Horizon is on a populist mission to produce milk without hormones and make it accessible and affordable to everyone. In Idaho and at a 3,000-cow farm in California, from which Horizon buys milk, cows eat feed produced without pesticides; while producing milk, they are given no hormones or antibiotics. Horizon also buys milk from several hundred small dairies where cows do graze on pasture. A company spokesperson estimates that 30 percent of its milk comes from the company's farm in Idaho and a similar operation in Maryland.

But because that figure doesn't include the additional milk it purchases from the California dairy, and a 5,300-cow dairy in Colorado, critics say that's a low figure. Based on its own market analysis, the Cornucopia Institute, an agricultural think tank, says it's more likely that nearly 50 percent of Horizon's milk comes from cows that are not raised on pasture.

Given that significant percentage, critics say the dairy is disregarding the intention of the organic laws. "Factory dairy farms are playing loose with the organic rules," says Mark Kastel, director of the Cornucopia Institute. "We cannot allow corporate profiteering to besmirch the organic marketplace. When consumers buy organic, they think they're supporting family farms with a higher environmental and animal husbandry ethic."

Over the past several months, the institute has filed three formal complaints with the USDA, alleging that the agency is being lax in its enforcement of the pasture regulation at Horizon's dairy in Idaho and at the other dairies in Colorado and California, where Horizon buys milk. While there is no timeline for when the USDA must respond, if the government fails to take this issue seriously, Kastel says his group may sue.

His position was bolstered this past March at the meeting of the National Organic Standards Board. A federal advisory panel recommended that the USDA clarify its regulations so that they more explicitly state that organic dairy cows be confined in bad weather to protect the safety of animals, often during birthing. It also advised the USDA to interpret the pasture rule to mean that all animals over six months of age graze grass for at least 120 days of the year.

This rule is controversial because big dairies like Horizon's Idaho operation currently don't meet that standard. It would also require big dairies to invest in more land and new milking procedures. It is now open to public comment and will be voted on in August. Yet whether the USDA will heed these recommendations is another matter entirely. Horizon has been able to get away with a creative interpretation of the pasture standard because the USDA hasn't been clear with the public or farmers about just what it means to be an organic cow.

The USDA doesn't actually go out to every farm and give it a stamp of organic approval. Rather, such grunt work is done by a hodgepodge of state agricultural agencies, nonprofit groups and for-profit companies; there are 97 different organic certifiers in total. These entities verify all aspects of a dairy's organic plan by inspecting records to ensure, for example, that the fields have been chemical free for at least three years and by visiting the farm to examine the conditions of the cattle, the milking parlor and the surrounding pasture.

While there are hefty federal penalties for illegally stamping a dairy organic, the system is fraught with potential conflict of interest. Kevin Elfering, a director of dairy food and meat inspection for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, states that the pell-mell certification process lacks rigorous and transparent oversight. He says it's too easy for certifiers to bend the rules, allowing dairies to stay in business and keep the certifiers in the black as well. "There are always a small percentage of people looking to amass higher profits without following the rules," Elfering says. "You have any number of certifying organizations and they want business. The certifier would be biting the hand that feeds them if they enforce the regulations."

Indeed, John Cleary, certification director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, a 20-year-old nonprofit certification organization, says he would never stamp Horizon with an organic label. "It doesn't appear to me that they [Horizon] have access to pasture in the way we understand the rules," he says. "Organic is about balancing the amount of land with the amount of animals and the health of the animals. I don't see how these confinement operations can do that."

Cleary faults the USDA for not doing a better job of overseeing the certification process. "I've asked [Horizon and Aurora] how they're meeting these standards and they say, 'We're certified and we couldn't be doing this if we weren't meeting the standards.' The USDA needs someone with a backbone to stand up and say if you don't raise your cows on pasture, it just doesn't qualify as organic. There's an uneven playing field out there now."

According to Cleary and a host of consumer groups, the USDA has been about as vigilant as cops at a doughnut shop. Since the final organic rule was released in December 2000, the USDA hasn't implemented any of the organic standards board's more than 50 policy recommendations. It has yet to create a peer review panel to oversee the accreditation process, as is required by law, or to create a program manual for certifiers that specifies all of the rules and regulations.

"The staff at the USDA that is running the organic program continues to be cagey. The lack of transparency makes us wonder what they have to hide," says Urvashi Rangan, of the Consumers Union. Rangan wonders whether certifiers all follow the same standards for ensuring that milk is organic. "The quality of some milk may be less than others and the USDA needs to rectify the situation. I think the envelope is being pushed as wide as it actually can."

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