Organic Milk Supplier Must Reduce Herd

An farm policy group alleged that Aurora Organic Dairy cows were kept in feedlots rather than grazing on pasture as required by law.

The USDA's marketing service said it will monitor operations at Aurora's properties in Platteville, Colo. and Dublin, Texas for compliance. The USDA said a violation of the agreement could prompt the revocation of Aurora's organic certification.

Bruce Knight, under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said the agency also found other violations. The agency said Aurora did not ensure its cows were converted to organic cows, which involves the amount of organic feed the animals consume.

He said the milk from those cows could not be labeled as organic.

However, the dairy's vice president of marketing, Clark Driftmier, said the dairy would sell the cows in question. He said 1,000 of the Platteville farm's 2,200 cows would be sold off.

At the Platteville farm, which had 4,200 cows last year, 75 percent of barns and other buildings will be razed to make room for more organic pasture, Driftmier said. In addition, all the cows at the dairy will be organically grown from birth.

He said many of the changes included in the agreement with the USDA had been planned before the complaint was filed.

The Cornucopia Institute policy group of Wisconsin said USDA's action was strong but that the company should have been penalized for violating organic standards.

Institute co-founder Mark Kastel He said the company was able to depress organic milk prices and expand its market share by violating rules.

"If a small family farm had been accused of all these gross violations, they would have had the plug pulled on them a long time ago," Kastel said.

Knight said he wanted to avoid long legal action.

"My greatest priority was to protect the integrity of the label and the integrity of what folks are purchasing on the grocery store shelf," he said.

The dairy has five farms in Colorado and Texas with more than 5,700 acres of certified organic pasture land.

Driftmier said the company supplies milk to leading supermarkets and natural foods stores but declined to release their names because he said that wasn't a common practice in the private-label industry.