The US Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program “launched the COMPLIANCE Database in March 2019," according to an agency report. The tool allows the organization “to better track case progress and more quickly identify patterns and relationships across complaints.”
In December 2023, we filed a FOIA request seeking a comprehensive set of complaint, investigation, and outcome records from this database, as well as documentation concerning the database’s structure and interpretation.
On March 12, 2024, the agency sent its first interim response 📄, providing a spreadsheet that appears to list all closed investigations in the database.
The spreadsheet contains 1,501 entries. Its twelve columns indicate the following information for each case:
- Case number
- NOP case number
- Subject/title
- Regulatory citations
- Account/company name
- Complaint type (“Uncertified Operation” being the most common, followed by “Fraud”, “Pesticide Residue”, “Labeling Error”, and several others)
- Complaint subtype
- Inquiry received date/time
- Case opened date/time
- Case closed date/time
- Outcomes (e.g., “Compliance”, “No Violation”, “No Investigation”, “Civil Penalty”, etc.)
- Collected amount (for civil penalty outcomes)
“[The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service] will continue to process the remainder of your request and will forward any responsive records promptly upon completion of review,” according to the agency’s interim response letter.