As the National Organic Standards Board considers new rules (PDF) on organic dairy, a dispute has erupted between watchdog group Cornucopia Institute and widely respected Straus Family Creamery in Northern California over the access-to-pasture standard. (The Marin Independent Journal recently ran an informative account of the conflict.) E. Melanie Dupuis, author of Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink, brings an historical perspective to the conflict. --------------------------------- There's a politics to everything--even a buch of cows munching grass. Editor's note: The original version of this post contained three factual errors. The Cornucopia Institute did not give Straus Family Creamery …

It's happened a lot lately. Someone will send me the latest political diatribe that quotes my work. "What do you think of this guy?" they will ask. There's also a recent growth industry in academic essays in support of food movement icon, Michael Pollan. These essays pay tribute to him mostly by attacking my work and that of my UC Santa Cruz colleagues. The most annoying of these are people who are out there on the publicity circuit--those academics who have hired public relations folks to sell their new book--who use my work to defend simplistic and polarizing political points. …