Buyer Beware: Beef Trickery is lying to the customer and destroying the Regenerative Movement
At Eremos Farm, we decided from the beginning to only raise animals as nature intended. Herbivores (Cows) would eat grasses that the land provided instead of being force-fed grain. Our cows are not forced into feedlots where conditions are unsanitary and humane practices are thrown out the window. Our cows are always on sanitary pastures and are offered a polyculture of grasses, legumes, and forbs to meet their nutritional requirements. Our cows are never fed antibiotics, hormones, or steroids to increase weight gain. They are only offered ethically harvested Organic Icelandic Kelp and salt to meet their mineral and electrolyte requirements.
We are transparent with our customers and encourage them to come and visit the farm to see for themselves. We want to ensure that customers are aware of being tricked into buying regenerative products that may be misleading to the consumer.
Product Greenwashing Is Destroying The Regenerative, Humane Farm Movement.
Product Greenwashing, also called “green sheen,” is deceitful marketing that exaggerates a business’s current or past practices in order for them to appear more environmentally friendly. It can range from misleading labels claiming the use of sustainable materials to exorbitant media campaigns touting the eco-friendliness of oil companies
Large multinational companies have seen the marketing advantage of making untrue claims on their products. Because of weak USDA labeling rules, these companies can charge more for their commodity products without producing them in a better way. They can add to their price, without changing their production practices.
Consider this:
International meat companies can shop for the cheapest grass-fed beef in the world, usually found in impoverished countries.
The cattle, hogs, poultry can be born, raised, and slaughtered in these foreign countries, and the meat be shipped on containers to the United States.
Then, it can be sold in your local grocery store with a USDA label that proudly proclaims "Product of the USA".
This is perfectly legal. It is hard to fathom, but it is undisputedly true.
This legal, but corrupt, practice will halt the transition of farms that would like to follow the path toward regenerative, compassionate, and fair farming. See below-
Add your voice to those of us who are trying to end this trickery by supporting the US Beef Integrity Act.
More information from the Organic Consumers Association:
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Services Agency allows the use of the “Product of U.S.A.” label on any beef as long as the meat passed through a U.S.-based inspection plant, and/or was blended with meat from animals that were born and raised in the U.S.
Sales of grass-fed meat are nearly doubling annually. But about 80 percent of the grass-fed beef market is supplied by imports, compared with the total beef market where imports make up only 9 percent.
Because those imports often carry a “Product of U.S.A.” label just because they passed through a U.S. processing plant, U.S. grass-fed and grass-finished beef producers are hit hardest by this policy.U.S. producers can’t differentiate their product in the grocery store from imported beef.
The U.S. Beef Integrity Act aims to give consumers what they want—honest labels. It would also level the playing field for U.S. grass-fed and grass-finished beef producers, whose practices are better for consumer health, and better for the environment.
At Eremos Farm, we are 100% transparent with our practices and have an open-door policy for anyone who wants to come and tour our farm. We want you to see for yourself the regenerative practices we follow daily. Click the button below to schedule a visit with a group and see for yourself, or pop by anytime for a self-guided tour.
Hay shortages encourage equestrians to manage their pastures better
Let's go over some common sayings that horse people, AKA Equestrians, use frequently.
"You might as well just hand your credit card over to the feed company because that's the only place you will spend money." "
"That horse should be pooping gold with as much as I pay for him."
"There's no money in horses."
"My retirement goes to my horse."
There is truth to some of these statements. The good news is that I'm here to tell you that intensive rotational grazing management might be the answer to ensuring horse industries remain profitable and that pastures return to a healthy status.
In his book "Salad Bar Beef" Joel Salatin states that the horse industry has done more to improve the quality of hay than anything else. Cows will eat just about any quality hay. For many decades, most hay growers were cattle farmers. The farmers appreciated that their cows ate just whatever they grew, cut, and baled. The farmers had an emotional bias in the hay that some farmers grew and all the hard work they put into the product. If the cow didn't eat their hay, it was the cow's fault, not the farmer's.
Equestrians are incredibly picky about their hay because it's no good if their horses don't eat it. Equestrians have been demanding higher quality hay which has put additional pressure on hay farmers to grow hay that horses will eat and thrive on.
I believe this has been a double-edge sword for horse owners. They have unfettered access to quality cheap hay, which has allowed horse barns to ignore managing their pastures well. They could overlook their pastures because they could cheaply supplement hay throughout the year. This has all worked until the recent spike in gas prices and petroleum products. The result has been a massive increase in hay prices and hay shortages, leaving horse farms uncomfortable.
Over the next few weeks, I'll show examples and suggestions of how equestrians can rotate their horses on pastures effectively. I'll hopefully show why intensive grazing management is the answer to returning their pastures to a state of health. It will challenge the status quo of how horse barns have been typically managed and how pastures have been grazed. It will challenge owners to think differently and learn from the cattle industry, resulting in huge successes with rotating fields.