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Organic Famers Must Work Hard To Stay 'Organic'

Good Question: Who Makes Sure Organic Means Organic?

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DENVER (CBS4) ― If you get a taste of ice cream from Bliss Organic Ice Cream in Boulder, you're getting the product of an entire stream of organic products and inspections.  

"We have to fill out a lot of paperwork," owner Kim Troy said. "And we have to prove every year that we are organic. We have to keep track of all our lot numbers. We have to keep track of all our certifications. We have to prove that every single pint of ice cream can be followed."  

That means keeping some things separate in their shop, which also sells some items that aren't considered organic.  

"So we have to have separate bins, separate containers, separate shelving, separate refrigeration for all of our organics," Troy said.  

Troy pays over $2,000 a year to get the inspectors from the Colorado Department of Agriculture to take a look at her operation, study it and give her the right to use the symbol that says, "Organic."   

The Berry Patch farm in Brighton has similar challenges maintaining organic standards.  

"They'll spend over three hours in our fields walking with us," farmer Tim Ferrell said. "A clean field might be suspect, if it's clean from fields you might say, 'Hmm wonder what's going on there,'" Ferrell said.  

That's because a clean field means something has wiped out the weeds.  Inspectors look for inorganic pesticides and herbicides. They want to know about the water used for irrigation.  

Ferrell and his wife Claudia and all organic producers and retailers have to generate an organic plan. It's paperwork that tells the inspectors how they conduct their operation.  

"It shows our field layout, it shows what is applied to our fields, it shows production records," Ferrell said.  

Inspectors from the organic food program with the state Department of Agriculture are the only ones in Colorado authorized to award organic certification. There are other certifiers out of state. Some are organizations formed by organic producers. Others are companies. All have to have the approval of the United States Department of Agriculture. It authorizes the certifiers to conduct inspections following its rules. If there are questionable practices or complaints, the USDA investigates.

That's what it did when there was a complaint about Aurora Organic Dairy and how it was operating in Colorado. Aurora has sold organically labeled milk to stores, such as Costco and Safeway, which re-brand it and put it on their shelves. The complaint came from the Wisconsin-based organization of organic producers called Cornucopia. Among other things, the organization complained about a lack of access to pasture for Aurora's cows. While cows are required to be kept under organic rules, such as being fed organic-only food for a year before they can be considered organic, the government found some cows on Aurora's farm that had not.

"They were getting away with it because their certifier did not enforce the law," Mark Kastel with Cornucopia said. "They were getting away with it because the USDA did not enforce the law."  

Cornucopia has now sued over Aurora's operations and the state's inspections.

USDA investigators looked at both the Colorado Department of Agriculture and Aurora's operations.

"USDA conducted the investigation, met with Aurora Dairy, they signed a consent agreement to make some changes," said Mitch Yergert, director of the Colorado Department of Agriculture's Division of Plant Industry. "A few of those regarded pasture. Those changes were made and now we monitor the compliance with that."   

The federal government has not revoked Aurora's organic certification, or the state's authorization to certify.     

"Every five years we have to go through a reaccreditation audit and our audit was conducted in October," Yergert said. "The USDA certifies us similar to how we certify people so we went through the reaccreditation audit. Out of that we feel there is nothing that will prevent us from continuing being an accredited certifier."

Aurora is still able to label its milk as organic, but it has made changes. Buildings are being razed on it's Platteville farm to make way for more pasture. It has reduced the size of its herd from 4000 to 1000.  

Kastel is not fond of large corporate owned organic farming in general.

"The people who are really running those businesses aren't getting their fingernails dirty and aren't cracking a sweat," he said. "Real organic farmers are close to the earth. Real organic cows have names not numbers."  

Smaller farmers are getting by on organics, the sales of which are expanding by near double digit percentages each year. The Berry Patch Farm's Claudia Ferrell said she works hard to maintain certification, but her conscience may be the toughest cop.  

"There have been moments of temptation, yeah. And my biggest temptation has been when I've requested organic or untreated seed and I've been sent treated seed and it's a variety I really want," she said. "I've had to look at that packet and go, 'No, I'm not going to go that.'"  

Berry Patch sells mostly from its farm stand. That also helps, Ferrell said.

"That's more important probably to me, probably to the certification program to keeping me honest, is that I'm looking in the eye of the people who eat my food."

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