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.”

Why is conventional agriculture so wound up? Are they afraid of organic agriculture? What’s all the fuss about? After all, a recent study by the Lieberman Research Group showed that organic food sales account for only 3.5 percent of all food product sales in the U.S.

A column in the September 2009 Prairie Farmer leads me to believe that the author, a spokesperson for conventional agriculture, dislikes and even fears organic farming and its supporters.

The author admits to feeling self-satisfaction in knowing that organic farmers are suffering in a down economy. I doubt many people share her sentiments. Farmers generally have the attitude that “we are all in this together,” no matter what farming practices we use.

Still, Michael Pollan has conventional agriculture circling its wagons, Michelle Obama has an organic garden, and organic farmers are accused of riding the backs of conventional farmers.

To most conventional farmers, organic farming doesn’t even register. With agribusiness however, it’s another story. They’re not content with just 96.5 percent of the food system — they want it all.

Those who have their priorities confused need to figure out who their real enemies are.

Conventional farm milk prices have dropped by nearly 50 percent over the past year. Dean Foods controls 80 percent of the fluid milk market in some states and 40 percent of the market in the U.S. Their net profits more than doubled in the last year.

Conventional hog farmers have experienced losses for two straight years. Tyson, the second-largest food company in the U.S., controls 40 percent of the U.S. meat market. It reported a profitable third quarter for every segment of their business, including pork.

When the farm price for beef cattle dropped $0.08 per pound, consumers were paying $0.17 more per pound at the supermarket. Average retail beef processing margins across all companies increased 13 percent over 2008.

And guess what, none of that was caused by organic farmers.

Corporate agribusiness has a problem with organic farmers because they haven’t yet figured out a way to totally bleed them like they have conventional farmers. But as surely as corporate agriculture is working its way into the organic market, we suffer from its growing control.

While farm prices have trended downward for the past couple of years, food price decline has lagged far behind. As farm input costs have continued to climb, so have corporate profits.

Even in the toughest of economic times, the corporate buyers and sellers profit while farmers lose. A recent New York Times editorial points out the dangers of powerful corporations (specifically Monsanto) controlling seed supplies, their market control and their anti-competitive behavior.

Agribusiness spends multi-millions on lobbyists. Their lobbying efforts are aimed at increasing their profits, not farmer income or benefits to the consumer. They lobby for more cheap raw imports, less labeling, less restrictions on pesticide use and weaker environmental standards.

The Prairie Farmer tells us anyone who believes organic, sustainable and locally grown is the only way to feed the world is wrong. Contrary to their opinion, there is plenty of evidence that organic production is a viable means of producing food and that organic farming may be the best way for the world to feed itself.

Since we are all in this together, perhaps we can dismiss the ill will of the Prairie Farmer column and agree that there is more than enough room for all responsible farmers to do their thing, conventional or organic.

Corporate agribusiness is riding roughshod over all farmers and it’s time farmers recognized their real enemy.

Jim Goodman is a farmer in Wonewoc and a policy fellow for the Food and Society Fellows Program.

BOULDER, CO — November 17, 2009 — Genetically engineered (GE) corn, soybeans and cotton have increased use of weed-killing herbicides — a type of pesticide — by 383 million pounds in the U.S. from 1996 to 2008, according to a new Organic Center report titled “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years” announced today by The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS). In addition, GE corn and cotton have reduced insecticide use by 64 million pounds, resulting in an overall increase of 318 million pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial use.

Based upon data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), report author Dr. Charles Benbrook presents compelling evidence linking the increase in pesticide use on GE, “herbicide-tolerant” (HT) crops to the emergence and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. This report comes at a time when farmers are increasingly critical of GE crops because of drastically rising biotech seed prices and increasingly resistant weeds.

The agricultural biotechnology industry claims that the much higher costs of GE seeds are justified by multiple benefits to farmers, including decreased spending on pesticides. The price of GE seeds has risen precipitously in recent years, and the need to make additional herbicide applications in an effort to keep up with resistant weeds is also increasing cash production costs. As an example, corn farmers planting “SmartStax” hybrids in 2010 will spend around US$124 per acre for seed, almost three times the cost of conventional corn seed. In addition, new-generation “Roundup Ready” (RR) 2 soybean seed, to be introduced on a widespread basis next year, will cost 42 percent more than the original RR seeds they are displacing.

“The drastic increase in pesticide use with genetically engineered crops is due primarily to the rapid emergence of weeds resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide,” said Dr. Charles Benbrook, report author and chief scientist of The Organic Center. “With glyphosate-resistant weeds now infesting millions of acres, farmers face rising costs coupled with sometimes major yield losses, and the environmental impact of weed management systems will surely rise.”

Today’s report refutes industry’s assertions that its crops have reduced pesticide use. Last April, UCS released a report ( http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/science/failure-to-yield.html) that found engineered crops have largely failed to increase crop yields, despite the industry’s consistent claims to the contrary. “Dr. Benbrook’s work shows that the overall chemical footprint of today’s engineered crops is massive and growing,” said Dr. Margaret Mellon, food and environment program director for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “That growth in pesticide use has important implications for farmers’ bottom lines, public health and the health of the environment.”

“This report confirms what we’ve been saying for years,” said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. “The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it’s bad news for farmers, human health and the environment.”

Industry claims that GE crops are benefitting the environment ignore the impacts of the 300+ million additional pounds of pesticides required over the period covered by this study, as well as growing reliance by farmers on high-risk herbicides including 2,4-D and paraquat. In addition to the environmental harm, a report ( http://www.organic-center.org/science.healthy.php?action=view&;report_id=149) released earlier this year by TOC demonstrated that exposure to pesticides is linked to increased risk of reproductive abnormalities, birth defects and neurological problems.

The analytical work required to complete this report ( http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&;report_id=159) was funded by a coalition of non-governmental organizations including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Food Safety, the Cornerstone Campaign, Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, Greenpeace International and Rural Advancement Fund International USA.

About The Organic Center

The Organic Center’s unique mission is to advance scientific research on the health and environmental benefits of organic foods, and to communicate those benefits to the public. As an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and education organization, we envision improved health for the earth and its inhabitants through conversion of agriculture to organic methods. All of The Organic Center’s research reports, publications, consumer guides and videos are available free of charge on our website, www.organic-center.org.

About The Union of Concerned Scientists

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

About The Center for Food Safety

The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents over 68,000 members across the nation. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org

Act now! Contact your senator before November 18.

Our food safety system is broken. Industrialized food production gives rise to serious food safety problems, and our government’s ability to regulate corporate agribusiness must be strengthened — without harming small-scale and organic family farmers.

Bills in Congress propose to give more authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate for food safety, inspect food processing facilities, and order mandatory recalls. The House passed its own food safety bill in July. The Senate’s bill is in committee and scheduled for a mark-up (committee vote) this coming Wednesday, November 18.

Allowing the FDA to crack down on corporate food producers that threaten our citizenry’s health is a step in the right direction — as long as legislation contains protections for small-scale, organic and local food systems. Small farms could be forced out of business by increasing costs for record-keeping, testing and other measures they will not be able to comply with. These are our country’s safest farms — part of the solution, not part of the problem!

Now is the time to contact Senate committee members (especially if one is from your state) that will make changes to the bill on November 18. Our message is: Senate Bill 510 must contain protections for small-scale and organic family farms.

Please call as many committee members as you have time for!

Messages for committee members:

1. Regulate farms and food processors based on risk — with organic and local systems as the lowest-risk.

While no farm and processing plant can be completely safe and completely eliminate food safety risks, different production systems carry different levels of risk. Small and medium-sized organic farms are low-risk farms from a food safety point of view, and local food systems are low-risk systems. This fact speaks to a risk-based regulatory approach, particularly given limited federal dollars available for system-wide regulation and the need to prudently target the use of those funds.

Organic farms are already controlling pathogens and improving food safety in various ways that conventional, industrial-scale farms do not. Specifically, food safety regulation for organic and small-scale producers should focus on education and training, not one-size-fits-all food safety standards.

2. Protect organic farmers from conflicting food safety regulations.

Tell your Senator to ensure that the bill directs the FDA to integrate any food safety standards with the existing federal organic standards. No farmer should be forced to choose between organic certification and food safety rules, and the two should be streamlined to avoid unnecessary additional burdens and incompatibilities.

3. Protect wildlife, biodiversity and habitat from misguided food safety regulation.

Likewise, the food safety bill should ensure that FDA food safety standards do not conflict with existing federal conservation, environmental and wildlife standards. Farmers should be encouraged to adopt conservation practices on their farms — in fact, many conservation practices such as vegetated buffer zones and wetland preservation have been shown to reduce the presence of foodborne pathogens on farms.

Take Action Today – Call Senate Committee Members

See the list below for Senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Please call or fax their office, ask to speak with the aide in charge of food safety issues, and share the concerns of the small-scale and organic farming community with them.

List of Senate HELP Committee Members

Senator                 Phone                     Fax

Democrats
Tom Harkin (IA)              202-224-3254             No fax
Chris Dodd (CT)                202-224-2823      202-224-1083
Barbara Mikulski (MD) 202-224-4654       202-224-8858
Jeff Bingaman (NM)       202-224-5521             No fax
Patty Murray (WA)        202-224-2621       202-224-0238
Jack Reed (RI)                 202-224-4642       202-224-4680
Bernie Sanders (VT)      202-224-5141       202-228-0776
Sherrod Brown (OH)     202-224-2315       202-228-6321
Bob Casey (PA)               202-224-6324       202-228-0604
Kay Hagan (NC)              202-224-6342       202-228-2563
Jeff Merkley (OR)          202-224-3753       202-228-3997
Al Franken (MN)            202-224-5641              No fax
Michael Bennet (CO)     202-224-5852       202-228-5036

Republicans
Mike Enzi (WY)               202-224-3424       202-228-0359
Judd Gregg (NH)            202-224-3324             No fax
Lamar Alexander (TN) 202-224-4944      202-228-3398
Richard Burr (NC)          202-224-3154       202-228-2981
Johnny Isakson (GA)   202-224-3643       202-228-0724
Orrin Hatch (UT)            202-224-5251       202-224-6331
Pat Roberts (KS)             202-224-4774      202-224-3514
Tom Coburn (OK)           202-224-5754      202-224-6008
Lisa Murkowski (AK)     202-224-6665      202-224-5301

Concentrations of several major pesticides mostly declined or stayed the same in “Corn Belt” rivers and streams from 1996 to 2006, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.

The declines in pesticide concentrations closely followed declines in their annual applications, indicating that reducing pesticide use is an effective and reliable strategy for reducing pesticide contamination in streams.

Declines in concentrations of the agricultural herbicides cyanazine, alachlor and metolachlor show the effectiveness of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory actions as well as the influence of new pesticide products. In addition, declines from 2000 to 2006 in concentrations of the insecticide diazinon correspond to the EPA’s national phase-out of nonagricultural uses. The USGS works closely with the EPA, which uses USGS findings on pesticide trends to track the effectiveness of changes in pesticide regulations and use.

Scientists studied 11 herbicides and insecticides frequently detected in the Corn Belt region, which generally includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio, as well as parts of adjoining states. This area has among the highest pesticide use in the nation — mostly herbicides used for weed control in corn and soybeans. As a result, these pesticides are widespread in the region’s streams and rivers, largely resulting from runoff from cropland and urban areas.

Elevated concentrations can affect aquatic organisms in streams as well as the quality of drinking water in some high-use areas where surface water is used for municipal supply. Four of the 11 pesticides evaluated for trends were among those most often found in previous USGS studies to occur at levels of potential concern for healthy aquatic life. Atrazine, the most frequently detected, is also regulated in drinking water.

“Pesticide use is constantly changing in response to such factors as regulations, market forces, and advances in science,” said Dan Sullivan, lead scientist for the study. “For example, acetochlor was registered by the EPA in 1994 with a goal of reducing use of alachlor and other major corn herbicides — acetochlor use rapidly increased to a constant level by about 1996, and alachlor use declined. Cyanazine use also decreased rapidly from 1992 to 2000, as it was phased out because of environmental concerns. Metolachlor use did not markedly decrease until about 1998, when S-metolachlor, a more effective version that requires lower application rates, was introduced. Each of these declines in use was accompanied by similar declines in concentrations.”

Although trends in concentration and use almost always closely corresponded, concentrations of atrazine and metolachlor each declined in one stream more rapidly than their estimated use. According to Skip Vecchia, senior author of the report on this analysis, “The steeper decline in these instances may be caused by agricultural management practices that have reduced pesticide transport, but data on management practices are not adequate to definitively answer the question. Overall, use is the most dominant factor driving changes in concentrations.”

Only one pesticide — simazine, which is used for both agricultural and urban weed control — increased from 1996 to 2006. Concentrations of simazine in some streams increased more sharply than its trend in agricultural use, suggesting that non-agricultural uses of this herbicide, such as for controlling weeds in residential areas and along roadsides, increased during the study period.

The USGS study is based on analysis of 11 pesticides for 31 stream sites in the Corn Belt for two partially overlapping time periods: 1996 to 2002 and 2000 to 2006. Pesticides included in the trend analyses were the herbicides atrazine, acetochlor, metolachlor, alachlor, cyanazine, EPTC, simazine, metribuzin and prometon, and the insecticides chlorpyrifos and diazinon. Additional detailed analyses of relations between concentrations and use focused on four herbicides mainly used for weed control in corn (atrazine, acetochlor, metolachlor and alachlor) at a subset of 11 sites on the main rivers and selected large tributaries in the Ohio, Upper Mississippi and Missouri River basins.

Concentrations of many other pesticides that were less prevalent than the 11 included in the study were below analytical detection limits in most samples and thus could not be analyzed for trends. Glyphosate, an herbicide which has had rapidly increasing use on new genetically modified varieties of soybeans and corn, and which now is the most heavily used herbicide in the nation, was not measured until late in the study and thus had insufficient data for analysis of trends.

A USGS Scientific Investigations Report, “Trends in Pesticide Concentrations in Corn-Belt Streams, 1996-2006,” (Analysis of concentration trends for 11 pesticides at 31 stream and river sites) and a journal article in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, “Trends in Concentrations and Use of Agricultural Herbicides for Corn Belt Rivers” (Analysis of concentration and use trends for 4 herbicides at 11 major river sites) is available online. Additional information, including data, reports and maps on pesticide status, trends and use may be found at the USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project Web site.

USGS provides science for a changing world. For more information, visit www.usgs.gov.

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20091110/porter_chlorpyrifos_tiny_dose_pregnancy_impact_daughters

Excerpts from Rodale Institute story:

A new animal study accentuates the risk of ultra-low levels of the common pesticide chlorpyrifos to cause long-lasting birth defects in female offspring of exposed mothers. The daughters exhibited learning delays, disturbed brain function and altered thyroid levels. Significantly, these symptoms resulted from low toxicity exposure during late gestation — an impact route not even part of current regulatory pesticide testing.

Damage at these doses highlights vulnerability during gestation from toxins even at the parts per billion level.

In a paper published October 29 by the Reproductive Toxicology (1), a peer-reviewed academic journal, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Department of Zoology, detail their findings from research on pregnant female mice exposed to minute levels of chlorpyrifos late in gestation.

The results are dramatic because of the tiny doses involved, and because of the near ubiquity of chlorpyrifos present in humans. The pesticide is highly regulated because of its known hazards to human health, but is still used widely in food production, ornamental horticulture and treating buildings for insects.

Haviland JA, et al. Long-term sex selective hormonal and behavior alterations in mice exposed to low doses of chlorpyrifos in utero.
Reproductive Toxicology (2009), doi:10.1016/j.reprotox.2009.10.008

The Haviland, et al, paper in Reproductive Toxicology will be accessible at
http://www.citeulike.org/article/6050702. (access fee)

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK48CZWnQw8
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewctwJQhpsw

Organic-food shoppers are making a rude discovery at their grocers’ refrigerated display case.

“White Wave Silk Vanilla Soymilk is no longer Organic,” declares a hand-lettered sign at the two Sunflower Shoppes in Tarrant County.

Silk has more than 70 percent of the market. Until this month, Sunflower routinely re-ordered it, thinking it was certified organic.

But its maker, Dallas-based Dean Foods, quietly removed the word “organic” from the familiar blue cartons Jan. 15 and switched to cheaper beans — not genetically modified but likely grown with chemical fertilizer and possibly pesticide — then called it “all natural” soy milk.

Dean did not change the product’s identifying bar code or package design, nor did it significantly alter the price — moves that would have triggered scrutiny by store owners, some of whom now feel duped. A number of other Silk products were similarly changed from organic without a new bar code, Dean confirmed.

A reintroduced Silk organic line — in green cartons — carries new bar codes but is not as widely available.

“We don’t want to be part of customer deception,” said Erika McCarthy, a member of the third generation of her family to operate the Sunflower health food stores in Fort Worth and Colleyville.

Dean says it gave advance notice to its distributors and blamed them for not following through with independent grocers like Sunflower. It released to the Star-Telegram a form letter that distributors were supposed to send to retailers explaining that the nonorganic soy milk would carry the organic product’s bar code. National distributors Tree of Life and UNFI did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Specialty food markets contacted in California, Delaware and Texas said they did not discover the switch for six to nine months.

None has yet to be notified about the reformulation of what had been their stores’ biggest-selling soy milk product, they said.

Roy Beard, who has operated Roy’s Natural Market in Dallas for 41 years, said he hadn’t realized there was a change until contacted by a reporter last week. He said retaining the same bar code “was troubling,” but “I don’t believe in soy milk anyways, although I stock it for customers.”

McCarthy said: “Did we miss something? Our concern is that if it’s going from ‘organic’ to ‘natural’ we need to be informed. But we only found out about it now.”

What it means

The “all natural” label on Silk cartons is a loose term, in contrast with “certified organic,” which has strict federal guidelines that products must meet.

“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,” said Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist at Consumer Reports.

Sara Loveday, a spokeswoman for Dean’s WhiteWave unit, said “all natural” means that the drink contains no artificial ingredients and that the soybeans used were not genetically modified.

However, such soybeans are still typically grown with chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides when necessary, said professor Gary Stacey, associate director of the National Center for Soybean Biotechnology at the University of Missouri.

Dean carefully tests the beans for toxic residue, Loveday said.

Moreover, she said, the bean’s pod “naturally shields” it from chemicals, and a hull layer serves as a further barrier against contamination, which is true for all soybean varieties.

The new soy milk does not violate government labeling regulations because Dean rewrote its ingredient list and removed any organic reference.

But as American shoppers become increasingly concerned about food safety and the content of what they consume, the Silk product changes raise questions about marketplace integrity. Tipped off by the Cornucopia Institute, an organic-industry watchdog group, the nonprofit Organic Consumers Association launched a boycott of Silk-brand products this summer over the labeling issue. Silk products have not been affected, Loveday said.

Shannon Shipp, an associate professor and director of the ethics program at Texas Christian University’s Neeley School of Business, says he has no idea whether Dean intended to mislead consumers. The company would be on sound footing, he said, “if you assume that people carefully read the label every time they pick up a carton. But that’s not how people buy. Repeat customers are just looking at the color, not all the details. Why would they? The package itself is the proxy for all that.”

Why did Dean do it?

The company intended to avoid a price increase because of the rising costs of soybeans, transportation and other expenses, Loveday said.

Also, nonorganic varieties are considerably cheaper. Soybeans that haven’t been genetically modified cost $11 to $12.50 a bushel compared with $19 for organic beans, according to Ken Rose, editor of The Organic & Non-GMO Report. That works out to a savings for Dean of 34 to 42 percent.

Credibility damage?

Independent retailers, who were pioneers of organic food, now a nearly $23 billion industry, say they were let down by one of the country’s most established brands. Some, including the Natural Grocery Co. of El Cerrito, Calif., told the Star-Telegram that they swapped out the entire Silk line — representing $50,000 in annual sales — because of the reformulation labeling.

“I think the proper way to do it was to say, ‘Hey, we’re coming out with an all-natural line since organic soybeans are hard to find, cost too much,’ or whatever they choose to tell us,” said Bob Gerner, Natural Grocery’s founding general manager.

“But there was no warning,” said Gerner, 63, a 39-year food industry veteran. “We kept ordering what we thought was the same organic soy milk. I’m still dumbfounded they could do something like this.”

Dean, which bought Colorado-based WhiteWave in 2002, vigorously defended its actions, saying it saw no need to change bar codes on the soy milk items since using a different type of bean didn’t constitute a “major” reformulation.

But Jon Mellor, a spokesman for New Jersey-based GS1 US, the nonprofit agency that issues Universal Product Code numbers and bar codes, said changing products so they are no longer organic is considered a big enough shift to require new codes.

TCU’s Shipp said retaining the old bar code is an even bigger issue than the packaging matter.

“Why didn’t Dean call the UPC agency? It would have taken 20 minutes, cost nothing and there wouldn’t have been this problem. It’s just silly,” he said. “If this was some tiny producer in Oregon making a product change for the first time, I’d give them a pass. But Dean is one of country’s biggest producers, making this product for years.”

‘Bait and switch’?

Supermarket executives and food processors expressed surprise at Dean’s actions, saying that even when a package size is altered, a new bar code is affixed.

“Does it pass your internal smell test?” asked Doug Renfro, president of Fort Worth-based Renfro Foods, maker of Mrs. Renfro’s salsas. “My gut feeling is that switching from organic is a big change. I don’t think we’d do it. You’d want people to know it’s not organic anymore.”

Some retailers reacted to the labeling issue with unadulterated pique.

“I call it bait and switch,” said Bob Kleszics, 52, owner of the 14-year-old Harvest Market in Hockessin, Del. “I feel hornswoggled. I have never heard of a company switching from organic to conventional and maintaining the same UPC code.

“It’s clear Silk wanted to preserve the product’s look to keep customers grabbing the blue container off the shelf mindlessly. I am sure virtually nobody noticed it was no longer organic.”

Missed communications

Dean says it had developed a “comprehensive plan” to communicate the launch of nonorganic Silk soy milk products.

“We absolutely informed our retailers — without them we wouldn’t have a marketplace for our products,” a company e-mail said. “Our sales team informed retailers, distributors and brokers.”

When given examples of markets not contacted, Dean said those are independent stores that should have been contacted by their distributors.

Some big customers said they were informed directly.

Dean told Kroger, the country’s largest traditional supermarket chain, around the start of the year that its WhiteWave unit would phase in a conventional soy milk and would later reintroduce a certified organic one, Kroger spokesman Gary Huddleston said.

Maintaining the original bar code on a reformulated product, while very unusual, made no difference to Kroger since Dean had informed its dairy buyer about the changes, Huddleston said. Kroger carries Silk’s conventional soy milk but no longer the organic version because the chain has rolled out its own organic product, Naturally Preferred, he said.

But there was confusion — even among big players. Target ran a newspaper insert ad picturing the discontinued “organic” Silk blue carton as recently as Sept. 19, nine months after the change. Whole Foods made a similar mistake with an in-store sale poster in July. Neither returned calls seeking comment.

Dean’s organic products have long been under scrutiny from Cornucopia. It earlier attacked Dean’s dependence on factory dairy farms to supply organic milk for its Horizon brand. Cornucopia also discovered that Dean was using Chinese soybeans for Silk and questioned the credibility of China’s organic certification program, citing U.S. Department of Agriculture audits.

Dean confirmed that it had sourced a “small portion” of its beans from China but said it stopped at the end of 2006.

There is clearly no mutual admiration. Dean says Cornucopia “continues to spread misinformation about our business, our brands and organic in general, which confuses consumers and ultimately leads to decreased consumer demand.”

Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s co-director, responded, “They don’t like us because we are pathological truth tellers.”

The “vast majority of organic brands that the public depends on are produced with high integrity, and problems with Dean are bad aberrations,” Kastel said.

In its e-mail to the Star-Telegram, Dean said: “We apologize for any confusion around our product offerings — that certainly was not our intention. We think offering both natural and organic products is the right thing to do for our consumers.”

Organic Valley

LA FARGE, WI – CROPP Cooperative and Stonyfield Farm today announced a new phase in their partnership, a creative measure designed to sustain organic family dairy farmers and preserve consumer choice.

Beginning January 1, 2010, CROPP will manage the organic milk supply for Stonyfield fluid milk products and invite the farmers producing that milk into CROPP Cooperative. It also will license the Stonyfield fluid milk brand and oversee its sales and retail distribution.

For more than 11 years, CROPP has supplied the organic milk for all other Stonyfield products. The addition of the fluid milk business builds on this partnership.

Stonyfield will continue to build and promote its fluid milk brand via its marketing and consumer-based initiatives. HP Hood, which had been managing the milk supply for the Stonyfield brand, will continue as the primary processor of that milk.

“Key to this strategy is the partnering of CROPP, Stonyfield and Hood to produce a quality product, while also focusing on helping family farmers preserve their livelihood,” said Stonyfield Farm President and CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg. “Our goal is to maximize each of the partner companies’ strengths while working to create a greater market for the organic milk produced by family farmers.”

“This broader partnership with Stonyfield keeps organic farmers organic, keeps organic land organic, helps keep toxins out of our bodies and our earth, and gives retailers and consumers a much needed alternative,” said George Siemon, CEO of CROPP Cooperative which produces a variety of products nationwide under the Organic Valley and Organic Prairie labels.

“In our more than 20 years in business, we have seen the overall dairy supply go up and down many times, but our confidence in the organic way has never changed,” added Siemon.

This arrangement does not impact the availability of the brands’ current product offerings and hopefully will help increase its availability in new markets. It also does not affect the pay price or hinder future growth opportunities for any of the 1,333 current members of CROPP cooperative.

The farmers currently producing milk for the Stonyfield brand will have several options moving forward. These include continuing to supply for the Stonyfield brand through the remainder of their current contract, applying for membership with CROPP Cooperative or seeking another market for their milk.

CROPP Cooperative: Independent and Farmer-Owned

CROPP Cooperative is America’s largest cooperative of organic farmers. Organized in 1988, it represents 1,333 farmers in 32 states and one Canadian province. Focused on its founding mission of saving family farms through organic farming, CROPP produces a variety of organic foods, including organic milk, soy, cheese, butter, spreads, creams, eggs, produce and juice, which are sold in supermarkets, natural foods stores and food cooperatives nationwide under the Organic Valley label. CROPP also produces for a full range of delicious organic meat under the Organic Prairie label. For further information, call 1-888-444-MILK or visit www.organicvalley.coop, www.organicprairie.coop and the cooperative’s farmer website, www.farmers.coop.

About Stonyfield Farm

Stonyfield Farm, celebrating its 26th year, is the world’s leading organic yogurt company. Its all natural and certified organic yogurt, smoothies, milk, cultured soy, frozen yogurt and ice cream are distributed nationally. The company advocates that healthy food can only come from a healthy planet. Its organic ingredient purchases keep over 100,000 farm acres free of toxic, persistent pesticides and chemical fertilizers that can contaminate soil, rivers and drinking water. To help reduce global warming, Stonyfield since 1997 has offset all of the C02 emissions generated from its facility energy use. The company also started a nonprofit called Climate Counts (climatecounts.org) which shows people how they can help fight climate change by the way they shop and invest. Stonyfield also donates 10% of its profits to efforts that help protect and restore the Earth. For more information about Stonyfield Farm, its products and initiatives, visit www.stonyfield.com.

Of all the changes coming to Francisco Baez’s cramped corner grocery store in Newark’s North Ward, he is most excited about the new scanner system at the two checkouts.

But Newark officials, who are paying for the new equipment, are most interested in the new refrigeration units that will be installed near the front of the store. Those new refrigerators, to be filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, are part of a new effort by Newark — with variations in other cities across the country — to improve the diets of low-income residents.

Until recently, small corner grocery stores were seen by public health officials as part of the obesity problem.

The stores, predominantly family-owned, offered convenience, but the accent was on snack chips, canned goods and sugary drinks. Now, because they are often the sole source of groceries in areas with no full-size supermarket, the stores are becoming linchpins in public health campaigns.

“If you are educating people to make good choices, but those choices aren’t available nearby and they don’t have a car to drive out to the suburbs to the supermarket, or an hour to ride two buses to get there,” said Kai Siedenburg, of the Community Food Security Coalition, a group based in Portland, Ore., that promotes access to healthy food, “then it’s really hard for them to make good choices.”

Store owners in Cleveland, New York, Louisville and elsewhere are being approached by public health organizations and economic development agencies with offers of new equipment, marketing expertise or neighborhood promotions to encourage them to stock more fresh produce, whole wheat bread and other healthy offerings.

Newark’s program combines community health concerns with targeted grants to reinvigorate stores and neighborhoods.

“Bags of chips and cans of soda are the options in too many of our small groceries and bodegas,” said Stefan Pryor, a deputy mayor and chairman of the Brick City Development Corporation, Newark’s economic development agency. But, he added, “With the thin margins that small groceries operate under, it’s unrealistic to expect them to make the investment themselves.”

Other initiatives do it differently. The Cleveland Corner Store Project encourages small groceries to sell fruit near the check-out — prime locations where candy and chips are usually found — and promotes these stores with sidewalk signs and posters and at neighborhood health events. New York’s “Healthy Bodegas” initiative has reached out to 1,000 stores in a variety of ways, including helping owners secure zoning permits to allow fruit and vegetable displays on the sidewalk. In Louisville, two small groceries were awarded $20,000 this year to expand their offerings of fresh produce.

The idea of using corner stores in campaigns to improve diets has spread from a few cities over the last decade — among them, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Hartford and Oakland, Calif. — to “probably a hundred or more organizations that are now either starting interventions or that are in the planning stages,” Ms. Siedenburg said.

Rural areas, too, that have lost local supermarkets to distant big-box retailers are looking for ways to encourage convenience stores to offer healthier choices.

“There are all these neat programs popping up,” said James Johnson-Piett, a consultant to Newark’s program who previously worked with the Food Trust, a nonprofit group that developed some groundbreaking initiatives in Philadelphia.

The movement is driven, in part, by a decades-old problem: the paucity of food shopping options in poor neighborhoods. In Newark, with three supermarkets for a population of 279,000, the city says nearly 40 percent of the money spent on food by residents is spent outside the city.

Campaigns to entice supermarkets, with their expansive produce departments, not to mention scores of local jobs, have met with mixed results. In Philadelphia, a ShopRite opened last year in a low-income neighborhood with help from a Pennsylvania program that provided a $1 million grant and $7 million in federal tax credits. New York is considering a similar plan that would include tax and zoning incentives, but few other cities have such a program in place.

Joseph F. Ritchie, who until recently was executive director of the Brick City Development Corporation, said big chains were used to building stores of 50,000 to 70,000 square feet in the suburbs, and typically wanted larger lot sizes than were available in city neighborhoods. (Mr. Baez’s Food Plaza store is about 3,000 square feet.) He said that the chains worried that local residents would not buy the high-margin prepared foods and delicacies that buoy a supermarket’s profit. Finally, he said, there were worries about crime.

But lately, concern over urban “food deserts” has become a rallying cry, as a drumbeat of medical studies link obesity and diet-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease to a lack of access to healthy food. Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology reported that people with no supermarket near their homes were up to 46 percent less likely to have a healthy diet than those with more shopping options.

“In the absence of making gains with supermarkets, we’re trying to take what’s already there and make it better,” said Jerry Jones, executive director of Hartford Food System, a 31-year-old nonprofit group in Connecticut.

The group encourages store owners to replace 5 percent of their junk food and soft drinks each year with regular groceries, including low-salt selections and produce. In return, it provides the stores with market research on what neighborhood shoppers are looking for and negotiates low prices from a big produce wholesaler.

Forty small groceries have signed up and are entitled to display a sticker that says “Healthy Food Retailer,” Mr. Jones said. In 2008, after the program had been under way for about year, the Hartford Food System took measurements and reported an overall 8 percent switch of food inventories from junk food to regular groceries.

This low-budget approach is echoed in Cleveland’s corner store program, a joint effort of the city’s public health department and Case Western Reserve University.

Earlier this year, Anne Gross, who with her husband, Gary, has run the Convenient Food Mart in the city’s Near West Side for 36 years, agreed to push aside some of the candy at the front of the store and make room for two wicker baskets of fruit. The program provided colorful signs encouraging healthy eating.

It also promoted her store with events like a cooking demonstration in her parking lot with samples of banana bread, free cookbooks, and sign-ups for local cooking classes.

The result: a 20 percent increase in fruit sales this last summer. “Bananas are No. 1,” said Mrs. Gross, 65. “After that, cherries have done very well.”

Matt Russell, a coordinator with Case Western’s Center for Health Promotion Research who asked Mrs. Gross to participate, said a big part of any initiative was choosing the right store owners.

Selling produce also takes more work than bags of cookies or chips. “There’s obviously some risk in taking on new products for these stores. We’ve talked to them about issues like spoilage,” Mr. Russell said. “It’s different than a lot of the products they already sell. You know, a can of soup can sit there for a long time.”

In Newark, the Fresh Food program met with 80 store owners before choosing Mr. Baez to be the first of a handful to quality for a grant, Mr. Johnson-Piett said.

“These are folks who are saying, ‘I think I can move fruits and vegetables.’ That’s what you want to hear,” he said. “You can’t spend all your time trying to cajole people to do something they don’t want to do.”

Mr. Baez said he liked the idea of offering customers an expanded selection of produce. “Will I make any more money?” he asked. “I have no idea.”

In Cleveland, Mrs. Gross still sells her customers beer, doughnuts, lottery tickets and other essentials. “As a business person, I have to provide to them what they want,” she said. But she said she is willing to try to improve the community’s health, one banana at a time. “Even if it just changes a couple of people’s habits,” she said, “it would be a huge benefit.”