WASHINGTON, April 4, 2006 -- The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is calling on consumers to boycott milk brands that claim to be organic while routinely importing calves from conventional farms and raising the animals in intensive confinement, with little or no access to pasture.

"Consumers buying products labeled 'organic' do not realize that they often essentially being scammed by some of the larger companies who put pictures of happily grazing cows on their products, but in reality keep their cows confined in ways very similar to traditional factory farms. OCA is calling on consumers to boycott these bogus organic products , and give their consumer dollars to ethical producers who are upholding strict organic standards," says Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association.

For the confused consumer trying to buy ethical organic dairy, there is a new study, Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk, produced by the Cornucopia Institute that rates 68 organic dairy name-brands and private labels, exposing the dubious practices of some so-called organic companies, and highlighting companies that are producing truly organic milk.

"We found that approximately 20 percent of the companies we surveyed do not meet what we think should be the basic standard to label a product organic. Our hope our report and scorecard will enable consumers to make ethical shopping choices," says Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst for the Cornucopia Institute and the report's primary author. Companies could receive a rating of one to five cows depending on how they scored.

The study is available online at http://cornucopia.org/index.php/dairy_brand_ratings/

OCA is concerned by the spread of lower quality products being labeled organic to meet the increasing consumer demand for organic. This is especially true of many big box stores, such as Wal-Mart and Costco, who are scrambling to source and sell more products with the organic label.

"What is happening is that the massive demand for organic products is outstripping demand in the U.S. Instead of helping American farmers and ranchers make the difficult but necessary transition to organic, unscrupulous companies are moving to lower organic standards and import billions of dollars of organic foods and ingredients from overseas suppliers such as China, where labor standards are atrocious and organic certification standards are questionable, says Cummins.