WASHINGTON — A judicial officer has upheld a decision to suspend the organic certification of Promiseland Livestock, LLC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today.
The order, which names Promiseland Livestock as well as Anthony J. Zeman, upholds a decision issued by Chief Administrative Law Judge Peter Davenport on Nov. 30, 2009, that the parties violated the Organic Foods Production Act and the governing organic regulations. It also increases the period of their disqualification from receiving organic certification from four years to five.
“This careless disregard of a statutory requirement is sufficient to find that Promiseland’s violations of the Organic Foods Production Act were willful,” said Judicial Officer William Jenson in the decision and order. He upheld the decision that Promiseland had repeatedly withheld records from authorized bodies of the USDA, including National Organic Program employees and AMS investigators, that would have allowed them to conduct audits of the company’s facilities, thereby violating the Organic Foods Production Act and federal organic regulations on multiple occasions between Jan. 22 and June 5, 2007, June 6, 2007, and June 10, 2008.
The suspension will become effective 60 days after the order has been served to Promiseland Livestock and Mr. Zeman. The national organic standards prohibit operations from representing their products as organic during the period of suspension.
The decision by the judicial officer follows a series of hearings between Promiseland Livestock and the Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA. While Promiseland Livestock appealed the chief administrative law judge’s original decision on Dec. 29, 2009, the Agricultural Marketing Service filed an opposition to its appeal on Jan. 19, 2010.
The Organic Foods Production Act requires that farms and handling operations that are certified as organic “maintain records of all organic operations… and make such records available at all times for inspection by the Secretary, the certifying agent, and the governing State official.”
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Source: USDA