Key Findings
One area of the organic dairy market that has not only seen growth, but rapid recent expansion is the organic grass-fed (OGF) sector. OGF managed farms must adhere to more stringent protocols than a traditional organic dairy operation. But there are two major benefits to OGF management: greater resiliency to rising costs of feed grain and a generally higher price than regular organic milk.
About the Co-Author
Andre Brito, Professor of Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems
Contact information: Andre.Brito@unh.edu
603-862-1341, Brito Lab website
This research first published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems.
Researchers: M. Snider, S. Ziegler, H. Darby, K. Soder, A. Brito, B. Beidler, S. Flack, S. Greenwood and M. Niles
The U.S. organic dairy market is experiencing a major shift. After expansion during the 2000s and 2010s, the U.S. sales of organic milk have dropped steadily over the past 5 years—by 2.3 percent in 2022 alone—and prices declined by 25% between 2017 and 2022, according to data from the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. The slump is largely due to the market mismatch between the growing organic milk production and lower demand for all dairy milk in the U.S. However, challenges for New Hampshire’s small organic dairy farms, which have 100 or fewer milking cows, have been exacerbated by increasing feed costs and large organic milk processors, such as Horizon Organic and Maple Hill Creamery, recently transitioning to purchasing more milk from larger dairy operations in other U.S. regions.
Until recently, however, the organic grass-fed (OGF) management systems have had little research directed to identifying best practices for higher milk production. Andre Brito, a scientist with the NH Agricultural Experiment Station and associate professor in the Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Systems department, was one of several Northeast scientists to contribute to a paper in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems journal that studied management techniques of OGF dairy farmers. Led by researchers at the University of Vermont, the study provides a better understanding of this sector and its operations and needs.
“Pasture and forage are the cheapest source of feed in a dairy farm as imported grains can be very expensive,” said Brito. “With the margin of profitability declining over time for organic dairy farmers, one solution has been to reduce feed costs and shift to 100 percent forage diets and produce a type of milk that has a higher price point.”
The research included a national survey of 167 OGF farmers, which gathered information about general farming practices, herd management, and foraging and grazing management. The key findings indicated that the majority of OGF dairy farmers belong to the plain, or Amish-Mennonite, community, and that farms with higher milk production most often used Holstein cows, employed an intense regimen of pasture rotation, and supplemented grazing diets with molasses and kelp meal.
