Economics slp module 02 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Economics slp module 02 - Essay Example As the trend for going â€Å"Green† is on the rise globally, the demand for organic foods which are environmentally friendly, healthier and more nutritious than other grown foods is also growing rapidly. The official figures say that organic markets are increasing by about 20% per annum as compared to 2% to 4% in the non organic market1. The supply of organic milk is very hard to cope at the moment. This is because dairy farms have to follow extremely careful practices on providing their cows with the right environment and not over-milk them. Organic means natural, this is why cows have to be treated in the most natural way possible. Wal-Mart therefore lay down strict guidelines for its organic milk producer Aurora, to meet. Being Wal-Mart, the whole procedure had to be big as well, so Aurora is currently using 3500 cows for its organic milk production. The cows are given a break when they are not lactating, which is about three to four months a year. Apart from this, the cows are also given a huge field to roam around in and graze in grass like they would naturally do. This 3500 figure might not look big enough for most dairy farms, but for organic milk production this is a huge number of cows to handle. This is why the company tripled its size of grazing fields since the start of production. Naturally, Wal-Mart has since encountered many criticisms from its competitors. The biggest is Whole Foods. This is the current biggest organic food supplier in the market. The market reputation of Wal-Mart has been slightly affected by these criticisms because when some competitor firms like Whole Foods and Organic Valley examined the procedures and facilities at the diary farm they dubbed them â€Å"unacceptable†. However, since then Wal-Mart has their dairy farms examined by independent inspectors and gotten a satisfactory result. This has made the market position of Wal-Mart a little stringer in the organic