Although organic milk will be more widely available and less expensive, some critics worry consumers will be getting a diluted form.

Many organic foods have appeared on the shelves of Wal-Mart in recent years, but none has been as popular as organic milk. For many shoppers, particularly mothers with small children, it is the first organic product they try.

Now organic milk is about to become much more widely available, as Wal-Mart rolls out its own organic brand, which will be cheaper than similar milk on the market. But critics worry that what consumers will be getting is a diluted form of organic milk.

Sold under Wal-Mart’s Great Value label, the milk has been introduced at 1, 200 Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets, according to Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart’s own organic milk is likely to create stiff competition for many other makers of organic milk — which comes from cows that have not been treated with hormones or antibiotics — and even sellers of conventional milk.

Harvey Hartman, president of the Hartman Group, a market research firm working with Wal-Mart, said Wal-Mart’s own brand of organic milk will mean a lot more will be sold in the United States.

Last year, organic milk sales increased by 25 percent from the year before, and Hartman predicts that Wal-Mart’s brand could lift annual growth to as much as 35 percent. Currently, organic dairy represents 3. 5 percent of all dairy products sold in the United States, according to the Organic Trade Association.

The organic milk Wal-Mart is selling under its own label comes from Aurora Organic Dairy, which also supplies Safeway, Costco, Target and Wild Oats with their store brands of organic milk. But Wal-Mart’s entry into the market stirs greater attention from critics.

Activist groups and some organic food retailers and dairies contend that the company where Wal-Mart and the other big retailers get their milk operates large factory farms that are diluting the principles of organic agriculture and delivering customers a substandard product. They argue that Aurora’s cows do not spend any significant time roaming pastures and eating fresh grass; instead, they live on a diet high in grains.

Wal-Mart and its supplier say those allegations are misleading and that Aurora’’s two farms in Colorado and Texas are in full compliance with Agriculture Department standards for organic dairies.

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By Melanie Warner