Organic dairy is still rape

Just without hormones. Isn't that nice? Read about how the CEO of Pacific Natural Foods, Chuck Eggert, treats the "organic cows" that he thinks he owns:

Eggert tapped son Charlie to run the complex operations: managing the milking cows and 100-plus calves; seeing to artificial insemination; and feeding herds an organic mix of alfalfa, barley, flax, composted corn silage and minerals. He found himself birthing calves at 2 a.m. -- and collecting and disposing of millions of gallons of waste each year.

If forceful impregnation, in this case coldly referred to as "artificial insemination" isn't rape, then I don't know what is.

Organic dairy cows are still victims of capitalism, but a variety with a friendlier face. They are supposed to be able to move more than non-organic dairy cows, have "natural" food and all sorts of wonderful benefits that they would normally have if people hadn't made them rape/production slaves, which are all things that make people feel better about themselves for paying people to rape cows, confine them, take their milk and sell them off to slaughter when they pass their peak rates of production.

Capitalists, of course, are chiefly concerned with money. Money always wins over welfare and wellbeing. I think "green" capitalists or "concerned" capitalists or however they try to redefine themselves do those cost/benefit analysis things where they figure out how to make the most money while having to spend the least, which, in this case, often results in keeping a large number of cows and treating them not quite as shittily as their relatives in factory farms.

Here are what some local critics have to say of Eggert's two dairy farms:

Kimbirauskas, with Friends of Family Farmers, says there's a simpler way to reduce manure impacts: Cut herds and get them in pastures. That reduces odor and the volume of waste to be handled.

"There are other organic dairies that aren't putting millions of dollars into waste technology," she says. "They're just putting their cows on grass."

Until now, national organic standards have only required dairies to provide "access to pasture." Some of the Eggerts' neighbors say they've rarely seen cows grazing in the past.

Here is how various Oregon state agencies have felt about Eggert's "green" practices:

His twin dairy farms near the Willamette River southwest of Wilsonville were intended as an extension of that ethos: organic, cutting-edge operations that would be models of environmentally sustainable and economically successful agriculture.

It has not gone well. Eggert's Mayfield and Rock Ridge dairies have repeatedly mismanaged the manure that 700 milking cows produce, racking up 20 manure-related violations and $35,000 in state fines. A $20,000 fine this month was the largest ever by the state's Confined Animal Feeding Operation program.

Nice, Chuck, nice. Good going there, really. You are showing people how much different "green" capitalism is from the normal kind, whatever you want to call it.

Finally, here's Chuck propagating that myth that cow's milk is somehow necessary for life:

"If you just say no dairy should be more than five cows, all you're doing is providing an elitist food system," says Eggert, 61. "Some people might go to the store and pay $10 a gallon for a gallon of organic milk. Most people can't afford that."

"Elitist food system." Or a more compassionate one.