Dairy farmers struggle to keep up with organic milk demand

Organic dairy farmers throughout the country are running low on organic milk amid high demand for the product.

High feed and fuel prices have also contributed to the difficulties farmers have encountered when trying to meet the demand for organic milk, according to USA Today.

The news provider reports that there have been organic milk shortages before but that this time things might not rebound, in part due to a sharp jump in the prices of organic feed needed for the cows.

Molly Keveney, a spokeswoman for Horizon Organic, the top-selling organic milk brand, said that organic milk demand is expected to increase 7 percent, without a corresponding increase in production.

"The market has surged faster than supply, and at the same time we had high feed costs reduce supply, so we had a double hit here," George Siemon, the chief executive officer of Organic Valley, the country's largest cooperative of organic farmers, told the news provider.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2.7 percent of dairy cows in the U.S. are certified organic.

Pennsylvania is one of the more involved states in the mid-Atlantic region when it comes to organic farming, as there are 420 such operations in the state, according to the USDA's Economic Research Service.