Word: kastell
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...epicures and health nuts, organic food has gone mass market. Americans spent some $16.7 billion on organic food last year, up from $13.8 billion in 2005 - and sales are expected to rise by 20% this year. But some aspects of organic's growing popularity trouble advocates like Mark Kastel, 52, from Rockton, Wis., who is now driving one of the food industry's biggest debates: does organic food's industrialization threaten its purity...
...Kastel lives in a white two-story house across from an organic dairy farm in the rugged hills of southwestern Wisconsin. A former farm-equipment salesman, Kastel has become a leader of the organic-food movement. In 2004 he helped found the family-farm advocacy group Cornucopia Institute, which has filed seven complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over the last two years - against Wal-Mart and some of the nation's largest organic milk producers - for failures to meet federal organic standards...
...store signs had incorrectly identified some products as organic. The company said it was an "isolated incident." So far, the government has closed five of Cornucopia's complaints, including the one against Wal-Mart, and is reviewing the two others. But after Wednesday's announcement of the Aurora agreement, Kastel says he feels vindicated...
...Organic Program, organic cows must have access to pasture, although how much is fiercely debated. So, a farm with 10,000 cows is as organic as one with 10 cows. But the growth of large-scale organic farms with thousands of cows has drawn the ire of purists like Kastel...
News of Cornucopia's report card traveled quickly; Kastel received a flood of e-mails and phone calls with tips. He developed a network of what he calls "intelligence officers," including staffers at organic dairy farms and supermarkets, as well as ordinary consumers...