Hello all,

We could use your help!  Horizon (Dean Foods) is spending tens of thousands of dollars by placing full-page color advertisements, with beautiful photographs of some of the families who ship milk to them, in magazines all over the country.  Unfortunately, these smaller farms represents maybe only 40-60% of their milk volume.  The ads say that they,  "rely on 342 family farms.. nearly 83% of their total supply."  Unfortunately, they consider the 10,000 cow Vander Eyk dairy one of their "family farms".

Please help us by sending a message back with the names of any magazines you have seen these ads appear in, including the issue date.

In the meantime we invite you to take a look at one of the family farms they are so proud of.  It is really disrespectful for them to lump the ethical, hard-working real family farms, who produce their milk, with these giant industrial dairies..

 Courtesy of the team of students doing research out of the University of California we would invite you to visit our website to view photographs of the Case Vander Eyk Jr. dairy in Pixley California: cornucopia.org/pasture/?page_id=194

Does this look like an organic farm - a split operation with 10,000 total cows???

Consumers who buy milk labeled Horizon (or possibly Alta Dena - also owned by Dean Foods) and Stremicks (Heritage Foods) may have a different image in mind.

Truth in advertising?  Corporate ethics?  Democracy in action?

The complacency of the USDA with the status quo has resulted in upwards of a couple dozen of these industrial farms either operating, currently in transition or in planning (there may very well be more that we don't know about).    These farms would not have even started in the first place if reputable certifiers and the USDA would have, in good faith, enforced the current regulations!

As we've always said, one picture is worth a thousand words. Please check out the photos of the Vander Eyk "dairy farm" and check out the other photo galleries while you are on this site (Horizon's dairies in Idaho and Maryland along with Aurora's dairies in Colorado and Texas).

MAK

Mark A. Kastel
The Cornucopia Institute
kastel@cornucopia.org
608-625-2042 Voice
866-861-2214 Fax