E.B. Solomont with the Mother Nature Network recently published an article titled, Dairy Farmers Launch Organic Brand, in The Olympian in Washington state. This is an exciting new brand of organic milk products featured by several dairy farmers in the state of Maine. Check it out!

In the annals of rural farming, 10 organic dairy farmers in Maine are showing entrepreneurial spirit in trying economic times: After their contracts with a major milk processor were abruptly canceled, the farmers will distribute and sell their own cows’ milk locally under the name MOOMilk, short for Maine’s Own Organic Milk Co. MOOMilk is set to hit stores in Maine and Massachusetts by early November, just 18 months after the farmers faced far bleaker prospects, according to the Bangor Daily News.

It all started when H.P. Hood Inc. axed the dairy farms from its organic line for economic reasons. Furious, the farmers urged the milk processor to reconsider, particularly since many converted to organic at Hood’s urging. Hood refused, but rather than fall prey to a ravaged economy, the farmers banded together to form a cooperative with investors, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the Maine Farm Bureau and the Maine Department of Agriculture. With a price tag of $3.99 per half-gallon, the milk will be sold at standard organic prices and will take roughly 96 hours to get from the cow to the shelf.