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.
We figured out a goat's favorite treat...by accident
We realized a goat’s favorite thing today and it was totally by accident!
For months, we have been wrestling with our portable goat fencing. We tried the three foot high electric fencing from Premier 1. It was great fencing, but the goats got out every chance they could because it wouldn’t stay tight and would fall down. . Then we moved to 4-foot high chicken netting from Premier 1. Again, the goats would stay in, but after about two weeks, they would scale the fence where the fence would sag.
One of the reasons the goats were getting out was because we did not have time to set up the fencing as often as needed. We set it up every three weeks, but they needed to be moved weekly.
Rotational grazing requires that you move animals frequently to keep fresh food in front of them. Goats rotate at a much slower pace than cows and are happy to stay in an area for several weeks as long as plenty of food is available.
The chicken netting we purchased and the other goat fencing came in 100-foot sections, which made large areas expensive and time-consuming.
Early on, I attempted poly tape fencing, but it was not conducive enough. The goats would go right through it.
We recently purchased the Gallager Turbo Wire, the most conductive polywire they sell. It has 9 x strands of highly conductive mixed-metal filaments. The rolls come with over 1700 feet of line, which gave us plenty of lines to make a 5-string fence in about two hours. We kept step-in posts about 20 feet apart to prevent excessive sagging in the line. We use a deep-cycle marine battery and a Speedrite 3000 fence energizer. This fencing was placed around overgrown kudzu, a pine sapling paradise. A pleasant surprise was when we discovered the goats were chewing on the sapling pine trees when we turned them out. Some of our pastures have been untouched for almost a year, and we noticed saplings were coming up. The goats were going nuts over them, which was very surprising.
It turns out that pine saplings might be a goat’s favorite food. The pine needles also act as a natural wormer to clean their digestive tract. Pine needles are also very high in Vitamin A and C, which helps support immune systems and body function.
It turns out that poly wire can work with goats, saving you time in the long run.
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Setting up the goat fencing along our driveway where we have an abundance of kudzu and overgrow brush. Notice that polywire can be placed wherever you need it!
** Use a rubber mallet for the step in posts and they will go in anywhere!