Filed under: organic standards
By Alan Gionet, CBS4 Denver, Nov 22
If you get a taste of ice cream from Bliss Organic Ice Cream in Boulder, you’re getting the product of an entire stream of organic products and inspections.
“We have to fill out a lot of paperwork,” owner Kim Troy said. “And we have to prove every year that we are organic. We have to keep track of all our lot numbers. We have to keep track of all our certifications. We have to prove that every single pint of ice cream can be followed.”
That means keeping some things separate in their shop, which also sells some items that aren’t considered organic.
“So we have to have separate bins, separate containers, separate shelving, separate refrigeration for all of our organics,” Troy said.
Troy pays over $2,000 a year to get the inspectors from the Colorado Department of Agriculture to take a look at her operation, study it and give her the right to use the symbol that says, “Organic.”
Filed under: organic standards
COALITION SIGN LETTER URGING THAT “USDA ORGANIC” STANDARDS BE UPHELD FOR AQUACULTURE
A coalition of concerned advocates from 44 organizations have sent a message to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), urging caution as that body considers whether or not to weaken USDA Organic Standards, it was announced today. The NOSB is meeting in late November of this year to consider the report of their Aquaculture Working Group. If acted upon, their recommendations would allow fish to carry the USDA Organic label – despite being raised under conditions that fail to meet basic USDA Organic principles.
In their letter, the groups comment on the Aquaculture Working Group’s recommendations to allow use of fishmeal from wild fish (which has the potential to carry mercury and PCBs) and open net cages (which promotes pollution from fish waste, can spread disease and parasites killing wild fish and allows escapes of farmed fish into the wild).
The co-signing organizations conclude that while the farming of herbivorous finfish may be conducted within organic regulations, farming carnivorous finfish (including salmon) in open net cage systems is an inherently flawed farming practice, incompatible with organic principles.
Class Action Suits Seek Damages from Sale of Fraudulent Milk
Acting on behalf of organic food consumers in 27 states, class action lawsuits are being filed in U.S. federal courts, in St. Louis and Denver, against the nation’s largest organic dairy. The suits charge Aurora Dairy Corporation, based in Boulder, Colorado, with allegations of consumer fraud, negligence, and unjust enrichment concerning the sale of organic milk by the company. This past April, Aurora officials received a notice from the USDA detailing multiple and “willful” violations of federal organic law that were found by federal investigators.
“This is the largest scandal in the history of the organic industry,” said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group. Cornucopia’s 2005 formal legal complaint first alerted USDA investigators to the improprieties occurring at Aurora. “Aurora was taking advantage of the consumer’s good will in the marketplace toward organics, and the USDA has allowed this scofflaw- corporation to continue to operate,” Kastel added.
Law firms based in Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri have so far have filed one of the lawsuits in Missouri, with another suit, covering dozens of additional states where plaintiffs live, due to be filed in Denver tomorrow. The attorneys are seeking damages from Aurora to reimburse consumers harmed by the company’s actions and are requesting that the U.S. District Courts put an injunction in place to halt the ongoing sale of Aurora’s organic milk in the nation’s grocery stores until it can be demonstrated that the company is complying with federal organic regulations.
Aurora, with $100 million in annual sales, provides milk that is sold as organic and packaged as private label, store-brand products for some of the nation’s biggest chains, including Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, Safeway, Wild Oats, and about 20 others.
Independent investigators at the USDA concluded earlier this year that Aurora-with five dairy facilities in Colorado and Texas, each milking thousands of cows-had 14 “willful” violations of federal organic regulations. One of the most egregious of the findings was that from December 5, 2003, to April 16, 2007, the Aurora Dairy “labeled and represented milk as organically produced, when such milk was not produced and handled in accordance with the National Organic Program regulations.”
Note: Organic Connection only offers milk & dairy products from regional farmers, family businesses, farmer co-operatives or small organic companies. We maintain the preference and ability to communicate with real people in business rather than work with faceless corporations.
read more about the lawsuit (Cornucopia.Org)
Filed under: organic standards
Last week, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) requested that the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program (NOP) initiate an investigation into violations of organic standards allegedly committed by a mushroom production company based in California. A formal complaint from GAP was submitted earlier today against Golden Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc. (GGM) of San Diego County.
According to documents acquired by GAP, the specialty mushroom company may have violated organic standards and public confidence in several ways, including:
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The sale of conventional mushroom products as organic
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The manipulation of organic certification documents
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Making false claims regarding the nature and origin of its mushroom products.
“Every violation of the standards reduces public confidence in the organic label. It is critical that the National Organic Program thoroughly investigate complaints and weed out any bad actors now while the program is still young,” says Jacqueline Ostfeld, GAP Food and Drug Safety Officer.
By Kathie Arnold
What makes a cow organic? The answer has certainly been controversial over the last several years, especially when it comes to grazing cows on pasture. However, I would submit that the National Organic Program regulation, which states that all ruminants must have access to pasture, has been clear right from the start to the vast majority of organic dairy farms and certifiers.
Only a small minority of operators and certifiers took advantage of the absence of a definitively worded regulation to minimize grazing; they also loosely interpreted, if not disregarded, the several citations to pasture requirements in the USDA regulations. This failure to come to the same understanding and application as everyone else seems to stem from a profit motive-to make more organic milk for the marketplace. For example, documents that have recently come to light show that the first operation of Aurora Organic Dairy, in Platteville, Colorado, apparently started out with about 70 acres of pasture for the 5,000 cows they were transitioning. Their self-serving interpretation of the regulation – “all ruminants must have access to pasture” – was that the livestock just needed to have access to pasture at some point in their life.
Companies like Aurora hurt the integrity of the organic label, and threaten the future of organic agriculture. While the USDA has partially addressed Aurora’s flagrant disregard for the organic standards, Aurora been allowed to continue to operate and many consumers are left feeling duped. CFS expects that there will be legal action taken against Aurora on behalf of consumers, and we want to make sure that YOUR rights are protected.
By Andrew Martin, New York Times, August 30, 2007
A huge Colorado organic dairy agreed yesterday to stop applying the organic label to some of its milk and make major changes in its operation after the Department of Agriculture threatened to revoke its organic certification for, among other problems, failing to provide enough pasture to its cows.
The dairy, Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies private-label organic milk for many supermarket chains, must also remove some animals from the organic herd at its Platteville, Colo., farm, according to a Department of Agriculture statement released late yesterday that outlined the terms of a consent agreement with the dairy.
While the U.S.D.A. has taken action against other organic producers, the consent decree with Aurora represents a rare show of force against a leading supplier of products to the rapidly expanding market for organic foods.
Under pressure from industrial agriculture lobbyists, the USDA has quietly approved a new regulation that will effectively end distribution of raw almonds, while putting many smaller almond farmers out of business. The regulation is scheduled to go into effect on September 1st, unless thousands of consumers take action now.
The rule requires pasteurization of almonds, including organic, yet allows those same almonds to continue to be labeled as “raw”. Nutritionists point out that raw, organic almonds are far superior, in terms of nutrition, to pasteurized almonds. One of the FDA-recommended pasteurization methods involves the use of propylene oxide, which is classified as a carcinogen in California and is banned in Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. Organic and family-scale almond farmers are protesting the proposed rule, saying it will effectively put them out of business, since the minimum price for the pasteurization equipment is $500,000.
Read more (Organic Consumers Association) & Take Action
Filed under: organic standards
By Samuel Fromartz, Chewswise, June 28.
The USDA’s recent approval of 38 non-organic ingredients in organic food products was widely portrayed in media reports as evidence that the USDA was watering down organic standards.
This is a standard interpretation – that, at the behest of agribusiness, the USDA is constantly chipping away at the integrity of organic food regulations, making it easier for big companies to subvert what organic food is all about. They were doing so now by including these 38 non-organic ingredients in organic food.
The only problem was this was flat out wrong.
Filed under: organic standards
The Case Vander Eyk Dairy, which reportedly said it was seeking recertification of its 3,500 head organic herd, has decided not to pursue it after all. Peggy Miars, executive director of CCOF, one of the oldest organic certification agencies in the nation, said in an email the dairy was in “the initial review stage” for recertification. “Obviously, CCOF holds all applicants to the same strict standards and would ensure that all previous noncompliance issues are resolved.”
