The Cornocupia Institute, an organic watchdog group, is taking further action against Aurora Organic Daiy, the largest "organic" milk producer in the U.S. The USDA failed to sanction it despite serious violations of federal organic labeling law. Accoding to this report, "Cornucopia alerted the Agency of Aurora’s irregularities with a legal complaint in January 2005. The USDA closed the case without investigation, for what Cornucopia describes as "political reasons" revealed in documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the watchdog group." In November of 2005 the USDA launched an investigation following complaints filed Cornucopia against Aurora for mismanagement practices, including confining their cattle to feedlots, depriving them of fresh air and healthy grazing conditions as required by law, and adding conventional cattle to their operation instead of organic cows that had been raised organically their entire lives. On August 29, the USDA, ruled that Aurora "had willfully violated 14 provisions of the regulations of Organic Food Production Act." But the USDA failed to take any significant action against this fraudulent company, which not only ripped off consumers for several years but also cause monetary and credibility loses to the entire organic dairy industry. Aurora operates a dairy processing facility in Colorado and five giant factory-farms in Texas and Colorado. If you buy the store brands of "organic" milk from Wal-Mart, Target, costco, Wild Oats, Safeway and many other grocery chain stores, then you have unfortunately been another victim of this unscrupulous and shameful company owned by Dean Foods, which also owns Horizon.