CORNUCOPIA, WI – Two powerful lobby groups in the food industry, The Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Organic Trade Association, recently intervened as friends of the court in a federal consumer class-action lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest supplier of private-label organic milk of consumer fraud. In what has been described as “the largest scandal in the history of the organic industry” USDA investigators, in 2007, found that Aurora Dairy had willfully violated federal organic standards. However, industry lobbyists are now concerned that convicting Aurora will set a dangerous legal precedent. Aurora bottles private-label organic milk for Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway and many other grocery chains.

In August 2007 Bush administration officials were widely criticized for overruling career staff at the USDA and instead of decertifying Aurora as staff had recommended, banning it from organic commerce, the corporate dairy was allowed to continue in business under a one-year probation. Now agribusiness lobbyists are concerned that citizens prevailing in court, alleging fraud, will set a precedent necessitating large corporations to incur added expenses to more carefully check the sources and credibility of their organic suppliers.

“Due diligence by food manufacturers and retailers is the heart and soul of what maintaining the integrity of the organic label is about,” said Mark Kastel, Codirector of The Cornucopia Institute, the farm policy research group that initially exposed the corruption taking place at Aurora.

In an internal document, the Organic Trade Association told its membership that, “OTA is taking this action in order to protect consumers’ access to organic products and the guarantee by organic farmers, producers and processors that their valid organic certificate fully demonstrates that their product is considered organic when marketed.” Lobbyists from the Grocery Manufacturers also were concerned that if the consumers prevail in this legal matter it would become, according to a copy written article in Sustainable Food News, “prohibitively expensive to continue developing organic products.”

“This type of rhetoric is just a stick in the eye to the ethical participants in this industry who make it a point, in their everyday course of business, to judiciously assure that their products meet not only the letter but the spirit of the organic law,” added Kastel.

Just like Aurora Dairy, Wal-Mart and Target were both found to have misrepresented organic products in the marketplace and were the subject of separate USDA investigations.

“Yes, it does cost more money to legally and ethically participate in organic commerce, said Will Fantle, Research Director for Cornucopia. “One of the reasons that big-box retailers are able to undercut their competition on price is they refuse to hire, train and adequately compensate management and frontline employees who know anything about the organic law.”

Aurora produces private label, or storebrand milk, for about 20 of the largest grocery chains in the United States.

In an ironic twist to this story Organic Valley, the nation’s second-largest organic milk marketer and a cooperative, is receiving criticism for its underwriting of a brief supporting Aurora’s position. The farmer-owned cooperative provided the financial support allowing the Organic Trade Association to file its amicus brief opposing the class-action lawsuit brought by consumers in over 40 states. The consumers allege that they were defrauded by the Colorado-based Aurora Dairy corporation.

The news of Organic Valley’s involvement was a shock to some of its co-op members including Kevin Engelbert, a nationally recognized organic leader and dairy farmer from Nichols, New York. “Can this possibly be true? Has OV made a pact with the devil? I know OTA is controlled by the big money interests,” said Engelbert. “The 14 willful violations [by Aurora] prove that some organic certificates aren’t enough to demonstrate that a product is organic when marketed. The ‘organicness’ of questionable products must be challenged when necessary to maintain organic integrity.”

The Cornucopia’s Kastel said he was “flabbergasted” that a cooperative owned by family farmers would stick up for a corporation at the heart of the biggest scandal in history in the organic food industry and he characterized Aurora as a “bad actor” and “bad aberration” in the industry where consumers can generally trust the organic label.

“Aurora’s factory farm milk has injured the vast majority of Organic Valley’s own farmer-members by depriving them of markets for their milk and unfairly driving down retail pricing. Earlier this year the cooperative cut the pay price to its members and required its farmers to reduce production because of a milk surplus in the marketplace — a surplus that would be much smaller if Aurora legitimately managed its dairy cows like Organic Valley’s ethical dairy farmers,” Kastel added.

Cornucopia analysis, and USDA research, suggests that as much as a third of the nation’s organic milk supply comes from giant factory farms. Another organic factory farm operator, Dean Foods, the country’s largest milk marketer, and an OTA and GMA member, has been widely criticized in the organic community for procuring much of its milk for its Horizon brand from mega-dairies allegedly breaking the same rules as Aurora.

“If you connect the dots here you have to wonder why the management at Organic Valley is getting into bed with Aurora, Dean Foods and the most powerful lobbyists representing corporate agribusiness,” Kastel lamented. “Not only would Organic Valley membership benefit from Aurora being banned from organics, but if the lobbyists concerns are true, and some of the largest corporate players that have been playing fast and loose with the rules decide to exit the organics, that will only pump up their brand’s market share.”

The friend of the court brief, opposing a lower court ruling, which was funded by Organic Valley, expresses fears about a precedent should consumers be compensated for any fraud committed by Aurora. Melissa Hughes, an in-house lawyer for Organic Valley, told the editor of Sustainable Food News, that if the appeal is upheld “it could have vast implications on retailers, processors, handlers, and ultimately consumers.”

Analysts at Cornucopia strongly refute the contention that the Aurora matter would leave all organic marketers open to tort complaints by consumers. “Obviously, there is strong evidence for these consumers to believe they were defrauded by Aurora and the supermarket chains,” Kastel said. “This is an exceptional situation not indicative of the industry as a whole.”

Kastel cited the fact that Cornucopia sent certified letters to every one of Aurora’s retailer customers informing them that the reputation of their store’s label was at risk and encouraging them to take action. Only two marketers, the Publix supermarket chain in Florida and United Natural Foods International, the largest organic food distributor in the country, did the due diligence necessary and switched suppliers.

“The organic certification documents alone are not enough if evidence is brought to a marketer’s attention that some kind of improprieties are taking place,” Fantle added. “There is always the possibility that collusion or incompetence has taken place on the part of the supplier, certifier or the USDA.”

A comprehensive investigative story that appeared in the pages of the Washington Post referenced the Aurora matter, and a cozy relationship between the powerful Washington lawyer and lobbyist for Aurora, Dean and the OTA, and the former director of the organic program at the USDA. Alleged malfeasance at the Department has sparked the interest of Congress and an expanded investigation is currently taking place by the Office of the Inspector General at the USDA.

“Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 charging the USDA with preventing fraud; protecting the interests of ethical industry participants and consumers,” observed Cornucopia’s Kastel. “The obvious allegation here is that the regulatory branch, the USDA under the Bush administration, failed to properly enforce the law. It is appropriate for citizens who feel they were defrauded to seek a judicial remedy,” he added.

The “sweetheart” settlement between Aurora and the USDA provoked a consumer led effort to seek justice in federal courts. Nineteen separate class action lawsuits were brought against Aurora and several national grocery retailers selling Aurora’s suspect organic milk including Wal-Mart, Target and Safeway. The lawsuits claiming consumer fraud were eventually consolidated into a single case in the federal district court in St. Louis. Earlier this year, federal court judge E. Richard Webber dismissed the lawsuit on procedural grounds. An appeal has since been filed seeking to bring the merits of the lawsuit, which have not been heard, back before the court.

“OTA’s action, apparently backed by CROPP [Organic Valley], infuriates me,” said Kevin Engelbert. “I hope every person and organization that belongs to OTA drops their membership immediately.”

The complaints are the latest salvo into a growing controversy whereas corporate agribusiness and major retailers have been accused of blurring the line between “natural” products and food that has been grown, processed and properly certified organic under tight federal standards.

“Major food processors have recognized the meteoric rise of the organic industry, and profit potential, and want to create what is in essence ‘organic light,’ taking advantage of the market cachet but not being willing to do the heavy lifting required to earn the valuable USDA organic seal,” said Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at Cornucopia.

The Wisconsin-based farm policy research group discovered Target nationally advertised Silk soymilk in newspapers with the term “organic” pictured on the carton’s label, when in fact the manufacturer, Dean Foods, had quietly shifted their products away from organics.

Dean Foods, and its WhiteWave division, received media scrutiny, and industry condemnation, this past spring for not notifying retailers or changing the UPC codes, when they quietly switched to conventional soybeans in their core-products.

Dean/WhiteWave also received heat in the organic food and agriculture community when they decided to convert some of their Horizon products, the leading organic label in terms of sales volume, to cheaper “natural” (conventional) ingredients. “This really hit a nerve because one of these new Horizon products, Little Blends yogurt, is aimed specifically at toddlers, at an early stage of development, where the nutritional superiority of organic food, and its utility in avoiding chemical residues in our food, is so critically important,” Kastel added.

A front-page story in the Chicago Tribune in July outlined a consumer survey that showed the public was unclear about the difference between natural and organic labels and that some corporations, particularly Dean Foods, were taking advantage of the confusion in the marketplace.

The story quoted Suzanne Shelton, president and CEO of the Shelton Group which conducted the survey, as saying, “They [consumers] think ‘natural’ is regulated by the government but that organic isn’t, and of course it’s just the opposite.”

In fact, a strict set of farm and food handling standards have been developed and implemented by the federal government to regulate food that qualifies for the USDA’s organic seal. For the most part, food products containing “natural” ingredients represent little more than soothing marketing puffery aimed at consumers.

This is not the first tangle involving Cornucopia and Target. The giant Minneapolis-based retailer’s own upscale private label food line, Archer Farms, which blurs the line selling both natural and organically labeled food, came under scrutiny when Cornucopia discovered that it’s organic milk supplier, Colorado-based Aurora Dairy, was flagrantly violating federal organic livestock standards and filed a complaint with the USDA.

USDA investigators determined that Aurora had willfully violated 14 federal organic regulations. In what was condemned as a “sweetheart deal” by some in the organic industry, the Bush administration allowed Aurora to stay in business. Unlike some other retailers, Target stuck with Aurora as their milk supplier for their Archer Farms label.

“In an industry where educational achievement and passion are the common denominators in describing its clientele, Target could certainly be viewed as arrogant to think they can take advantage of consumers by ignoring both the spirit and letter of the laws governing organic commerce,” Kastel affirmed.

SuperTarget stores have gained significant market share around the country and are, according to a recent Nielsen/Shelby report, now the number two grocer in Minnesota’s Twin Cities market.

“We feel very strongly about taking seriously the use of the regulated term: Organic,” said Lindy Bannister, general manager of The Wedge, the nation’s largest member-owned cooperative store. “Although we welcome all the players that bring organic food to people, we must insist that, for the unregulated (the non-certified retailers), they at the very least should proof their ads as they are subject to a federal fine for misusing that regulated term.”

This is not the first time The Cornucopia Institute has found that specialty retailers, like the nation’s approximately 275 co-op grocers, have faced unethical competition from big-box chains. After the group filed complaints with federal and state regulators against Wal-Mart in 2006, also alleging misrepresention of conventional food as organic with improper signage in their stores, the nation’s largest retailer signed consent agreements with the USDA and the state of Wisconsin committing to change their practices.

“Wal-Mart did indeed clean up its act, as we expect Target to do, but it should not take the judicious oversight of an industry watchdog to cause these giant corporations to comply with the law, said Will Fantle, research director for the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia. “One of the reasons these companies can undercut other retailers is they do not invest in the kind of management expertise necessary to prevent problems of this nature from occurring.”

“It’s bad enough Target steals real farmers’ identities with that fake ‘Archer Farms’ label,” said Barth Anderson, a consumer long involved in the organic movement and chief blogger at Fair Food Fight. “But blurring the lines between natural and organic is just plain wrong. Target is trying to profiteer at the expense of consumers like me.”

Anderson was adamant that, “There’s nothing wrong with larger corporations being involved in organics but if they squeeze out ethical companies by cutting corners, or play fast and loose by the rules, everyone loses — real farmers, organic consumers and retailers alike. Blurring the lines between natural and organic is just plain trying to profiteer at the expense of consumers like me.”

Capital Press
By Mitch Lies

PHILOMATH, Ore. — Frank Morton said he was told he should sue the USDA if he didn’t like Roundup Ready sugar beet seed being produced in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

“I was literally told three times that if you don’t like that, you’ll have to sue USDA,” Morton said.

In January 2008, the Philomath-area organic vegetable seed grower contacted the Center for Food Safety and helped instigate the suit that has put in question the future of transgenic sugar beet production.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, a Bush-administration appointee, last week ruled the USDA violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it failed to prepare an environmental impact statement before deregulating the genetically engineered beets in 2005.

White has scheduled an Oct. 30 meeting to discuss remedies. The Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice are expected to ask for an injunction banning new plantings until USDA can complete the environmental assessment.

Morton said his primary objective was protecting his business.

“This is not a political concern,” he said. “I was concerned that contamination events would begin to occur that would make my seed worthless.”

And, he said, the suit was not his first choice.

Morton, a member of the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association, said he approached the association several times with his concerns.

“I thought we should be talking about this as an association, and I wanted to talk about this and talk about the impact of having genetically modified crops be a part of the specialty seed mix here in the valley.

“But no one wanted to talk about it,” he said. “It was almost like it was an off-limits subject.”

Morton said he was worried the genetically engineered seed crop would cross-pollinate with his organic red chard and table beets.

But he was unable to learn where transgenic beets were being planted.

“They did not want to put on the pin that it was genetically engineered,” he said, referring to a pinning system growers use to distinguish where vegetable seed crops are produced.

“This is something we don’t share with our seed-growing neighbors that I think we should — whether a crop is genetically engineered or not,” he said. “My market doesn’t have any tolerance for this.

“I have to test my seed before I sell it and if I ever get a positive for genetic engineering traits, then my seed crops are worthless,” he said.

White’s order Sept. 21 has extensive implications for an industry already transitioned to beets genetically bred with resistance to Roundup herbicide. About 95 percent of the 1.16 million acres of sugar beets planted this year in the United States were Roundup Ready, industry officials said.

In the Willamette Valley, upwards of 3,000 acres of Roundup Ready sugar beet seed is already in the ground.

Morton has little sympathy for companies and growers who planted Roundup Ready beet seed this year. It was obvious, he said, the judge was going to rule against the USDA, and sugar beet companies and growers should have anticipated the ruling.

“They painted themselves into a corner with a spray paint can,” he said. “If there is no beet sugar (next year), it’s not my fault and it’s not the judge’s fault.”

Morton produces organic seed under the brand name Wild Garden Seed. In addition to organic chard and table beets, he grows squash and several brassica crop seeds.

“I do feel vindicated,” he said, “because everything I said to my fellow seedsmen, the judge has now agreed with.”

Staff writer Mitch Lies is based in Salem. E-mail: mlies@capitalpress.com.

Through the efforts of The Cornucopia Institute, a national family farm research group based in Wisconsin, the confusion has been cleared up by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP). Their Bureau of Food Safety & Inspection clarified that apple growers are indeed allowed to sell raw apple cider at farmers markets, when several criteria are met.

Growers may sell unpasteurized apple cider at farmers markets, only if they have pressed and bottled the cider at their own farms. In addition to farmers markets they can sell cider directly off their farms, at farm stands they operate, through community sponsored agriculture programs (CSAs) and even door-to-door.

“There is no fresh food that we eat that doesn’t carry some risk associated with it,” said Charlotte Vallaeys, Farm & Food Policy Analyst with Cornucopia. Many consumers believe that raw, unprocessed foods offer superior nutrition. “The DATCP rules are intended to minimize risks and educate the consumer,” added Vallaeys.

Wisconsin farmers may only sell their unpasteurized cider directly to consumers, not wholesale, and must affix a warning label on each container to alert consumers that the cider has not been treated to reduce the likelihood of bacterial contamination.

In response to a 1996 E. coli outbreak that was traced to Odwalla apple juice, the FDA requires all juice that is distributed wholesale, or sold through retail outlets, to be pasteurized in an effort to prevent foodborne illness. These commercial products normally travel great distances and might not be as fresh as locally produced cider.

For small-scale and local growers who press their own apples at the farm, and who follow responsible agricultural practices to prevent contamination, pasteurization may not be an option due to the costs involved. They can genuinely prevent contamination by following good agricultural and processing practices—for example, by using only apples that were picked straight off the tree and never apples that have fallen to the ground.

“For local growers wishing to sell raw apple cider directly to their customers, the clarification by the Bureau of Food Safety and Inspection that they may indeed sell their raw apple cider at farmers markets is welcome news,” said Vallaeys.

If purchased directly from a local grower who followed good agricultural practices, they argue, the likelihood of bacterial contamination is too low to justify the impact on quality through pasteurization.

A fact sheet, designed to educate Wisconsin apple growers, including applicable state and federal regulations, can be accessed at:

http://www.cornucopia.org/FoodSafety/AppleCider_WI_rulesFactSheet.pdf

CORNUCOPIA, WI: USDA hearings begin this week on a proposal that would authorize the development of production and handling regulations for a long list of fresh vegetables, primarily leafy greens. The first of seven national hearings starts Tuesday, September 22 in Monterey, California, and then will shift to other locations across the country.

The proposed marketing agreement would allow leafy green handlers to attach a USDA-backed “food safety seal” to lettuce, spinach, cabbage and other vegetables while prohibiting most organic and local farmers selling through farmers markets, CSAs, roadside stands, and those selling directly to retailers from using the same seal.

The plan, hatched and promoted by some of the nation’s largest corporate agribusinesses that distribute vegetables, is similar to a controversial California agreement that was put into place after spinach, contaminated with E. coli bacteria, sickened 199 people in 26 states and left three dead in September, 2006.

“This proposed food safety agreement will do nothing to tackle the root cause of the food safety problem, which is, in most cases, manure from confined animal feeding operations that is tainted with disease causing pathogenic bacteria,” said Will Fantle, of the Wisconsin-based farm policy group, The Cornucopia Institute.

Industry proponents pushing this will be hard pressed to demonstrate that their proposal will actually prevent food borne illness. Just days ago, on September 18, Ippolito International, a signatory to the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, recalled 1,715 cartons of spinach due to salmonella contamination.

But the proposed safety standards, which have been described as a “corporate-backed marketing ploy,” may give agribusinesses using the new food safety seal a boost and lead many consumers to assume that vegetables from industrial-scale monoculture farms, primarily in California, are safer than the leafy greens available from local growers around the country. And that has some farmers worried.

“I am concerned that organic, and small and medium sized local growers like myself, will become marketplace ‘second-class citizens’ in the eyes of some consumers, by implying that my produce is less safe – when the very opposite is likely to be true,” said Tom Willey, a certified organic vegetable grower from Madera, CA.

In fact, the produce most likely to be implicated in foodborne illness outbreaks are the bags of leafy greens on supermarket shelves rather than organic produce bought directly from a farmer or when distributed to a local co-op or specialty retailer.

In addition, farmers who want to sell to handlers using the new food safety seal will likely have to implement costly record-keeping and testing protocols on their acreage. This is economically unfeasible for many small growers.

Some farmers may even have to undo decades of conservation and habitat-based improvements – such as water and shoreland stream buffers – in the attempt to isolate their crops from wildlife, that have never been proven to be the source of past contamination problems. “Isolating wildlife is a smokescreen deflecting concern away from factory farm livestock production which is demonstrated to create water, air and soil contamination,” Fantle added.

The September 17th edition of the New York Times ran a disturbing cover story about widespread contamination of well water in states with high concentrations of industrial-scale livestock facilities. Contaminated water in rural areas, used for irrigation or for washing vegetables, has been implicated in past contamination incidents involving fresh vegetables.

“The Cornucopia Institute agrees that the safety of our food supply is a vitally important issue,” said Fantle. “This is precisely why we believe that the USDA should not allow corporate handlers to mix serious food safety concerns with their self-serving marketing interests.”

Up until this proposal, food safety has been under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. The USDA’s limited food safety responsibilities primarily concern the nation’s meat supply.

We have also suggested that new leadership would probably best be found outside the agency. We repeated that message as part of our Change@USDA campaign, launched earlier this year, hoping to convince the new administration in Washington that an overhaul was needed at the National Organic Program (NOP).

We are delighted to note that a new administrator for the NOP has been hired. Miles McAvoy, who has led Washington State’s respected organic program, will be assuming the post in October. He is the type of experienced and savvy individual who will bring a breath of fresh air to the federal organic program. Pasted below is the news release from the USDA announcing their new direction.

- Will Fantle

—————

Secretary Vilsack Announces Miles McEvoy Will Serve As Deputy Administrator Of National Organic Program

Contact:  USDA Office of Communications (202) 720-4623

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17, 2009 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that Miles McEvoy has been hired to serve as Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program (NOP). McEvoy assumes his position on Oct. 1. Vilsack also announced that the NOP will become an independent program area within AMS because of the increased visibility and emphasis on organic agriculture throughout the farming community, evolving consumer preferences, and the enhanced need for governmental oversight of this widely expanded program. Organically grown and marketed agricultural products are of key interest to the Obama Administration, and the NOP will be receiving increased funding and staffing in the new fiscal year.

“Miles McEvoy has worked in the field of organic agriculture for more than two decades and has a solid understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the organic community,” Vilsack said.

For more than 20 years, McEvoy led the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s (WSDA) Organic Food Program, one of the nation’s first state organic certification programs. In 2001, he helped establish the WSDA Small Farm and Direct Marketing Program. From 1993 until 1995, McEvoy was the founding Director of The Food Alliance, a program that blends sustainable farming practices and social welfare components into an eco-label program.

McEvoy helped establish the National Association of State Organic Programs in 1998 and currently serves as its President. He also assisted the Montana Department of Agriculture to develop the state’s organic certification program and has been helping the Oregon Department of Agriculture in developing its own organic certification program.

The NOP is responsible for regulating the fastest growing segment of U.S. agriculture, the organic industry. U.S. sales of organic foods have grown from $1 billion in 1990, when the Organic Foods Production Act established the NOP, to a projected $23.6 billion in 2009. Congress increased NOP funding to $2.6 million in FY08 and to $3.2 million in FY09.

WASHINGTON, DC: Aurora Dairy, based in Boulder, Colorado, the nation’s largest organic dairy producer, is once again facing allegations of improprieties. Aurora had previously been found in “willful” violation of multiple federal organic standards by USDA investigators in 2007.

This week an organic industry watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA in Washington alleging that one of the five industrial-scale dairies operated by Aurora, its High Plains dairy near Kersey, Colorado, is failing to graze their dairy cattle as required by the federal organic standards.

Family dairy farmers have recently appealed directly to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack for swift enforcement action in response to giant corporations “gaming the system” and squeezing them out of business. They claim they are being placed at a competitive disadvantage. A national surplus of organic milk – largely created by factory farm dairies – and magnified by a soft economy – has been driving down prices paid to farmers.

“Here we have an industry where 1800 family farmers, and the reputable organic brands they supply, are continuing to have their economic survival imperiled by this $100 million scofflaw that has been allowed to continue in operation,” said Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for Cornucopia.

Aurora’s milk is sold to many of the nation’s largest grocery chains, including Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway, Costco and others, for their cheap store brand label organic milk.

Aurora is allegedly primarily confining their dairy cows in giant barns and pens instead of being allowed to graze on fresh forage, and exhibit their natural instinctive behaviors, as the federal law mandates. When the cows are let outside they often only have access to substandard crops that are planted on an annual basis, and wither in the desert-like heat, instead of more hardy perennials that stand up to continual grazing throughout the growing season.

In response to a previous legal complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute, in 2006, career staff at the USDA found that Aurora was in violation of 14 tenets of the organic regulations including confining their cattle to feedlots, instead of grazing, and bringing thousands of illegal conventional cows into their organic operation.

“Although investigators found that Aurora had perpetrated the greatest scandal in the history of the organic industry, Bush administration officials, who ran the USDA at the time, let the giant corporation off with minor adjustments to one of their five operations and placed them on a one-year probation,” Kastel added. In addition to being subject to decertification, the dairy could have faced millions of dollars in penalties.

Cornucopia had filed a subsequent complaint in 2007, outlining evidence that Aurora’s High Plains dairy was violating the law. At that point the Bush administration, through the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Services, informed the farm policy research group that their concerns would be investigated and integrated into Aurora’s one-year probation monitoring.

“After recently scrutinizing USDA documents, obtained through a freedom of information request (FOIA), we are refiling these serious charges now, including making additional first-hand witness testimony available, because there is no evidence that the Department followed through with their commitment to investigate what Aurora has represented as a model pasture-based dairy,” said Will Fantle, research director of The Cornucopia Institute.

The controversy surrounding the legality of operating giant factory farms, each milking 2000-7000 cows, principally owned by Aurora or Dean Foods for their Horizon brand, has come to a head this year as competitors in the marketplace have been forced to lower prices paid to family-scale farmers, institute cut backs on production or even cancel their contracts with some dairy producers.

“This is an unmitigated disaster for many family farmers who are now facing no market for their organic milk and possibly losing their farms because of the softening economy and the overload of milk coming from these giant factory farms,” said Kathie Arnold of Truxton, NY, an organic dairy farmer milking 130 cows.

Meanwhile, USDA Secretary Vilsack recently met in Wisconsin with organic family farmers and their advocates who appealed to the new Obama administration to “cleanup the mess they inherited” at the USDA’s National Organic Program.

Farmers were heartened by the Secretary’s commitment to ramp-up enforcement at the National Organic Program and appoint officials there who will share the values of organic community participants. “We are focusing on rules that will level the playing field so that small and medium-size producers have a fair shot,” Vilsack said, and added: “I commit to you that we will enforce the [current] rules.”

The Bush administration received wide criticism in the organic industry for not only letting Aurora Dairy off the hook without any substantive penalties but also for their lax approach to investigating alleged improprieties by industry giant Dean Foods and its Horizon label. A large percentage of the Horizon milk comes from concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs. In 2006 the largest dairy operation supplying Horizon, with 10,000-cows, was decertified, but according to FOIA documents the 8000-head, corporate-owned Horizon dairy in Idaho has never been investigated.

“It is inexcusable that the past administration did not protect the vast majority of ethical dairy marketers and the family farmers we partner with,” said Ned Mac Arthur, President of Pennsylvania-based Natural Dairy Products Corp., bottler of Natural by Nature brand organic milk. “We are now placing our hope and trust in the new Obama/Vilsack administration at the USDA.”

“The good news that we continue to tell organic consumers is that based on our in-depth industry research 90% of all namebrand organic dairy products on the market are produced with true integrity,” Kastel affirmed. “No matter where someone lives in this country there are many wonderful brands of organic milk, cheese, butter, yogurt and ice cream that conform to not only the letter of the law but the spirit of what has made organics such a successful and fast-growing segment of our nations’ food supply.”

Cornucopia also asked the USDA to reopen investigations against the two NOP accredited certifiers associated with Aurora. The complaint alleges that the illegal activities identified by The Cornucopia Institute and the USDA at Aurora were overt and should have been uncovered by the certifiers, and the state of Colorado’s organic program and Quality Assurance International (QAI), if they had been fulfilling their oversight responsibilities.

USDA staff had previously recommended suspending the State of Colorado’s right to certify organic livestock facilities. Like Aurora itself the USDA entered into a consent agreement with the state of Colorado demanding improved staff training and understanding of organic livestock certification requirements.

A copy of the formal legal complaint alleging inadequate access to pasture at Aurora’s High Plains dairy, near Kearney, Colorado can be found at:
http://www.cornucopia.org/Aurora/AuroraHighPlainsComplaint_8-2009.pdf

MORE:

Photos of the High Plains dairy, and other factory farms owned by Aurora and Dean Foods, can be viewed in the photo gallery on the Cornucopia website: http://www.cornucopia.org/photo-gallery/

A 10 minute video, produced by documentarian Greta Wing Miller, of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack’s appearance, listening to organic farmers heartfelt appeals for enforcement help, and his powerful on-point response, can be accessed in the video gallery on The Cornucopia Institute website: http://www.cornucopia.org/category/video-gallery/

Organic consumers recognizing that they had been defrauded when buying the milk produced by Aurora have taken the matter into their own hands by suing the giant dairy manufacturer and a number of major retailers that sell their milk, including Wal-Mart, Target, Costco and Safeway. Aurora is the largest private-label organic milk supplier in the United States. The class-action consumer fraud litigation is still embroiled in federal court.

In 2009 they moved thousands of cows (mostly bred heifers) from their corporate-owned 8000-head dairy in Idaho to New Mexico. We received intelligence reports of many cows giving birth and dying in the trailers during the long and arduous trip.

The photos, like this one, have been posted in a new photo gallery on our web page.These new photos are from the first of their two facilities.

It is reported that Dean Foods partnered with a Texas/New Mexico dairyman, Stanley Jones, in launching these “organic” facilities. Dean, the nation’s largest conventional and organic dairy processor, supplied financial resources and cattle.

We have no photographs of the second, newer dairy at this time.

It should be noted that millions of dollars in investments were made in New Mexico at the same time Dean Foods, through their WhiteWave/Horizon division, is using repugnant strong-arm tactics trying to get rid of some of their family farmers.

The photos in our photo gallery depict, like many of the desert-like industrial dairies in the West, a heavy dependence on pumping water for irrigation, helping deplete aquifers in many regions. Many of these industrial dairies provide scrubby stands of pasture, commonly annuals rather than perennial crops.

The photographs lead us to question whether or not the quality of this pasture even meets the legal definition under the federal organic standards.

Others photos show the massive feedlot operation and heifers grazing on unirrigated land that also looks like it might fail to meet minimum legal standards for pasture quality and environmental protection.

You can help, too, and if you do, we can offer a gift from a dedicated almond enthusiast and supporter. Elana Amsterdam, of elanaspantry.com, will provide copy of The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook to the first ten people donating $200 or more.

The new, full-color book contains healthy gluten-free recipes using almond flour. The author encourages the use of almond flour because “almond flour is readily available… high in protein and low in sugars.” She says that, “after having tested just about every gluten-free flour out there, I can save you a lot of time and hassle when I say that almond flour is far superior to other flours in terms of taste, nutrition and ease-of-use.”

We hope these offers will encourage you to give to the fight for truly raw almonds from American producers.

Bottled water at four times the price of milk??? Witness organic dairy farmers, sometimes tearfully, pleading their case to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack …. and the Secretary appears at the rally and directly responds. Powerful!

The rally took place on July 16 at the La Crosse County Fairgrounds in West Salem, Wisconsin.

Vilsack was gracious in his response to the farmers and went on the record committing to leveling the playing field for small and medium-size producers, enforcing the organic standards and bringing in new management at the National Organic Program that shares our values. Now it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the Department follows through—on an immediate basis—this is a legitimate emergency!

Please blast this blurb and link (http://www.cornucopia.org/category/video-gallery/) out to family, friends and colleagues. We hope it will motivate farmers and consumers to stand in support with organic dairy farmers, many of whom face the loss of their land and farms due to a glut of milk from illegal factory dairies milking as many as 7200 cows each.

In the world of YouTube the more hits we can generate on this video, the higher the ranking, and the more people will be exposed to this crisis. Hopefully we will generate more patronage for organic dairy brands that exclusively buy their milk from family farmers as opposed to the factory farm scofflaws.

Our thanks to Greta Wing-Miller and Aarick Beher, of DowntownDailies.com, for the dynamic, professionally-produced video production.

We must stand in solidarity with the hard-working dairy families whose livelihoods are now at risk.

Thanks very sincerely for your support!

Mark A. Kastel
Senior Farm Policy Analyst
The Cornucopia Institute