New Organic Milk Standards Require Pasture!

According to this post from the Cornucopia institute, today the USDA adopted new stricter regulations for organic animal products. Under the new regulations, in order to label products with the organic seal, animals must be out on pasture for the whole growing season or a minimum of 120 days and have access to the outdoors year round.  During their time on pasture 30% of the animals dry matter intake must come from grazing pasture.  

These new regulations, while not perfect, are a major advancement in ensuring that milk labeled organic comes from animals that are not continuously confined to dry lots.  It will be interesting to see the effect these new regulations have on some of the "big organic" brands.

While these regulations will make it so that the cows producing organic milk come closer to the vision that many consumers have about happy cows out on pasture, remember that these regulations only require producers to ensure that animals are getting 30% of their dry feed from pasture.  If you want closer to 100% grass-fed milk, you are still going to have to look for it specifically.  So I still recommend seeking out and meeting your local farmers to find out how they raise their animals.