I sure hope the Cornucopia Institute never gets mad at me.
Once the tenacious organic industry watchdog (pit bull would be more accurate) sinks its canines into the backside of a perceived corporate wrongdoer, it won’t let go—unless the wrong is righted.
Witness the travails of gigantic Dean Foods, the largest U.S.–based distributor of milk and dairy products. Earlier this month, Wisconsin-based Cornucopia filed yet another formal legal complaint with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) contending that the Fagundes Brothers Dairy in Snelling, CA—a supplier to Dean’s Horizon Organic brand—was violating organic standards by confining the majority its 3,000 milking cows to a filthy feedlot, rather than providing them with access to pasture, as the law requires.
(Click on this link to let your own eyes decide if Fagundes fits your image of an organic dairy.)
This was the latest salvo in a David-and-Goliath battle between Cornucopia and Dean that has been raging for three and a half years, and that has already seen two other Horizon dairies getting sanctioned or decertified for similar violations.
To add insult to injury, this time around the advocacy group has raised the stakes considerably by going after Dean itself, not just the independent dairies that supply it with milk. This month, Cornucopia asked the Inspector General at the USDA to investigate—shock of all shocks—appearances of favoritism at the agency that have benefited Dean.
More specifically, Cornucopia asks two pointed questions: Why were earlier, well-documented complaints filed against Dean in 2005 and 2006 dismissed, even though no one from the agency bothered to visit the 8,000-cow Idaho Horizon dairy operation that was cited? And why did the agency give another Maryland farm advance warning before inspectors came?
I suspect the answer lies in some interesting documents that Cornucopia uncovered under the Freedom of Information Act. Rather than fixing the problems on its farms, Dean hired the powerful Washington, D.C., legal firm Covington and Burling to go over and have a chat with the bureaucrats at the USDA, and the problems went away.
That may be the way things get done in Washington. But it’s not the way wrongs get righted out in Wisconsin.
Pinterest
