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Federal Court Victory: Almond Farmers Can Challenge USDA Pasteurization Rule
Onerous Rule has Devastated California Raw Almond Producers
August 3, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/08/03-17

WASHINGTON - August 3 - A federal appeals court ruled today, overturning a 
lower court decision, that a group of California almond farmers have the 
right to challenge a USDA regulation requiring the treatment of their raw 
almonds with a toxic fumigant or steam heat prior to sale to consumers.  For 
the past three years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has denied American 
consumers the right to buy raw almonds, grown in the USA, when they shop in 
grocery and natural food stores.

     View the full news release at:

http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/08/federal-court-victory-almond-farmers-can-challenge-usda-pasteurization-rule/

A group of almond growers sued the government to challenge USDA's rule, but 
the federal district court ruled that courtroom doors were closed to the 
growers' claims.  The controversial rule has cost individual farmers millions 
of dollars in lost sales since it was enacted in September 2007.

"We are delighted by the court's decision," said Will Fantle, of The 
Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy and research group that has been 
coordinating the legal strategy and the lawsuit brought by 13 California 
almond growers.  Cornucopia has been coordinating the legal strategy for the 
farmers' lawsuit.  "At long last the farmers who have been injured by this 
rule will have the opportunity to stand in court and state why this poorly 
thought out regulation should be thrown out," Fantle added.

The USDA and the Almond Board of California imposed the treatment scheme to 
minimize the risk of salmonella contamination outbreaks like those that had 
occurred with almonds in 2001 and 2004.  USDA investigators were never able 
to determine how salmonella bacteria somehow contaminated the raw almonds 
that caused the food illnesses but they were able to trace back one of the 
outbreaks, in part, to the country's largest "factory farm," growing almonds 
and pistachios on over 9000 acres.

Family-scale growers have argued that the onerous and expensive mandated 
treatment regime is only needed by the giant industrial producers, who have 
less control over the quality of their nuts, and has hurt their market 
because of consumer resistance.

Many in the industry have questioned the logic exempting foreign-grown 
almonds from the treatment scheme.  Imports have displaced raw domestic nuts 
in many major markets and retail locations across the U.S.  This regulatory 
loophole is part of what has been crushing California producers.