Eight months after one USDA agency rescinded its standard for grass-fed beef, a sister agency published a “labeling guideline” — open to public comment for 60 days — that says the term is available only for beef from cattle “that were only (100 percent) fed grass (forage) after being weaned.” A small-farm group said the step would “preserve the label’s strong reputation.”
In the preface to the 15-page guideline, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which oversees meatpackers, said it “is the agency in USDA with the responsibility for ensuring that the labeling of meat and poultry products is truthful and not misleading.” To use the grass-fed label, the FSIS said producers must submit documents that include a description of the diet fed to the cattle and steps taken to ensure the cattle didn’t eat anything else.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the guideline was not perfect because it left open the possibility of a label of 75 percent or 80 percent grass-fed. “These claims are misleading for consumers and harmful to the farmers and ranchers who have built their reputations, and indeed an entire industry, on the 100 percent grass-fed standard,” said Ferd Hoefner of NSAC.
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service withdrew its voluntary standard of grass-fed beef in January, saying the label was not useful to consumers, producers or packers and that it could not ensure that FSIS would use the same definition. Farm and consumer groups appealed to FSIS in March to step in and “resist calls to cheapen the label.”