USDA Trashes Organic: Pasture Not Required for Cows' Last 4 Months

by Heidi Stevenson

11 April 2010

The rules for the USDA Organic label for beef are already watered down. Now, though, they're allowing feedlot conditions for their last four months—about one-fifth of their lives. You can help reverse this by contacting the president and USDA. I'll tell you how, including links.

The requirements for USDA Organic labeling were low enough before this. Even during grazing season, ruminants only have to get 30% of their food from grazing. Cattle must be pastured only 120 days a year.

According to the Cornucopia Institute, an advocacy organization for family farmers, there are three different models of so-called organic beef raising for USDA standards. These are quotes from Cornucopia's position statement on the issue:

Grass/Grain Finished
Beef cattle are raised on pasture during the growing season for the first 6-10 months of their lives. Producers then move the animals to a feedlot (or sell them to a feedlot operator), where they are given organic grain and hay. Grain in their diet speeds their growth, while some amount of hay provides necessary roughage. By providing a high-energy grain diet, producers are able to bring their animals to slaughter weight in as little as 14 months. Many believe that consumers prefer meat from grain-finished cattle due to its fat marbling and tenderness.
Proposed New Label: "Organic – Grain Finished"
Grass Fed/Finished on Pasture with Supplemental Grain Feeding
Beef cattle are raised on pasture throughout the animal’s lifespan, including the finishing period, except when pasture grazing is not possible, such as in winter. During the finishing period (the months leading up to slaughter), producers maintain their animals on pasture but bring feed, containing grain, to feeders on pasture. Animals therefore do consume grain, and could not be considered "100% grass- fed," but they are never kept in a feedlot. The percentage of their diet that consists of grain is commonly low, and the finishing period is generally much shorter than 120 days.
Proposed New Label: "Organic – Pasture/Grain Finished"
100% Grass Fed/Grass Finished
Producers provide unlimited access to pasture and feed absolutely no grain over the lifetime of the animal. When pasture grazing is not possible, as in winter, animals are given forage-based feed such as hay. It commonly takes 2-3 years to raise a grass-fed beef cow to slaughter weight, although some 100% grass-fed producers, focusing on appropriate genetics for grazing and superior forage quality, market animals as young as 18 months of age.
Proposed New Label: "Organic – 100% Grass-Fed"

The only standard that a reasonable person could consider organic is the last one. Grain is not a natural food for cows. It causes them gastric distress and illness—conditions that do not result in healthy meat for humans. Confining cattle for any reason other than their own comfort likewise turns the entire concept of organic on its ear.

Cornucopia's solution to this is simply to create three different levels of organic beef, as indicated above. My view is that this merely encourages deterioration of the entire concept of organic. It's beneficial only to Agribusiness. In fact, Cornucopia's own survey of USDA Organic farmers documents that, currently, 100% of them never confine cattle to a feedlot. 83% never feed grain.

Genuine organic cattle never raised on feedlots are unlikely to contract E. coli infections. The meat from grass-fed beef is also healthier and more nutritious than beef that's been "marbleized" in the feedlot.

The USDA bills the new rule as an attempt to close loopholes that allow factory farming operations to use the same techniques for cattle raising, with only the substitution of organic feed and health protocols. This is fine as far as it goes. However, the new rule specifically excludes beef cattle.

Obviously, the USDA is neither focused on getting the healthiest food to the people, nor is their concern the welfare of animals. They're simply offering a boon to Agribusiness.

Help Stop The USDA From Watering Down The Organic Beef Policy

The USDA is calling the new organic rules final. However, they say that they're open to "comments on the exceptions for finish feeding of ruminant slaughter stock" until 19 April 2010. You have a week to speak out. Let's take advantage of this and speak out about our objections to watering down the already weak organic requirements for cattle raising.

You can go to the government's website set up for comments on the ruling, Access to Pasture Livestock (Document ID AMS-TM-06-0198-4165): http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480aa60c8

You can send an e-mail to President Obama here. There's a sample set up for you to either accept as is or modify: http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14607871

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