The Federation of Organic Dairy Farmers (FOOD Farmers) issued a blistering attack (pdf) on the USDA and Aurora Organic Dairy (AOD) Tuesday, criticizing the plea bargain they had reached settling 14 alleged violations of the organic regulations by Aurora. The charges were made in a publicly released letter to Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner.
FOOD Farmers is a coalition of the three main organic dairy producer associations in the US, including the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Association, the Midwest Organic Dairy Producers Association and the Western Organic Dairy Producers Association (of which Aurora is a member).
The letter states:
We are extremely disturbed by the Consent Agreement between USDA and AOD for many reasons. It does not bring closure to this situation. If Aurora is guilty of these alleged violations and is allowed to not only continue in operation but to continue with no sanction … they should be de-certified and fined […]

Original post by Samuel Fromartz and software by Elliott Back

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Regulation. You can follow responses to this entry through the Comments RSS Feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.