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Federal Organic Enforcement Hammer Falls Hard to Protect Farmers/Consumers
WASHINGTON, DC: In an investigation and legal
case that dragged on for almost four years, one of the largest organic
cattle producers in the United States, Promiseland Livestock, LLC, was
suspended from organic commerce, along with its owner and key
employees, for four years. The penalty was part of an order issued by administrative law judge Peter Davenport in Washington, DC on November 25.
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.
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