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Aurora Organic Dairy Agrees To Reduce Herd

DENVER (AP) ― One of the nation's largest organic milk producers will have to reduce its herd and stop using the organic label on some of its milk under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency said Wednesday.

Under the deal, USDA's marketing service said it will monitor operations at Aurora Organic Dairy's plants in Platteville, Colo. and Dublin, Texas for compliance during the next year. If the company doesn't follow the agreement, USDA said it could end the agreement and revoke the organic certification for the Platteville plant.

The deal was reached following an investigation prompted by a complaint filed by a Wisconsin-based farm policy group that the dairy's cows weren't being grazed enough. Bruce Knight, under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said the agency also found other violations, including that the dairy improperly transitioned ordinary cows into organic cows. He said the milk from those cows would no longer be labeled as organic and the animals would never be considered organic again.

Earlier in the day, the dairy issued an announcement saying that USDA had dropped the complaint as part of its agreement but Knight said the complaint was still in effect. A spokesman said he would relay a call to the company's president but he didn't immediately call back.

Earlier the dairy's vice president of marketing, Clark Driftmier, said the company already had plans to cut its dairy herd by two-thirds long before a farm policy group filed a complaint about its practices with federal regulators.

Driftmier said the herd at the Platteville farm will drop from 4,200 head of cattle 18 months ago to 1,250, and 75 percent of barns and other buildings will be razed to make room for more organic pasture. In addition, all the cows at the dairy will be organically grown from birth.

The Cornucopia Institute had alleged that nearly all the dairy's cattle were kept in feedlots instead of grazing on pasture as the law requires.

Institute co-founder Mark Kastel said USDA's action was strong but said the company should have been penalized for violating organic standards. He said the company, which provides milk to retailers who then place their label on the cartons, was able to depress organic milk prices and expand its market share while breaking the 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 and make sure milk labeled as organic really was.

"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.

Under the agreement with USDA, the dairy must reduce the number of cows at its Platteville operation, make sure that cows have access to pasture during the growing season and get rid of cows improperly transitioned to its herd and not market their milk as organic.

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