USDA Seeks to Bar Growers’ Cooperative

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that the nation’s largest growers of raisins, prunes and other dried fruits and nuts should be banned from selling to the government because their cooperative made illegal gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The proposed ban would bar cooperatives affiliated with Sun-Diamond Growers of California from selling to the military, federal prisons, school lunch and feeding programs for up to three years. The lost business is worth millions of dollars to the cooperatives, whose yearly sales total in the hundreds of millions. Pleasanton-based Sun-Diamond was convicted in September of making and condoning illegal gifts to Espy when he was Agriculture secretary. As a result, the USDA proposed in October that the company and two executives be barred from doing business with the department. Sun-Diamond affiliates proposed for debarment for up to three years are Diamond Walnut Growers Inc. of Stockton; Sun-Maid Growers of California, Kingsburg, Calif.; Sun Sweet Growers Inc., Yuba City, Calif.; Valley Fig Growers, Fresno; Hazelnut Growers of Oregon, Cornelius, Ore.; and Sunland Products of California, Pleasanton.