US organic dairy farm highlights authenticity with outreach strategy

San Francisco

JANA McClelland is a third-generation dairy farmer in Petaluma, California. This October, she expects 600 to 1,200 people to visit her family's farm. She plans to take them to the nursery, the milking parlour and the pastures. "We know people care where their food comes from," she said.

It is all part of an outreach strategy from Organic Valley, which bills itself as the largest cooperative of organic farmers in the US. Call it table-to-farm marketing.

These initiatives, which include a new website, are meant to cater to what the Organic Trade Association describes as people's increasing interest in "transparency in the supply chain and to know where food comes from". According to the trade group, sales of organic food and non-food products in the US climbed to US$44.3 billion in 2015…