San Francisco — The head of a Salinas Valley fertilizer company has been sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a $125,000 fine for defrauding customers by representing his product as organic fertilizer when it contained prohibited chemicals. Peter Townsley, a resident of British Columbia who was charged in 2010 with eight counts of mail fraud, two counts of making false statements, and one count of conspiring to commit mail fraud, also was ordered to serve six months of community confinement, during which time he must perform 1,000 hours of community service related to organic farming. According to the plea agreement, as president of California Liquid Fertilizer (CLF) from April 2000 to December 2006, Townsley sold Biolizer XN with a label that claimed it was approved for use in organic farming when it actually contained prohibited chemicals. During that period, CLF realized more than $6.5 million in gross sales from the sale of Biolizer XN. The plea agreement also states that in 1998 Townsley applied for approval by Organic Materials Review Institute, an agency that approves organic fertilizers, saying that the fertilizer was made of fish, fish by-products, feathermeal, and water. He admitted that by April 2000, he had changed the ingredients in Biolizer XN to a product containing ammonium chloride, a material prohibited from use in organic agriculture.
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