Most Recent Campaign Headlines
Vermont’s agricultural narrative is overdue for a change. The tale of family farmers, grazing cows, thriving communities and across-the-board artisan quality is almost a museum piece at this point. While the images still dance in our heads – and in the marketing campaigns – they’re mostly a thing of the past.
Vermont is poised for our Phoenix-like moment, out of the ashes of the industrial agriculture that is our current economic, ecological and cultural burden can come a new paradigm, one steeped in a regenerative ethic that seeks to put the culture back in agriculture, the people back in farming, and the dignity back in farm work.
But we can’t get there until we first know how we got here.
A number of our supporters wrote recently to complain about the cozy deal between MoveOn.org and Ben & Jerry’s. It’s a deal that lets the ice cream maker polish its image (and boost sales) by aligning its brand with progressive causes—even though the Unilever-owned company is responsible for the use of massive amounts of toxic chemicals that have all but ruined Vermont’s water.
These supporters (and others) were referring to emails to MoveOn members from "Ben & Jerry" with subject lines like “We're worried” and “Stop Trump. Eat Ice Cream.”
But let’s be clear. This is free advertising for Ben & Jerry’s, a brand that masquerades as “socially responsible” when it isn’t. And it’s a great example of subliminal advertising, designed to convey this message: “Hey, we’re just like you. We care.”
The marketing gurus at Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s know full well that many consumers are willing to spend more for products sold by “socially responsible” companies. According to a recent report, Unilever's “Sustainable Living” brands are growing 46 percent faster than rest of business.
Today, April 10, is Ben & Jerry’s annual Free Cone Day.
There’s only one problem: Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is never free—because we all pay for the health and environmental damage caused by Ben & Jerry’s factory farm dairy practices.
OCA has been running a campaign against Ben & Jerry’s factory farm ice cream ever since we announced that the brand is contaminated with Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.
Glyphosate contamination isn’t the only problem with Ben & Jerry’s. Water pollution caused by non-organic dairy farms that supply Ben & Jerry’s is costing taxpayers millions.
Today, please help get the word out that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is never free.
On the side of the road in an unmarked white van, the award-winning investigative journalist Nelufar Hedayat, known for her global stories about women’s rights and cultural issues, such as The Traffickers, meets an undercover reporter working for the animal advocacy organization Compassion Over Killing. The unidentified man shares secret clips from his time spent on a dairy farm in the Northeast.
A year after it opened, Oregon’s second-largest dairy has not secured rights to the nearly 1 million gallons of water per day it needs for its thousands of cows and to process milk.
Instead, Lost Valley Farm near Boardman moved ahead without the necessary permits, using a loophole in Oregon law to pull water out of an underground aquifer that’s been off limits to new wells for 42 years, alarming neighboring farmers who say their water supplies are now at risk.
Oregon has settled a lawsuit it brought against a new mega-dairy accused of endangering nearby municipal and private wells by mismanaging manure and wastewater.
In Canada, it’s illegal to sell or give away raw milk, a law that’s enforced in many provinces. In Ontario, distributing raw milk was long considered to be a regulatory offense punishable by fines, but as of January 2018 an order issued by Ontario’s Superior Court calls for anyone who distributes or sells raw milk in the area to face years in prison. Members of one area food co-op believe the Ontario injunction violates their constitutional right to access raw milk, and they’ve filed a motion to have the injunction stayed.
FINLAND, Minn. – The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today called for an international boycott of Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry’s in conjunction with World Water Day, March 22.
“Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever, spend millions on marketing to create the false image that the Vermont-based brand is a champion of the environment, when in fact Ben & Jerry’s supports an industrial dairy system that is responsible for a water pollution crisis in Vermont,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director.
“The theme for this year’s World Water Day is ‘Nature for Water’—exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.’ Today we once again call on Ben & Jerry’s to convert its dairy supply chain to 100-percent organic and pasture-raised to help end the dumping of hundreds of thousands of pounds of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers into Vermont’s water supply,” Cummins said.
One of the largest farm businesses in the state expanded its operation and constructed a manure pit in Franklin County last summer — without a permit or state oversight.
The state has now retroactively required a permit for the farm expansion.
But an advocate who discovered it while investigating farm pollution is now citing the case as evidence of lax state enforcement over large scale dairy farming.
Pleasant Valley Farms built one of the state’s largest farming operations last year, in one of Vermont’s most polluted watersheds, without a permit, according to documents obtained by VTDigger.
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