outstrips Supply

Mark Vogelzang
/
MPBN
A 4-month-old calf in the barn at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester in April.

If organic milk is on your shopping list, be prepared for an empty shelf in the dairy section. A nationwide shortage of organic milk is being felt at Tradewinds, Hannaford, and other regional chains. And industry observers say there's no quick fix for the problem.It's a basic issue of supply and demand. "Organic milk production has been relatively flat in terms of the amount of milk being produced, but the demand is obviously going up," says Rick Kersbergen.

And no one should be terribly surprised by this, says Kersbergen, who is with University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Organic milk, once unheard of, can be found in pretty much any grocery store, from WholeFoods to Walmart.

There's no doubt that organic milk has been a solid success at the register, but while consumers flock to buy the product, there's something of a bottleneck at the production end, with farms slow to get into the business.

"You know, you can't just be a conventional dairy farmer one day and an organic dairy farmer the next," Kersbergen says. "The transition period takes up to three years depending on your current situation."

That's three slack years converting land to organic standards, with a minimum of 12 months raising cattle on an all-organic diet before you can even ship your first pint. That means new and established farmers have not made the leap to organic, and the effects of a producer shortfall are starting to be felt across the country.

Despite a higher-than-average price for wholesale milk, starting up as an organic dairy is an expense many farmers just can't, or won't, risk, says Ellis Additon, who heads the Maine Bureau of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. One reason for the lack of new blood, he says is that for several years now, conventionally produced wholesale milk prices have been rising. In 2014, farmers were paid about $28 per hundredweight.

"When you look at $28 doing it conventionally, and $35, let's say, doing it organically, not a big incentive to shift to organic," Additon says.

But conventional prices are usually much lower. The year 2009 saw rock bottom prices of just $16 per hundredweight, and current prices are starting to slide now, says Additon. Depending on how far they go, more farmers may decide to take the organic plunge. And the state is in a good position to host more such farms, he says.

Currently, only about 20 percent of Maine's dairy farms are organic. And the state's 57 or so organic farms are certainly doing their part:  The amount of organic milk Maine produced in 2014 went up by more than a million pounds over the year before. But that's still just a drop in the wholesale bucket.

"Could we supply more? Absolutely," Additon says. "But it's going to take time."

Meanwhile, higher demand and lower supply could mean higher prices at the register, says John Cleary, from Wisconsin-based dairy cooperative Organic Valley. But he says the bigger message is that people really want the product.

"Prices may increase somewhat, but it's been interesting to have retailers actually come to us and say, 'We don't want to have a shortage of organic products, we want to find this milk in the marketplace,' " Cleary says. "And they're saying they're willing to pay a little bit more if that's what it's going to take to bring new farmers into this industry."

And recruiting new farmers is the cooperative's immediate goal, says Cleary. "The organic pay price to the farmers for 2015 is increasing considerably, which I think will bring some more supply." But Cleary says he expects demand will remain strong.

Another big organic milk processor, Stonyfield, is also working to recruit farmers. The company is bankrolling a a new training program for organic start-ups through Wolfe's Neck Farm in Freeport. The intensive farmer training program is expected to kick off this summer.