Between January 2006 and February 2008, AMS’ Compliance and Analysis Program provided the results of its investigations of five certified organic operations to NOP. Although AMS recommended that NOP officials take enforcement actions against these operations, we found that NOP did not respond to these in a timely or effective manner. In addition, in those cases where enforcement actions were issued, NOP did not monitor the organic operations to ensure compliance with those actions. As a result, NOP never issued the recommended enforcement action against one of the five organic operations, one that improperly marketed nonorganic mint under USDA’s organic.
