Cornucopia, Wisconsin: With the growing success of organics, and increasing consumer interest in buying foods that were grown on sustainable farms without toxic chemicals, Sara Lee Corporation has launched, with much fanfare, a marketing campaign for its EarthGrains bread, chock-full of environmental-friendly catchphrases.

Sara Lee claims that “Eco-Grain™,” an ingredient actually used in small proportions in its EarthGrains brand breads, is more sustainable than organic grain. What has been described as a “crass and exploitive marketing ploy” has angered many in the organic community.

“Corporations like Sara Lee clearly want to profit from consumers’ interest in ecological and healthy food production. But unlike organic companies, Sara Lee is doing practically nothing to ensure its ingredients are truly ecologically produced,” said Charlotte Vallaeys, a Food and Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based organic industry watchdog. “It’s a crass example of a corporation trying to capitalize on the valuable market cachet of organic, while intentionally misleading consumers–without making any meaningful commitment to protect the environment or produce safer and more nutritious food.”

The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group, points out that the farmers who grow Eco-Grain differ very little from most conventional grain producers who use petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, and have little in common with certified organic farmers.

The one attribute that Sara Lee uses to differentiate Eco-Grain production is that the farmers, although they use chemical fertilizers, incorporate technology that has reduced fertilizer usage by 15%. In contrast, as mandated by federal law, organic farmers are required by law to reduce their synthetic fertilizer use by 100%.

Organic farmers use natural fertilizers, compost and crop rotations to enrich the long-term health of the soil, without damaging the environment or potentially contaminating the food produced.

However, Cornucopia’s Vallaeys points out that, “Even if their new fancy wheat were truly superior, each EarthGrains 24 ounce loaf contains only 20% flour from Eco-Grain, with the remainder of the bread’s wheat coming from regular, conventional wheat. The total reduction in chemical fertilizer use in a loaf of EarthGrains bread therefore amounts to a meager 3%.”

“Even though they’ve done a countrywide media rollout, including underwriting spots on National Public Radio, Sara Lee is, in essence, playing a shell game,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector at The Cornucopia Institute. “Even as they had the audacity to promote a bread with just 20% of their ‘value added’ wheat, the rest of their product line has 0% content of the Eco-Grain. If advertising executives could be charged with malpractice, this would be a major felony,” Kastel said.

The Cornucopia Institute has written to the CEOs of both Sara Lee and NPR requesting that the “misleading and unethical” packaging and advertising campaign, and associated advertising and underwriting, be immediately suspended while the corporations investigate their propriety.

In addition to the organic prohibition against chemical fertilizers, federal regulations also prohibit organic farmers from using toxic pesticides that are commonly applied to conventional wheat fields, including those growing “Eco-Grain.”

One such pesticide typically used in conventional wheat production is 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), which EPA researchers have correlated with numerous birth defects of the respiratory and circulatory systems, as well as defects like clubfoot, fused digits and extra digits. Other research has linked the use of toxic pesticides on wheat fields to increased cancer mortality rates.

And, in addition to chemical fertilizers and pesticides, conventional wheat farmers sometimes use synthetic fungicides and other chemicals to treat their fields.

“For Sara Lee to claim that their wheat is ecologically grown and sustainable, when they appear to make no effort to reduce or eliminate their use of toxic pesticides, that have terrible effects on the environment and public health, is highly disingenuous,” says Nathan Jones, who grows organic wheat in King Hill, Idaho and chairs the Organic Advisory Board of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.

In addition to shunning toxic agrochemicals, organic farmers are required to improve the long-term health of their soil, and increase biodiversity on their farms.

“Unfortunately, this is another example of a major agribusiness trying to blur the line between products labeled ‘organic’ and ‘natural’,” stated Kastel, who acts as Cornucopia’s Senior Farm Policy Analyst. “It seems that some corporations, like Sara Lee, appear more interested in corporate profit and greenwashing than true environmental stewardship, and are doing everything they can to take advantage of this confusion among consumers,” Kastel added.

“The term ‘natural’ on products like bread is not regulated by state or federal government,” says Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition at New York University. “Companies that use the term ‘all natural’ essentially come up with their own definition.”

In addition, some of Sara Lee’s other bread ingredients, such as soy oil and soy lecithin, are grown and processed using genetic engineering and chemical extraction with the toxic solvent hexane, both technologies that are banned in organic production.

In online marketing materials, Sara Lee even claims that farming methods used to produce its “100% Natural” bread “have some advantages over organic farming.” They cite only one ecological advantage, claiming that organic farmers require more land than conventional growers.

“This claim does not hold up against recent scientific data,” said Alison Grantham, Research Manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, an agricultural research, education and outreach group. “Long-term trials, such as our nearly 30-year-old Farming Systems Trial, show long-term average organic farming systems’ crop yields match conventional farming system yields, and that the improvements in soil health achieved by organic management actually support higher yields during droughts.”

“I just can’t believe that Sara Lee would claim to be more sustainable than organic bakers like me,” affirms Daniel Leader, a certified organic bread baker and owner of Bread Alone Bakery in the Hudson Valley, New York. “In deference to my customers, I’ve made an investment in real sustainability by going organic, and for Sara Lee to tarnish the good name of organics, and even claim to be superior to organic bread, is simply unacceptable.” Bread Alone Bakery is certified by the Northeast Organic Farmers Association, a certifier accredited by the USDA.

Sara Lee’s longtime ad jingle campaign doesn’t seem to be ringing true for organic farmers, bakers and consumers — “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” It will remain to be seen whether spending more money on marketing and advertising than on Eco-Grain itself will pay off for the agribusiness giant.

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For more information on the difference between EarthGrains bread and organic bread, The Cornucopia Institute has prepared a fact sheet, available at http://www.cornucopia.org/eco-grain/eco-grain-fact-sheet.html

The EarthGrains/Eco-Grain investigation is the first in a series of Natural Versus Organic profiles that The Cornucopia Institute will be issuing in 2010.

The campaign is intended to empower consumers and wholesale buyers with marketplace knowledge so that they can make good, discerning purchasing decisions — providing their families and customers with truly superior food that pays dividends for human health, the environment and society.

Swift and Judicious Enforcement of Abuses Now Expected by Obama Administration

WASHINGTON, DC — After over 10 years of lobbying, family farmers across the country, who produce organic milk, are celebrating the release of strict new USDA regulations that establish distinct benchmarks requiring the grazing and pasturing of dairy cows and other livestock. Many hope that the new rule will put an end to the abuses that have flooded the organic market with suspect milk from a handful of mega-dairies generally confining thousands of animals in feed lots and barns.

“We are delighted by the new rules,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute. “The organic community has been calling for strong regulations and its enforcement for much of the past decade. Cheap organic milk flowing from the illegitimate factory farms has created a surplus that is crushing ethical family farm producers.”

The issue has been a lightning rod for controversy in the organic community.

At least five times during the last decade, the National Organic Standards Board – a key USDA advisory panel made-up of industry stakeholders – passed guidance or recommended regulatory changes clarifying the requirement that dairy cows and other ruminants must be allowed to exhibit their native behavior and consume a meaningful amount of their feed from grazing on pastures.

New rulemaking had been delayed by the Bush administration, using a myriad of tactics, some of which are being scrutinized in an ongoing investigation by the USDA’s office of Inspector General.

The Cornucopia Institute, on behalf of its family farmer members, also filed numerous formal legal complaints with the USDA’s National Organic Program calling for investigations into alleged violations of organic livestock management practices occurring on many of the 20 largest factory farm facilities.

The biggest scandal in the history of the organic industry centered around one such USDA investigation with the regulators finding “willful” violations of 14 organic regulations on factory farms operated by Aurora Dairy, a $100+ million company based in Colorado (Aurora produces private-label, store brand milk for Wal-Mart, Costco and large grocery chains).

“The public controversies concerning Aurora, and alleged improprieties by the largest milk processor in the country, Dean Foods (Horizon Organic), put increasing pressure on the USDA to rein-in the scofflaws in this industry,” Kastel added.

“I am confident that the new rule, along with a commitment to rigorous enforcement by certifiers, will put an end to these abuses and restore fairness to the organic dairy sector,” said Kevin Engelbert, a dairy farmer from Nichols, NY who milks 100 cows. “Consumers will be able to purchase organic dairy products with confidence, knowing that regardless of the label, the animals who produced the milk were on pasture, as nature intended,” Engelbert added.

The USDA has announced that they will begin this month hosting a series of workshops around the country with the nation’s 50+ organic certification agencies and other industry stakeholders. The sessions are intended to clearly define the meaning and intent of the new rule so that certifiers, who conduct annual farm inspections and review organic system management plans, will understand what the regulations require from farmers and only approve management practices that strictly conform to it.

Specifically, the new rules require that dairy cows and other ruminants be out on pasture for the entire growing season, but for not less than 120 days. It also requires that the animals receive at least 30% of their feed, or dry matter intake (DMI), from pasturing. In addition, organic livestock will be required to have access to the outdoors year-round with the exception of temporary confinement due to mitigating and documentable environmental or health considerations.

“These minimum benchmarks will assure consumers that industrial-scale dairies don’t just create the ‘illusion’ of grazing and continue producing illegitimate organic milk,” said Kastel. He continued by emphasizing to consumers that, “Based on Cornucopia’s research 90% of all namebrand dairy products are produced with high-integrity— the handful of factory farms are bad aberrations and will now be dealt with.”

The 120-day/30% DMI benchmarks were negotiated reference points agreed-upon by organic community stakeholders and arrived at after a series of meetings and discussions, nationwide, over much of the last half dozen years. The rules were also a carefully crafted consensus aimed at ensuring that legitimate organic dairy operations could truly provide meaningful pasture for their herds across the wide range of climatic zones in the U.S. It is estimated that the rule will impact upwards of 2000 organic dairy farmers.

Cornucopia, a farm policy research group, along with agricultural producers and other organizations, are carefully scrutinizing other impacts on the most sweeping rewrite of the federal organic standards since their inception in 2002. In addition to dairy cattle, the standards will assure humane animal husbandry practices in eggs, poultry, beef and pork production. The USDA will also be accepting public comments for 60 days on one exclusion from the pasture minimum, that for “finish feeding” on grain for ruminants, including beef cattle — an issue that proved controversial and elicited a wealth of public comments when the original draft rule was published.

“I, along with many other family farmers, watch with intense frustration as the seemingly unprincipled mega dairies continually bend the rules and engage in unfair competition with me,” said Rebecca Goodman, a certified organic dairy producer who milks 40 cows in Wonewoc, WI. “I am thankful that the USDA is now standing with us to preserve the integrity of the organic food label.”

“When Secretary Vilsack met with organic dairy farmers in Wisconsin this past summer he told us that he would ‘level the playing field’ for small and medium producers,” Goodman added. “These new regulations appear to be the first of what I hope will be many steps by the Secretary following through on this important commitment.”

“I am so pleased to know that the process of rule change that will ensure that organic livestock will consume a significant amount of pasture during the grazing season is coming to a successful conclusion”, said Kathie Arnold, an organic dairy producer in Truxton, NY who has a 130 cow herd in partnership with her husband and his brother. Arnold, a respected leader in the organic dairy community, has been intimately involved in the stakeholder dialogue for the past six years and was the point person for collating comments from farmers around the country that were submitted to the USDA as the consensus agreement — now largely adopted in the USDA regulations.

“For those of us whose livelihoods depend on the integrity of the organic label, we view this as excellent news,” said Blake Alexandre, a large-scale, grass-based dairy producer from Humboldt County California. “We thank the leadership at the USDA for their diligent work and will be carefully monitoring how this is implemented. But every indication appears to meet our expectations.”

The new organic livestock standards will go into effect 120 days after publication in the Federal Register [which is expected later today (2-12-10)], or approximately June 16, 2010.

Cornucopia Institute research indicates that 30-40% of the nation’s organic milk supply is coming from a handful of giant CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) largely found in arid areas of the western U.S. When the USDA established the federal organic standards in 2002, only two such operations were in existence and neither was providing any pasture to the thousands of animals in their milk herd.

Of the two original CAFOs, both associated with Dean Foods’ Horizon brand, one, in Pixley, California, a 10,000-head split operation (conventional and organic cows) lost its organic certification in 2006. The other, a corporate-owned dairy in Paul, Idaho was never investigated during the Bush administration by the USDA. The Cornucopia Institute has formally appealed to Secretary Vilsack to adjudicate the legal complaints against Dean Foods and to reopen the Aurora investigation (under the previous administration Aurora was allowed to stay in business after career civil servants recommended its decertification having found multiple and “willful” violations of federal law).

Companies like Aurora and Dean Foods/Horizon built commanding organic industry market shares, now well exceeding 60-70% of the market, by quickly getting suspect milk on the store shelves through quickly adding or developing financial ties to new factory farm facilities (it should be noted that current industry market shares are not tracked by government data and difficult to precisely pinpoint).

See the USDA regulatory language:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5082652&acct=noprulemaking

Over 90% of all namebrand organic dairy products are produced with high integrity. A brand scorecard, intended to empower consumers and wholesale buyers, can be viewed at:
http://www.cornucopia.org/2008/01/dairy-report-and-scorecard/

WASHINGTON, DC: Family farmers from around the country, who produce organic milk, are petitioning president Obama, and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), for the swift adoption of new strict rulemaking that will rein in the abuses of a handful of factory farms they claim are violating both the spirit and letter of the federal organic law.

The pending rewrite of the organic livestock standards, with an emphasis on assuring compliance with provisions that require that ruminants, like dairy cows, be grazed, is currently under review at OMB, where the administration is being heavily lobbied by industrial farming interests to water down the rules.

To meet the explosive growth in the organic industry, over the last five years, a number of large industrial dairies, milking as many as 7200 cows, have exploited the stellar reputation that organic dairy products have earned in the eyes of consumers who are looking for safer and more nutritious food for their families.

“With the flattening of demand for organic food, these giant dairies have flooded the market with cheap milk that is now crushing the family farmers who have built this industry,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute. “These CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) are anathema to organic consumers investing in a more environmentally sensitive approach to food production and humane animal husbandry. Ironically, one of the reasons they are willing to pay extra for organic milk is they think that the farmers who produce it are being fairly treated.”

The current surplus of organic milk, caused by factory farms, has forced prices down for family farmers. Sadly, there have been reports around the country of a number of suicides of both conventional and organic dairy producers. Some organic farmers are now facing foreclosure, a stark contrast to the economic promise of organics over the past two decades of growth.

Organic farmers are particularly resentful of two corporate players that heavily lobbied the USDA during both the Bush and Obama administrations, attempting to weaken regulatory language that requires dairy cows to be managed in a way that promotes their natural instinctive behaviors, including grazing on open pastures rather than spending most of their lives confined in barns and dirt feedlots.

The largest villain, in the eyes of dairy farmers, is Aurora Dairy. The $100 million corporation owns five “factory farms,” managing thousands of cows each, in arid regions of Texas and Colorado. Owning its own manufacturing plant, Aurora packages and ships milk for sale as storebrand products at Wal-Mart and a number of leading supermarket chains. Aurora’s factory farm milk reaches every corner of this country, undercutting ethical farmers and their marketing partners.

“Although the president of Aurora Dairy, Mark Retzloff, has heavily contributed to the Democratic Party, President Obama, and Tom Vilsack, former Iowa governor who is now USDA Secretary, we trust that the current administration will focus on the suspect practices of his company rather than their past financial and political support,” Kastel stated.

In what has been described as the largest scandal in the history of the organic industry, in 2007, the USDA found that Aurora had “willfully” violated 14 tenets of the federal organic law including confining their animals, instead of grazing, and bringing illegal conventional cows into their factory farm operations.

The Bush administration let Aurora off without a cent in fines, instead placing the company on a one-year probation. Since then, 19 class-action lawsuits by consumers, charging Aurora with consumer fraud, has been working its way through the federal court system.

More disturbing to many organic consumers and farmers alike, especially in California, is the revelation that a previously respected and popular organic brand, Straus Dairy, has actively partnered with Aurora in attempting to scuttle enforcement of the pasture requirements for organic cattle under evaluation by the OMB.

“Albert Straus has repeatedly stated in public, and now is petitioning the Obama administration, claiming that it’s impossible in his environment, north of San Francisco, to comply with the new proposed federal requirements for pasturing his cattle,” said certified organic dairy producer John Mattos, who farms about 10 miles further north of the Straus operation in Sonoma County. Mattos is a member-owner of Organic Valley, a cooperative of family farmers that competes with Straus.

Mattos purposely chose to milk Jerseys, and Jersey crossbreeds, instead of the more productive and more common Holsteins, because they thrive when grazing in more marginal areas. “I graze 5 1/2 months a year, my cows are outside year round, I have no problems with the proposed standards,” Mattos affirmed.

There were no cows out on pasture at the Straus dairy when it was observed by Kastel when he visited the Straus operation, and other area dairy farms, in 2008.

“It is grossly unfair that just a handful of dairies, for selfish reasons, are trying to derail strict enforcement,” said Bob Camozzi, an organic farmer who also ships his milk to Clover Stornetta, another local North Coast California dairy brand.

“Our farmers are committed to maximizing pasture consumption by our cattle due to the economic benefits, the profoundly positive impact it has on the health of the animals and the superior nutrients that are contained in pasture-based organic milk,” Camozzi explained.

Meeting with and lobbying the OMB in Washington, along with Aurora, is not the first time Albert Straus has angered other members of the organic dairy community by speaking against strict enforcement of organic dairy regulations.

“Albert has portrayed his brand as coming from his small family farm. But as his brand succeeded and grew in the marketplace, he apparently added too many cows to be grazed on the available land he owns and then he further grew his operation by buying from other area farmers,” said Tony Azevedo, a San Joaquin Valley dairyman and president of the Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance. “It’s a shame that he chooses not to pasture on a regular basis.”

“It would be a national scandal, as some of us face losing our farms due to the industrial dairy scofflaws, if the Obama administration sides with the ‘bad actors’ in our industry,” affirmed Bruce Drinkman, an organic dairy farmer from Glenwood City, Wisconsin, who milks 55 cows. “We are in dire financial straits because of the same kind of unethical competition from factory farms that put so many of our conventional neighbors out of business. We need the President and the USDA on our side!”

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On January 8, Albert Straus, along with a representative of Aurora Dairy, met with OMB staff, along with USDA personnel, in Washington (confirmation of this meeting is noted on the OMB’s webpage at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/0581_meeting_010810/)

In addition to Straus and Aurora, OMB staff met with a handful of other representatives from the organic industry, including the National Organic Coalition, the Organic Trade Association and lobbyists representing the WhiteWave division of Dean Foods (Horizon).

For a better understanding of the issue you can read the detailed backgrounder, prepared by The Cornucopia Institute, that was submitted during our meeting with the OMB Friday, January 22, 2010: http://www.cornucopia.org/USDA/PastureLivestockRuleBackground.pdf

Over 90% of all namebrand organic dairy products are produced with high integrity. A brand scorecard, intended to empower consumers and wholesale buyers, can be viewed at: http://www.cornucopia.org/2008/01/dairy-report-and-scorecard/

CORNUCOPIA, WIS: An investigation by the USDA’s National Organic Program has determined that Target Corporation wrongly used the image of a certified organic product when promoting the sale of a conventional product to consumers. The investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute.

The violation at Target came after Dean Foods switched almost all their category-leading Silk soymilk from organic to conventional soybeans earlier this year. The specific problem involved Target using an image of a Silk organic product, in advertising flyers, when the retailer was really selling Silk’s reformulated “natural” version (not organic, but made with conventional soybeans). Target made a commitment to the USDA to review their procedures to “prevent future errors of this nature.”

Dean Foods stealthily switched its core Silk product line to cheaper conventional soybeans, while, until recently, retaining the same packaging appearance. Now the giant dairy processor’s WhiteWave division has been found itself to also be misrepresenting the product as organic on one of their own websites. A new legal complaint has been filed in an attempt to protect consumers from what Cornucopia calls, “fraudulent misrepresentation.”

“It should not take the judicious oversight of an industry watchdog to cause these giant corporations to simply comply with the law,” said Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s Senior Farm Policy Analyst. “Target and Dean are trying to do organics on the cheap and have not invested in the kind of management expertise necessary to prevent problems of this nature from occurring,” added Kastel. “And after widespread media condemnation, it’s hard to believe that Dean Foods hasn’t even cleaned up its own websites.”

Since the NOP investigation, and Target’s pledge to review their practices, unlike Dean Foods, Cornucopia has not observed additional problems with the retailer’s advertising.

The meteoric rise in consumer interest in healthy, environmentally sound and humane farming practices has catapulted organics into a $24 billion industry. Along the way, major agribusinesses, like General Mills, Dean Foods and Kraft have gobbled up many pioneering companies that helped build the industry through a series of acquisitions. Today, most processed organic food is produced and controlled by the same type of companies that bring us International Delight imitation coffee creamer, Cheetos, Ding Dongs and Cap’n Crunch.

No longer controlled by industry visionaries, corporate managers now seek to squeeze extra profits out by sometimes switching established organic brands to “natural” labeling, using cheaper conventionally grown and processed ingredients.

That’s a far cry from when the organic food and farming movement first started enjoying widespread commercial success in the 1980s. In its inception, the industry was dominated by a number of family businesses, entrepreneurial enterprises and farmer-owned cooperatives, where building a profitable brand was most often married with the owner’s values.

“Big is not necessarily bad in the organic industry,” said Kastel. “As an organic watchdog we are much more concerned with ‘corporate ethics’ than we are with ‘corporate scale.’”

Dean Foods, the largest dairy processor in the United States, has apparently acquiesced and finally changed the packaging for their Silk brand of soymilk. Cornucopia had sparked widespread media scrutiny, and associated consumer backlash, against Dean for quietly shifting their core Silk product line from organic to conventional soybeans—while keeping essentially the same packaging and UPC (scanner) barcodes. “This change [new packaging] should have happened right as they shifted to conventional soybeans, not after the fact,” said Kastel.

“For the better part of this past year, consumers and retailers both have repeatedly reported that they were deceived and ended up unknowingly buying Silk products with conventional soybeans,” stated Kastel. With both their new and old packaging still in the marketplace, Cornucopia is concerned that consumers will be misled by advertising on websites representing the product as organic.

Silk is manufactured and distributed by Dean Foods’ WhiteWave-MorningStar division headquartered in Longmont, Colorado. Like many other massive agribusiness corporations, the Dean name never appears on the packaging for its soy foods or its Horizon dairy label — just as consumers will never see the name General Mills on a package of Cascadian Farms frozen vegetables, Kraft on Back to Nature brand crackers or Kellogg’s on Kashi cereal.

Dean/WhiteWave spokesperson Sara Loveday denied the corporation intentionally misled their customers, telling the East Bay Express in a November interview, “The company was not trying take advantage of consumer confusion over organic and ‘natural.’”

“These corporate food giants know that many organic consumers are looking for an alternative to our current food production system,” said Will Fantle, who heads up Cornucopia’s research staff. “Upon acquiring a number of the leading organic pioneers, they have kept their subsidiary names upfront on packaging to create a facade “hiding” the true corporate ownership,” Fantle noted.

Cornucopia maintains a chart, Who Owns Organics, created by Michigan State University professor Philip Howard, on its website that lifts the veil, enabling consumers to know who is producing their favorite organic brands (http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/).

Roy Beard, who has operated Roy’s Natural Market in Dallas for 41 years, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in their November 8 coverage surrounding the Silk controversy, that he hadn’t realized there was a product change until contacted by a reporter. He said retaining the same bar code “was troubling.” Most retailers were never informed of the Silk switch to conventional soybeans.

Dean/WhiteWave has also received heat in the organic food and agriculture community for choosing to convert some of their Horizon dairy 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 benefit of avoiding chemical residues in our food, is so critically important,” Kastel explained. “This starkly undermines the propaganda on the Horizon website proclaiming how dedicated they are to the organic movement — this is all about profit, not values!”

The media blow up on the Silk switcheroo included a front-page story in the Chicago Tribune in July that outlined a consumer survey indicating 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.

“Dean has only added to the marketplace confusion between ‘natural’ and ‘organic,’ as they definitely do not mean the same thing, and ‘natural’ requires no verification whatsoever,” Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, also told Barry Shlachter of the Star-Telegram.

The Cornucopia’s Kastel likes to identify corporate giant Heinz as a company doing organics right. “They helped fund California tomato growers who switched to organic production, and they brought in a highly reputable organic certifier, produced the product in their own plant, and finally put the Heinz name on the label,” Kastel stated. “I think their ethical approach to organic production is what consumers expect and is being rewarded in the marketplace by virtue of the success they’re having with their organic ketchup.”

Cornucopia also cites Stonyfield yogurt, which was acquired by group Danone of France, as another example of a large public corporation continuing to uphold organic values. Stonyfield remains committed to buying all of their milk from family-scale organic farmers, unlike Dean Foods that is increasingly relying on factory farms for its Horizon milk supply.

“The independently owned organizations, although they are fewer, have not totally gone away,” observed Fantle. Eden Foods, Nature’s Path and Organic Valley, among others, are still independently owned even though they each do as much as $500 million of business every year.”

The new legal complaint filed against Dean Foods, for representing their conventional Silk soymilk as organic on one of their websites, was filed with the USDA’s National Organic Program. “We fully expect the NOP to send a cease and desist order to Dean Foods,” said Kastel. If Dean, a $12 billion a year public corporation, is found to have willfully violated the federal law governing organic commerce, it could be subject to fines and other penalties.

Another website maintained by Dean/WhiteWave, http://www.silksoymilk.com, shows their new redesigned packaging. “Since they changed to conventional soybeans in the first quarter of 2009 this package redesign is very, very late and in the meantime many consumers picked up Silk, thinking that was still organic, and were taken advantage of,” said Kastel.

Many retailers complained, and have subsequently dropped Silk products believing they and their customers were intentionally deceived. Kastel responded by saying, “I think Dean Foods should make a very generous contribution, using their ill-gotten gains, since they saved so much from switching from organic to conventional soybeans, to one of the feeding programs in this country that are facing incredible pressure right now from those who are facing ‘food insecurity’.”

A copy of the formal legal complaint, by The Cornucopia Institute, charging Dean Foods with allegedly violating of federal organic regulations, can be accessed at: www.cornucopia.org/Silk/WhiteWaveComplaint.pdf

Promiseland, a multimillion dollar operation with facilities in Missouri and Nebraska, including over 13,000 acres of crop land, and managing 22,000 head of beef and dairy cattle, had been accused of multiple improprieties in formal legal complaints, including not feeding organic grain to cattle, selling fraudulent organic feed and “laundering” conventional cattle as organic.

“We are pleased that justice has been served in the Promiseland matter,” said Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute. Scrutiny from Cornucopia, one of the industry’s most aggressive independent watchdogs, was part of the genesis for the comprehensive USDA investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.

Promiseland became the focus of Cornucopia’s investigation into giant factory farms, milking thousands of cows, that were allegedly operating illegally. Promiseland sold thousands of dairy cows to giant factory dairy farms owned by Dean Foods (Horizon Organic), Natural Prairie Dairy in Texas and Aurora Dairy based in Colorado. Aurora and Natural Prairie supply private-label, store-brand milk for Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and major supermarket chains such as HEB, Safeway and Harris Teeter.

“It appears that it was the investigation into improprieties by Aurora that finally led to the hammer coming down on Promiseland,” Kastel observed. Aurora operates five dairies in Texas and Colorado and was found by USDA investigators to have “willfully” violated 14 tenets of federal organic regulations in 2007. However, Bush administration officials let the $100 million corporate dairy continue in operation under a one-year probation.

“It’s sad that the civil servants at the USDA, who had recommended Aurora be decertified, were overruled,” Kastel lamented. “They should have been banned from organic commerce the same way Promiseland, and its owner Tony Zeman, now have been.”

Although Cornucopia has praise for the professionalism of law enforcement agents at the USDA, and the career staff at the National Organic Program (NOP), who carried out the Aurora and Promiseland investigations, the farm policy research group has harshly criticized past management at the USDA which allowed Promiseland, and Aurora, to operate illegally for years.

“From formal legal complaints that we filed, Bush Administration officials at the USDA were alerted, starting in January 2005, to the alleged improprieties by massive factory farms masquerading as organic,” said Will Fantle, Research Director for The Cornucopia Institute.

Documents secured under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by The Cornucopia Institute indicate that the initial investigation was squashed for political reasons by Dr. Barbara Robinson, who until recently directed the USDA’s organic program.

“It is inexcusable that these improprieties took place for so long and that justice was delayed,” said Gary Cox, an attorney who represents Cornucopia. “Ethical organic dairy farmers have been placed at a distinct competitive disadvantage and consumers were obviously taken advantage of.”

An investigation by the Office of Inspector General at the USDA, focusing in part on the relationship between Robinson and prominent agribusiness lobbyist and lawyer Jay Friedman, was profiled in a July 3 Washington Post story. Friedman, in addition to representing Aurora and Dean Foods, also was the lawyer for Promiseland when they were targeted by the USDA for investigation.

New documents made public have prompted Cornucopia to prepare additional legal complaints asking the USDA to focus attention now on Quality Assurance International (QAI), the certifier for Promiseland when many of the alleged abuses took place.

“This is not the first time QAI has been suspected of incompetence or improperly accommodating corporate agribusiness,” said Fantle. The Robinson, Friedman and QAI connection is part of an investigation by the USDA’s Inspector General. QAI also certifies portions of Aurora’s operation and Dean Foods’ corporate-owned industrial dairies.

“However grim it sounds, this investigation and the legal proceeding illustrate that if organic stakeholders are persistent, the system works,” Kastel said.

Cornucopia and other organic policy groups have been delighted by what they have called a “decisive shift” that has taken place since Obama administration officials have taken over at the USDA and its organic program.

At a recent industry meeting in Washington, D.C., Miles McEvoy, USDA Deputy Administrator and the new director of the National Organic Program, stated emphatically that we were now entering the “age of enforcement” at the NOP.

“We started asking for new management at the organic program in 2004,” said Kastel. “We had suggested that they go outside of the Department to gain the needed expertise from someone who was universally respected by participants in the organic industry. We couldn’t have asked for a more qualified candidate than Mr. McEvoy.”

In addition to investigating QAI, Cornucopia has formally asked USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to reopen the Aurora matter, alleging that the consent agreement allowing their probation included illegally favorable provisions. The farm policy group also asked that complaints involving Dean Foods and its Horizon label, which had languished under the Bush administration since early 2005, now also be actively investigated by the new administration.

“We think that organic consumers and the family farmers who have built this industry have good reason to be optimistic and confident that from this point forward, when they see the organic seal on a product, they know that the public servants in Washington share their steadfast desire to maintain the integrity of the organic label,” Fantle stated.

“If I’d been guilty of just one of these ‘willful’ violations, my farm would’ve been shut down in a New York minute,” said Bruce Drinkman, a farmer from Glenwood City, Wisconsin and board member of the Midwest Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.

“Rumors swirled for years about shady practices by Tony Zeman,” said Bill Welsh, long-time Iowa organic livestock producer, Cornucopia board member and former member of the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board. “Many of the major players that bought meat and dairy replacement animals knew very well what the allegations were and chose, during a period of time when supply was extremely tight, to look the other way. I’m sure there’s some heavy soul-searching going on right now.”

It appears that QAI, the certifying agent, did not act in the Promiseland matter until they were compelled to do so by USDA investigators, even though court records indicate that QAI had reported they knew of “significant audit trail deficiencies” as early as 2005.

Promiseland was found guilty of not allowing USDA investigators to audit and inspect their financial and organic operating records. “The “audit trail” is the backbone of organic certification,” said Fantle. “Obviously, they had something to hide!”

At the time the legal action was finally brought against Promiseland, in June 2008, Cornucopia and other industry observers were highly critical that the Bush USDA only asked for a suspension of Promiseland, and its owner Anthony J. Zeman, in lieu of requesting a permanent decertification of the operation. The USDA and the administrative law judge both found Zeman and Promiseland had “willfully” violated federal law.

In addition, the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 gave the USDA the right to fine operators like Zeman up to $10,000 per incident for willful violations of the law. They could have levied millions of dollars worth of fines but failed to do so.

“Enforcement actions of this nature should serve as a strong deterrent to other industry scofflaws,” said Kastel. “We lament the failure of the past administration to aggressively carry out the will of Congress in this regard.”

“Like Al Capone, they didn’t actually convict Zeman and Promiseland of actually cheating in organics,” Kastel said.

Al Capone was not convicted of murder or racketeering but rather of federal tax evasion.

The USDA’s decertification order can be viewed at:

http://www.cornucopia.org/USDA/Promiseland_Judgement.pdf

Support The Cornucopia Institute

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.