206 the rice diet renewal
The $ 12 billion corporation, based in Dallas, controls about
fi fty separate milk labels around the country, Horizon being
only one of them. Horizon has built a leading market share by
producing much of its milk on corporate - controlled industrial
dairies, in desertlike conditions in Idaho and New Mexico,
managing upward of eight thousand cattle. It has also pur-
chased milk from independent suppliers that milk as many as
ten thousand cows in a single facility. The average organic dairy
farmer in the United States milks around sixty cows.
After selling its brand to Dean Foods, the original investors
in Horizon launched another company, named Aurora Dairy.
Aurora specializes in supplying private - label “ organic ” milk to
the nation ’ s leading supermarkets and big - box stores, includ-
ing Walmart, Costco, Target, and Safeway. Aurora operates
fi ve separate “ factory farms, ” managing ten to twenty thou-
sand cows, in Texas and Colorado (the company ’ s own public
estimates vary widely).
Cornucopia has fi led legal complaints against a number of
dairies associated with Dean Foods/Horizon and Aurora. The
largest dairy in the country, selling purportedly organic milk,
a Horizon supplier, was decertifi ed. The ten - thousand - cow
operation in Pixley, California, was a confi nement feedlot, and
the cattle were not grazed as required by law. According to
documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,
the giant Horizon supplier could not demonstrate that all of its
animals were truly qualifi ed to produce organic milk.
In late 2007, after investigating Cornucopia ’ s legal com-
plaint against Aurora Dairy, the USDA found that Aurora had
“ willfully ” violated fourteen aspects of the law, including not
grazing its cattle and illegally bringing conventional animals
into its operation. The political appointees who ran the USDA
at the time overruled career civil servants, who had intended
to decertify the $ 100 million operation, and placed Aurora on
a one - year probation.
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