Media Misses the Point on Organics

Unfortunately my computer at work opens to the MSN homepage. However, sometimes it's fun to read the "Katie Couric" type news stories that make up the MSN news page. Today, however, I stumbled upon this article. It lays out all of the information on how organic milk is the same as conventional milk. Believe what you may about the actual nutritional content (personally I believe organics have more nutrients), but one of the main concerns is that this article totally overlooks is the pollution and environmental costs associated with factory farms. Small, conventional local dairies I have no problem with, however most conventional milk comes from factory farm dairies. These factory farms not only are inhumane because the cows are denied any of their natural instincts like walking, like the cows to the left, they cause excessive amounts of nitrates in groundwater and streams from the large amount of manure runoff, the hormones and antibiotics that they are injected with also ends up in the local water (even if these aren't detected in the milk-which I don't completely buy anyhow). That said-I would still buy dairy products from a local dairy that is not organic (like Tetzners here in northern Wisco or Lochmead or Umpqua like I bought in Oregon (none of these use growth hormones) instead of Horizon organic milk. Horizon follows the organic standards, but they are close to factory farms in terms of size, since they were bought out by Kraft. Organic Valley is a better option for a national organic brand. I wish the mainstream media would stop reporting only part of the story and only focus on one area, instead of looking at the whole picture. Organic and local food production is the future if we want clean water and a healthy earth for tomorrow.