Want to help stimulate your local economy? Easy. Pick up a glass of organic dairy milk or drizzle some over your cereal. While presidential candidates were fighting over job creation tactics these past few months, it turns out your neighborhood heifers were busy stimulating growth in rural communities. A first-of-its-kind report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently found that dairies—specifically organic ones—contributed millions to state economies in recent years, while other industries, including conventional farming, faced serious setbacks.
"Over the past 30 years, dairy farmers have had a choice: Either get big or get out. Dairy farmers either had to expand dramatically and become large industrial operations or they went out of business," says report author Jeffrey O'Hara, an agricultural economist for the Food and Environment Program at UCS. "However, organic dairy production offers farmers another option—one that is better for the environment, produces a healthier product, and leads to greater levels of economic activity."