Organic Dairy Farmers File Class Action Against Federal Government

Following More Than $60 Million Taken by Federal Milk Marketing Orders

The organic dairy industry has filed suits against the U.S. government seeking two remedies: an exemption for organic dairy from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) program and compensation for farmers required to pay into a pool that doesn’t serve them.

Specifically, three federal court filings from members of the Coalition for Organic Dairy Exemption (CODE) challenge the constitutionality of organic dairy’s forced participation in the FMMO program. Additionally, a class action takings claim brought by organic dairy farmers seeks compensation for six years of wrongfully collected payments into the system.

“The federal government has locked in an updated dairy pricing regulation that actively harms organic dairy farmers. It systematically siphons revenue generated from organic dairy sales and redistributes it to non-organic dairy producers and their partners,” said Elvin Ranck, an organic dairy farmer plaintiff from Pennsylvania. “This is effectively a government taking. CROPP Cooperative, of which I am an owner-member, pays millions of dollars each year into the Federal Milk Marketing Order pools, yet those dollars never return to organic farmers like me, and under the current system, they never will. At some point, we have to stand up for ourselves.”

Over 10 percent of U.S. dairy farms are certified organic, and they serve a consumer market that has grown from 1.9 percent of all fluid milk sales in 2006 to 7.0 percent in 2025. The current FMMO structure works directly against that demand, pulling resources out of organic dairy that could otherwise support expanded production. As a result, the federal government is undermining the resources base that would support organic dairy farmers and a growing marketplace.

“USDA, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has spent more than a decade protecting a Depression-era pricing system that forces organic dairy to subsidize conventional products, while refusing every administrative avenue that might have resolved the dispute without litigation,” said CODE members. “There is a growing movement in this country, across party lines, that wants to know where food comes from and how it’s produced. Organic farmers help make that possible. The federal government should not be making it harder for us to survive, and it has had every opportunity to fix this.”

It is important to note that the litigation does not seek to dismantle the FMMO program. Instead, it narrowly asks USDA to exclude organic dairy from a pricing system that was never intended for it.

Every Day We Wait, Organic Dairy Farmers Lose More Money

These legal actions are the result of a deliberate, years-long effort to resolve this through the administrative process. The organic dairy industry submitted proposals in 2015 that USDA refused to advance, presented organic-specific proposals at the 2023 national FMMO hearing that USDA refused to consider, raised objections in post-hearing briefing in 2024 that went unaddressed in the final rule, and filed administrative challenges in May 2025 that USDA has opposed.

A System Built for a Different Era and a Different Industry

In the 1930s, Congress instructed USDA to create the FMMO program to ensure sufficient supplies of milk and stabilize the conventional dairy industry, before organic dairy even existed. Today, organic milk accounts for 3 percent of total U.S. milk production, but it represents about 7 percent of fluid milk, the most heavily impacted segment under the FMMO program.

The FMMO program has never been updated to reflect that organic and conventional dairy are not the same. It treats organic and conventional milk identically in pooling and pricing structures that only work if participating milk is interchangeable. But under USDA’s own regulations, conventional milk cannot be substituted for or intermingled with organic milk. And organic dairy operates entirely distinct supply chains from conventional dairy that require continuous investment — costs that the FMMO system compounds rather than offsets. Organic dairy farmers also face higher feed and other production costs, and organic processors face greater segregation costs as well as stricter federal regulations in the manufacturing of organic dairy products.

“Federal law already recognizes organic as different. USDA’s own organic standards treat our milk as a distinct product with distinct requirements,” said the CODE members. “We are not asking to tear down the FMMOs. We are asking that FMMOs to reflect a distinction that the law already makes – and that consumers already understand.”

To learn more about CODE and its fight for organic dairy, visit https://www.coalitionfororganicdairyexemption.com/.

About the Coalition for Organic Dairy Exemption

The Coalition for Organic Dairy Exemption (CODE) is comprised of Aurora Organic Dairy, Horizon Organic Dairy, and CROPP Cooperative/Organic Valley. For over 30 years, CODE companies have sold organic milk products from thousands of certified organic dairies across the country.