Nothing Good for Organics on the "Horizon" for Milk (or Soy)

From News Target

There has been a continuing erosion of organic standards since large corporations started struggling for a share of the market. According to this recent NewsTarget interview with Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association, the standards for organic milk have been particularly compromised.

Horizon Organic, the company that supplies Wal-Mart, has continually ignored federal organic standards -- specifically, a cow's access to pasture.

Their "organic" milk actually comes from factory-style dairy farms where the animals are kept in intensive confinement and have been imported from conventional farms as calves.

In fact, the problem has gotten so out of hand that the Organic Consumers Association has called for a consumer boycott on Horizon and its partner Aurora Organic, its first for an "organic" product.

The organic milk controversy extends to organic soy milk as well. Horizon Organic's parent company, Dean Foods, also bought out Silk, the leading organic soy milk brand in the United States.

Dean Foods has pushed for lower organic standards in the United States and to allow industrial-style production to be called "organic."Meanwhile, major grocery chains import cheap, so-called "organic" soybeans from China, where the workers are treated much like slaves and organic standards are dubious.

They are also imported from Brazil where the Amazon rainforest is being bulldozed in order to create more acreage for growing soybeans.

What is the USDA doing? Why isn't Tom Harkin all over this?