Photo Credit: Capital Press — Hazelnut farmer Bruce Kaser of Pratum Farm in Salem, OR
Appellate Court Denies US Farmer’s Day in Court — Filing for Reconsideration
July 21, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark A. Kastel, 608-625-2000 / info@organiceye.org
Federal law appears to be clear: Food that is labeled “organic” must be grown on a certified organic farm. Furthermore, federal law requires that every “organic” farm be certified by a USDA-accredited certifier and inspected at least once a year.
Lobbyists and their corporate clients, benefiting from the billions of dollars’ worth of suspect organic imports, teamed up in opposition to OrganicEye’s farmer-member Bruce Kaser, an Oregon hazelnut grower, successfully challenging his standing to sue the USDA for their lack of enforcement of the federal organic standards.
Although the USDA organic seal has been trademarked on behalf of the American people, the court decided that he wasn’t a true stakeholder with standing to sue. And although he and other US hazelnut farmers have been crushed by imports undercutting them on price, they ruled that he had not been economically injured, also a requirement for standing.
In an Orwellian choice of terms, lobbyists at the Organic Trade Association described the appellate decision as a “victory for organic integrity.”
Stay tuned for the result of his request to the appellate court for reconsideration and further action by OrganicEye. If we don’t ultimately prevail in the courts, we will need to educate the public further as to which brands come from trustworthy sources (US-grown crops when possible and, whether domestic or imported, those certified by reputable accredited organizations).
There is a higher authority than the USDA and the federal judiciary in these matters — the organic consumer/eater. Marketplace engagement has the ability to reward the true, ethical heroes in the organic industry and send a strong message to the bad actors.
Mark A. Kastel
Executive Director
OrganicEye
Court Rejects Hazelnut Farmer’s Case Against Organic Labeling Rules
Published 7:00 am Wednesday, July 16, 2025
By Capital Press — Mateusz Perkowsk
https://capitalpress.com/2025/07/16/court-rejects-hazelnut-farmers-case-against-organic-labeling-rules/
A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of an Oregon hazelnut farmer’s lawsuit challenging the USDA’s organic labeling rule for foreign suppliers.
Two years ago, Bruce Kaser of Pratum Farm near Salem, Ore., filed a complaint alleging that USDA’s “group certification” rule for overseas organic growers violates federal law for organic foods.
According to the complaint, the USDA unlawfully allows foreign “producer groups” to receive organic certification if only about 2% of the farmers are inspected for complying with organic practices.
The lawsuit claimed the regulation has harmed Oregon hazelnut producers, who must compete against low-priced ostensibly “organic” hazelnuts from Turkish producers, who haven’t been held to the same standards.
However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has now ruled the complaint was properly dismissed last year because Pratum Farm hasn’t proven that it has directly suffered an “injury-in-fact” from USDA’s labeling regulation.
The farm doesn’t have an “ownership interest” in the USDA’s organic seal, so the “purported reputational damage” from the labeling rule doesn’t affect it in a “personal and individual way,” precluding a challenge under the Organic Foods Production Act, the ruling said.
“Pratum’s assertion that the Rule misleads consumers by permitting agricultural producers to violate the requirements of the Act is insufficient,” according to the 9th Circuit.
According to legal precedent, it’s not enough to establish standing to challenge a federal regulation “simply because the plaintiff believes that the government is acting illegally,” the ruling said.
The lawsuit’s allegation that USDA’s rule puts Pratum Farm and similar growers at a competitive disadvantage depends on a “highly attenuated chain of possibilities” that isn’t adequate to demonstrate economic injury, the appellate court said.
“Pratum argues that the Rule reduces producer groups’ production costs by enabling them to obtain organic certificates without a certified agent annually inspecting each individual member,” the ruling said. “But the Rule also imposes other requirements on producer groups, including establishing an internal control system to monitor and inspect individual members for compliance with the Act and USDA’s implementing regulations.”
Organic hazelnut farmers recently cited in a Capital Press article commonly blamed low-priced Turkish imports for reducing the premium for their crop, detracting other growers from switching to organic practices and inhibiting the industry’s growth.
Bruce Kaser, the owner of Pratum Farm, said he’s disappointed in the ruling, as the negative impact to organic hazelnut growers from the USDA regulation could not be more clear.
“If we don’t have standing on this, nobody does,” Kaser said. “It’s not good news for Oregon organic hazelnut growers. How do we survive going forward? I’m scratching my head about that.”
Representatives of the USDA have not responded to requests for comment on the 9th Circuit’s decision as of press time.
Kaser said the appellate ruling gives “shallow treatment” to the problem, possibly indicating the 9th Circuit was eager to “affirm and move on” to avoid wading into the complex economic implications of the USDA’s rule on the organic industry.
“It’s hard to dig into this at all and not see the problem,” he said.
The USDA’s labeling rule has broad effects on imports of organic foods beyond the hazelnut industry, as consumers expect the organic seal to signify that farms have been individually inspected and certified as following organic practices, Kaser said.
“That’s what the public expects,” he said.
The USDA’s labeling rule is a prime example of the “unholy alliance” between the agency, organic certifiers and corporate interests, which has resulted in imports threatening the viability of U.S. organic growers, said Mark Kastel, founder of the OrganicEye industry watchdog group.
Other lawsuits challenging the corporate influence on USDA’s organic oversight have also been dismissed based on standing, which has become a “formula” to prevent courts from seriously delving into the issues, he said.
In this case, the complaint attempted to enforce the legal requirement that organic farms be inspected annually, Kastel said.
“That is not happening, but the merits of the problem have never been discussed. That is a travesty if you believe in justice,” he said. “You’ve got U.S. farmers whose livelihoods have been put at risk competing with corporate entities and foreign entities that aggregate food from non-certified farms.”
The USDA and other proponents of the group certification system have refused to compromise by limiting the rule to small-scale farms in defined geographies, such as the indigenous communities the regulation is supposedly designed to help, Kastel said.
“It violates the spirit of what these folks were claiming to want to accomplish,” he said.
Read more on the issue at the Capital Press.
The Capital Press is a highly respected farm weekly serving agricultural interests in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and California. Reporter Mateusz Perkowski has extensive experience covering the organic farming sector. Click here for subscription information.