Most non-organic milk is now sourced from enormous confinement dairies that can keep up to 30,000 cows in huge contained barns. In order to keep all those cows alive and producing milk in these conditions, they must be pumped full of antibiotics, fed a cocktail of hormones and stuffed with pesticide-laden feed.

To make matters worse, as with other perishable foods intended for national distribution, the longer the distance milk must travel before it reaches your table, the longer the shelf-life it requires. To control spoilage during transport, an Ultra High Temperature(UHT) process is used that severely compromises both the taste and quality of the milk.

While the answer is obviously to find and buy local milk products, the reality is that due to years of unchecked corporate-consolidation fewer and fewer small dairy farmers even exist.

Fortunately, local organic milk products are available in the Bay Area from small to mid-sized farms concerned with process as well as product. Sonoma County's Straus Family Creamery has been at the forefront of the movement to develop sustainable and environmentally sound practices in farming. They grow 50-60% of their own feed, their bottles are recycled glass and they even generate power on the farm from a new methane digester that captures naturally occurring gas from manure and converts it directly into electricity.

Most of Clover-Stornetta's organic milk comes from St. Anthony's Farm, located 10 miles west of Petaluma in Sonoma County. The farm, which is a residential drug and alcohol recovery program as well as a working organic dairy, is one of many programs offered by San Francisco-based St. Anthony Foundation.

St. Anthony's milking herd is approximately 230 cows- while the ranch is over 300 acres. This larger than average cow to-space ratio provides a healthier and more comfortable life for the animals. St. Anthony's Farm provides their cows with a diet of 100% organically grown feed, and the cows are neither treated with antibiotics nor the bovine growth hormone, rBST.

Other alternatives to non-local milk include farming cooperatives that manage to brand their product nationally while still producing and distributing locally. The Organic Valley Farming Cooperative began with seven farmers in 1988 and today boasts a membership of nearly 700 family farms. Besides producing organic milk, they support organizations such as Wild Farm Alliance, the Bioneers conference, Waterkeeper Alliance and the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment.

As consumers learn more about the philosophy and production methods of the mega-dairies, they are become more willing to pay more for local, organic products. While sustainable and humane production standards are certainly reflected in the market price of milk, in California, that price is already considerably inflated by the retailers.

In July 2004 The Consumers Union combined USDA data with information from a San Francisco Bay Area survey and found that out of thirty metropolitan areas around the nation San Francisco had the highest retail milk prices. This was particularly true at supermarkets. The study also found that consumers could pay significantly less for a gallon of milk at smaller, neighborhood or alternative markets. This discrepancy has nothing to do with supply or cost of production. The smaller stores actually pay higher wholesale costs per gallon for moving a smaller volume of milk.

One reason for this phenomenon is that while California law does not regulate how high retail milk prices can go, it actually prohibits California retailers from selling milk for less than their actual cost. While the original intent of this law was to stabilize a volatile dairy market and create a more level playing field for dairy retailers, the law's effect has given retailers very little competitive incentive to skim some of the fat from their milk profits.

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