Defend Organic Scofflaw in Court to Protect Corporate Takeover of Organics 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.

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MINNEAPOLIS, MN: A public interest group that focuses on food and agriculture, The Cornucopia Institute, announced this week that it had filed formal complaints with the USDA's organic program, and Wisconsin and Minnesota officials, alleging that Target Corporation has misled consumers into thinking some conventional food items it sells are organic. 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.

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'Everything I said to my fellow seedsmen, the judge has now agreed with' 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.

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CORNUCOPIA, WI – Enjoying fresh apple cider is a wonderful fall tradition in Wisconsin. But lately, some individuals have noticed that fresh cider seemed absent from farmer’s markets and farm stands around the state. After some Wisconsin food safety inspectors misinterpreted state laws as prohibiting the sale of raw apple cider at farmers markets, many apple growers shied away from bringing their freshly pressed cider to public markets. 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.

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Corporate Agribusiness Proposes Regulating Itself Instead of Stricter Governmental Food Safety Oversight 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.

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