Organic Pasture coop members voted to stop purchasing milk from the largest organic dairy in the US, Natural Prairie, following Cornucopia's investigation into the deal. The industrial scale operation in Texas purchases replacement heifers as yearlings from conventional dairies. Under organic regulations it would be very difficult to maintain a calf crop under such high stocking rates without antibiotics and careful treatment.
Unlike Aurora and Dean Foods, Natural Prairie at least observes 'access to pasture' though I am still curious to their pasture management plan with such high stocking rates. Though the real measure is residual so I would assume that maintaining pasture health would be fairly important to an operation which likely owns its own land as opposed to leasing. I can't imagine mowing after grazing would lead to stratospheric harm especially if the forage has already gone to seed and is otherwise dormant.
Accounts of Natural Prairie are third party. Two descriptions of their capacity vary between 4000 to 7200 head with no description to what they are counting exactly.
Dean Foods, the $12 billion dairy giant and owner of the Horizon Organic label, and the Aurora Organic Dairy, whose factory farms produce private-label store-brand milk for Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway, Costco, and other chains Natural Prairie were as high as 7.2 cows per acre. Further adding to the serious questions about the legitimacy of grazing at the giant operation was the fact that they actually mow and harvest hay from the same fields grazed by their herd, increasing the already bloated, effective, stocking rates to a stratospheric level
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