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In a food market driven by money,

greed and power, our only hope for access to clean, sustainable and humanely treated food are watchdog groups whose sole purpose is to keep the industry under a microscope.

That’s exactly what The Cornucopia Institute does — a relentless organic watchdog group whose mission is to “draw attention to and rein in abuses from the rise of factory farm confinement dairy operations in organic agriculture.”

The organic watchdog group spotlights

factory farms selling “organic” food, a practice that puts real organic farmers out of business and tricks the public into believing that they’re buying a product that’s healthy, sustainable and treated humanely.

Farm visits, aerial imagery, industry sources and tips from “intelligence agents” allowed Cornucopia to identify and examine brands suspected of producing their “organic” products in industrial-sized facilities whose operations totally violate federal organic standards.

So-called “organic” farms caught cheating by confining livestock and restricting access to green pastures

Federally mandated organic standards state that living conditions for livestock must “accommodate the health and natural behavior of animals.” This means that both cows and chickens absolutely must have year-round access to green pastures for grazing, shade, sunlight and fresh water and live unconfined, Cornucopia reports.

Temporary confinement is only allowed to provide safety, treat illness or injury and because of bad weather and risks to soil or water quality. Satellite imagery allows the watchdog group to detect and report operations violating these standards.

An aerial photo taken of Aurora Dairy’s “organic” farm in Stratford, Texas, shows thousands of cows confined to dirt-based feedlots with no opportunity to graze on green grass. The nearby fields have been freshly mowed with the feed already baled for future use, notes Cornucopia.

“We see thousands of cows at this operation without any pasture as organic law requires,” said Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s Senior Farm Policy Analyst.

Aurora Dairy insists that “[h]igh standards for animal care are the cornerstones” of their farm and that their cows eat organic pasture and feed. Their website substantiates these lies by using pictures of seemingly happy cows grazing in green pastures.