Aurora's Sweet Deal

"CORNUCOPIA: In a startling revelation today The Cornucopia Institute made public a document indicating that not only did the USDA find that the nation's largest organic factory-farm dairy operator "willfully" violated the federal organic standards, but that one of its certifiers, the Colorado Department of Agriculture, had, also, "willfully" failed to legally perform their oversight responsibilities under the federal regulations.

In a letter dated April 16, 2007, Mark Bradley, Director of the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP), notified Colorado of a formal Notice of Proposed Suspension of its accreditation as a certifying agent for organic livestock.

USDA investigations of both Aurora Organic Dairy, operating factory farms in Texas and Colorado, and their certifiers, were prompted by a formal legal complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute in 2005. The USDA confirmed Cornucopia's allegations that the giant industrial-scale dairies, milking thousands of cows each, were not providing their cattle with pasture, as required by law, had illegally brought conventional cattle into their operations, and a committed a number of other serious improprieties."

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