Spring time on the Farm: we tag our calves but only for our own records. 

Shannon Hayes just wrote a stirring op-ed  in the New York Times about how the proposed National Animal Identification System would devastate small farmers, and especially grass-fed producers. Shannon Hayes has become an eloquent advocate for grass-fed farming and the health benefits of grass-fed beef.  She is the daughter of an agricultural professor and farmer and has moved back with her husband and has started a family on the family farm all the while maintaining a writing career.   I am a great admirer of her work and all that she has to say about grass-fed farming.

In her op-ed she explains why a federally mandated identification system would be devastating for her family’s farm:  “These ID chips are estimated to cost $1.50 to $3 each, depending on the quantity purchased. A rudimentary machine to read the tags may be $100 to $200. It is expected that most reporting would have to be done online (requiring monthly Internet fees), then there would be the fee for the database subscription; together that would cost about $500 to $1,000 (conservatively) per year per premise. I estimate the combined cost for our farm at $10,000 annually — that’s 10 percent of our gross receipts.” 

I think the same would happen for my family’s farm. I shudder to think of all the time and headache the identification system would represent to us. Not only would it hurt small farms but it would benefit factory farms making their product more valuable and to make matters worse, feedlots would be given an exception because they can catalog a thousand animals as one unit. The horrible irony of the whole system is that foreign buyers do not only object to the fact that “downer” cows might be used for exported beef but the manner in which we produce our meat. Foreign buyers are as suspicious of big beef producers as we are. It is not an identification system that we need it is a new system.

I feel very deeply for the family run cow and calf operations that are being hurt by a decrease in exports. It has been devastating but an identification system would only exacerbate their plight because it would give big agribusiness and feedlots the upper hand.  It would make small producers like my family waste money and time when the way we raise our animals---on pasture---in a manner that is safe.   The beef industry has been successful in pitting small ranchers against the sustainable movement. I feel that there needs to be more cooperation between grass-fed producers and traditional family ranchers that are trying to hang on. I think our interests are shared.

 Please Check it out Shannon Hayes Op Ed here.

To voice your objections please visit this site:

http://www.nofamass.org/news/naisalert.php

 More on REAL food safety here! 

The Grass-fed Party welcomes Kathleen Merrigan to the post of Deputy Secretary of the USDA.  Merrigan's focus on ethics and research, and experience in policy making, leads me to believe that Kathleen Merrigan will be a great ally of Grass-fed Mooovement in Washington.  

Merrigan is responsible for drafting the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 and most recently served as Director of the Center of Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tuffs University.  She was head of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service from 1999 to 2001.

Jean Holloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives as the Consumer's Union said, “Merrigan will bring an excellent perspective to a number of troublesome labeling issues now before the agency, including loopholes in the current ‘grass fed’ standard, lack of uniformity in meat marketing claims across meat, poultry and dairy items, defining ‘raised without antibiotics' label claims, and weaknesses in the current definition of ‘naturally raised.'”

As Director of the Center on Agriculture, Food and the Environment at Tuffs, Merrigan worked on projects to that included the examination of animal health and welfare issues related to organic production; a comparison of the antioxidant capacity of foods grown through conventional and organic systems; oversight of New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, an initiative to assist immigrants with agricultural experience in becoming commercial farmers; and direction to students annually in group research projects, leading to professional publications such as The Conservation Security Program: Rewards and Challenges for New England Farmers (2006).

For those you interested in watching Merrigan talk out livestock and animal welfare on video, you can view a presentation giving by Merrigan last year, Organic Standards for Animal Health and Welfare? Act Now Before It’s Too Late, at The College of Life Sciences and Agriculture at the University of New Hampshire.

In 2006, co-authored a paper Ensuring Comprehensive Organic Livestock Standards, Proceedings of the 1st IFOAM International Conference on Animals in Organic Production.  Daily Kos offers a summary of the key points in the paper:

The paper notes that it is a list of standards used around the world and that not everybody agrees on one standard. Therefore, while I wish I could say the paper was a recommendation of comprehensive organic standards for livestock, it looks like it is more of a brainstorming list of all of the facets that might be covered by organic standards.

Some of the standards included in the paper are:
    -Choosing breeds that resist disease or other health problems and do not need "mutilations" i.e tail docking. Recommendation to choose indigenous breeds and breeds adapted to local conditions and organic production systems.
    -Natural reproduction. 

    -Sick animals must be treated, even if this means loss of organic status

    -Disease prevention should be based on diet and exercise (as opposed to sub-therapeutic antibiotics)

    -"All organic standards require meeting each animal’s nutritional needs, severely restrict feeds of animal origin, prohibit growth promoters in feed, restrict vitamin and mineral supplements, prohibit/restrict feeding of pure amino acids, establish preferential or exclusive use of organic feeds, or require access to pasture and roughage (at least for ruminants)."

    -Young mammals must get colostrum and milk (if not maternal milk, preferably organic 
milk from their own species)

    -Animals must have enough space to exercise and permit natural behavior

    -Tethering is restricted or prohibited

The paper goes on with specifications for each animal, for example, restrictions on keeping calves in individual boxes, cows must be fed a diet that prevents acidosis, poultry may not be kept in cages, forced molting should not be done to laying hens, sows may not be kept in farrowing crates, and pigs should live in an area that allows natural behaviors like rooting.

Merrigan’s Sustainable Agriculture Affiliations include (from her resume):

    American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Network for Science and Innovation for Sustainable Development
    Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture Advisory Committee, a project of the Rockefeller Family, 2002-2006.
    The Organic Center Board of Directors, 2004-present.
    Standards Committee, Human Farm Animal Care, 2003-2007.
    Organic Farming Research Foundation Board of Directors, 1992-1995.
    National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture Steering Committee, 1994-1999.
    Kellogg Foundation Integrated Food and Farming Systems Network Steering Committee, 1996-1998.


The appointment of Merrigan should be credited in part to the large movement that erupted around a Food Democracy Now! petition for sending a Sustainable Dozen to the USDA.  Merrigan was on the Food Democracy Now! list for the Sustainable Dozen, which was signed by over 88,000 people.  Here’s to the power of grassroots organizing in 2008 and 2009!

The folks at Food Democracy Now are still urging people to sign the petition so that the rest of he key positions at the USDA may also be filled with any of their Sustainable Dozen.

Above photo of Kathleen Merrigan courtesy of Tufts University