Aurora Organic Dairy sells what they call "the highest quality organic milk available at prices our customers can afford". Somewhere between this half-truth (their milk is cheap by comparison) and the real truth lies a dilemma; can factory-farming ever lead to organic products?
Consumers say no. As recently as August, the non-profit Organic Consumers Association (OCA) extended its boycott of Aurora (and Horizon Organic) organic dairy products, again charging that those entities engage in a scale of production that defeats the intent of organic food. Aurora runs a reported 12,000 head of cattle on five farms in Colorado and Texas, and operates a $50-million, state-of-the-art milk plant about 30 miles northeast of its Platteville, Colorado headquarters. Aurora is the 2003 brainchild of Mark Retzloff and CEO Marc Peperzak. Retzloff, who bills himself as an environmental activist and claims to be the impetus behind the Boulder (Colorado) whole-foods scene, is also the founder of Horizon Organic Dairy, whose parent company is Dean Foods.
In August of 2007, the US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, filed suit against Aurora charging it had knowingly violated 14 provisions of the Organic Food Production Act, including confining milk cows to feedlots instead of maintaining their free-range status, giving cows herbicide-treated feed, and bringing in cows that were not "organic" (i.e., not managed for their entire lives by organic standards) while still selling the milk as organic. Organic milk can sell for as much as $6 a gallon, or more than twice as much as regular milk.
Aurora rapidly settled with the USDA, and has since reduced the size of its Platteville, Colorado herd to 1,000 cows (from more than 4,000) and increased the available grazing land from 325 acres to 400. Aurora also agreed not to renew the organic certification for its Woodward, Colorado, facility, and that milk will be sold without the organic label. However, in spite of what some called flagrant and deliberate violations, Aurora retained its organic license and incurred only a one-year probationary status (and no fines) thanks to Washington lawyer, Jay Friedman.
Consumers, however, are not appeased. Class-action lawsuits on their behalf (from both the OCA and the Cornucopia Institute of Wisconsin, a progressive farm policy research group) have been directed not only against Aurora but big-box retailers like Costco (Kirkland Signature organic milk), Wal-Mart, and Target, and supermarket chains like Safeway ("O") which sell Aurora's milk under various private labels.
In all, 19 different lawsuits, representing consumers in 40 states, have been consolidated under a flagship suit in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. Included in the charges are Silk and Soy Wave, two supposedly organic brands of soy milk from Horizon; Wild Oats organic milk brand; and Giant's "Natures Promise" brand. The lawsuits seek class-action status on behalf of the people who purchased the milk, and ask for refunds of the purchase price in addition to punitive damages and attorney's fees.
Mark Kastel, a co-founder of Cornucopia, got his start with Wisconsin-based CROPP, or the Cooperative Regions of Organic Producers Pool (formerly known as the Coulee Regional Organic Producers Pool). The CROPP farming cooperative has gone from a mere seven dairy farmers to more than 1,296, and now calls itself Organic Valley. Wal-Mart stopped buying Organic Valley milk in 2003 because it could not negotiate preferred status and lower wholesale costs.
Kastel's targeting of Aurora for its misrepresentations began as far back as 2005, but the USDA (and Aurora) dismissed initial claims as nonsense. Kastel and Retzloff have been going toe-to-toe since the early days of Horizon, wrangling over their individual visions of what organic should represent.
Retzloff argues that large-scale can be organic. One prominent Retzloff supporter is Kay James, of the James Ranch outside Durango, Colorado. James insists that big organic is better than no organic, and argues that the focus has recently shifted to homegrown, or local, in any case, rendering the argument moot.
Kastel differs, lending his support to small dairy farmers who will be unable to compete with large-scale organic milk producing enterprises, which prosper from buying in quantity on everything from feed to supplies. Kastel also challenges the contention that - if the lawsuits spill over onto retailers - it will unfairly impact their bottom lines, noting that the suits have been publicized every where from the New York Times to regional (retail) trade publications, and the retailers had every opportunity to stop buying the mislabeled organic milk.
Given that the Cornucopia Institute lives on an annual budget of $300,000, mostly from foundations, individuals and natural food cooperatives, and manages with a staff of eight people - only some of them full-time - the Aurora battle obtains epic David-and-Goliath proportions. Aurora is the largest organic milk producer in the U.S., and is majority-owned by Charlesbank Capital Partners, a private investment firm.
Aurora won't be the first organic dairy Cornucopia has taken on. This spring, the Vander Eyk dairy in Pixley, California, which runs about 10,000 head, lost its organic certification thanks to extensive Cornucopia investigation. Vander Eyk was selling its organic-labeled milk to Stremicks (Heritage- Foods) and Dean Foods (Horizon).
Cornucopia, which readily admits working with small-scale farmers (who provide "tips" used to target violators of organic farming practices), charges the USDA with being a part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
"Their investigation took way too long, and the penalties are too weak," Says Kastel, speaking of the 2007 Aurora citations. "We want them to know that the organic community is very closely monitoring this case."
Retzloff's response ignores the USDA and instead targets the activists - Cornucopia among them - who don't like big organic dairy farmers and refuse to believe big can ever translate into adequate, let alone better.
"So maybe they're part of the problem," Retzloff counters. "We're not part of the problem. Believe me."
But organic milk from 22,000 cows is certainly difficult to believe.
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