Six years after it set up a labeling program for grass-fed meat, the USDA terminated the program, as of Tuesday, concluding that it “does not facilitate the marketing of agricultural products in a manner that is useful to stakeholders or consumers.” The Agricultural Marketing Service said in a Federal Register notice that it couldn’t guarantee the Food Safety and Inspection Service would use the same guidelines in overseeing packing plants. After a reference to country-of-origin labels and the organic agriculture program, AMS said it would consider a grass-fed standard “when there is a statutory mandate to do so.”
“Actions such as this take us into a Wild West situation, where anything goes and both farmers and consumers lose,” said Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Without a USDA standard, he said, there will be no way to verify marketing claims. The USDA standard said 99 percent of feed consumed by livestock after weaning had to be grass, forbs or forage. Most meat comes from grain-fed animals. Grass-fed meat, which sells at a premium, is leaner and comes from animals that take longer to mature.
The USDA decision surprised small-farm advocates. In the Federal Register, it said producers using the grass-fed label had until April 11 to create a private standard, developing a new grass-fed standard or “using another recognized grass-fed standard.”
A relatively small number of U.S. producers used the grass-fed label. Hoefner said the USDA standard served as a shield against grain-fed meat being marketed as grass-fed. The American Grassfed Association has a more stringent standard that includes no use of antibiotics or confinement.