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.
Step 2: Plan your Pasture Spaces
Hi there!
So you are considering taking the following steps with adaptive grazing. Please note that I will discuss techniques for the southeast, which is considered a nonbrittle environment per Allan Savory’s Holistic Management. Brittle and nonbrittle environments refer to how much rainfall occurs in a region and the humidity levels. Where we are, we have significant rainfall and constant humidity throughout the growing seasons. I thought Allan summed it up perfectly when he stated a nonbrittle environment is like a “huge coiled spring.” This refers to areas that have been overgrazed. The first step in bringing vegetation back to these areas is to take the pressure off. The vegetation will come back every time, just like a spring. Once that occurs, you use herbivores for grazing areas on a rotational basis. They will prune the desirable vegetation, stomp out the unwanted weeds, and then fertilize the ground with their manure.
So that’s the overview in a nutshell. But how do you make it work on your farm? First off, you will need to assess areas on your land where you have grass or that you can graze. Many horse owners worry when they don’t have a pretty field ready to put horses on. I tell them all the time not to worry and to just start grazing those areas, and slowly but surely, the grass will get better and better with each rotation.
You can ask yourself the following questions to help determine which areas you will use:
Do you have areas you constantly have to mow?
Do you have areas that are overrun with weeds?
Do you have forests with thick vegetation?
Supplies: The main supplies you will need to be successful will be addressed in the following article. The list is very short and straightforward. You may have to train your horses to Polywire, and this can be done quickly by just putting up a simple one-line fence in their current paddock. To ensure horses respect the poly wire from here on out, you must ensure the wire is hot AT.ALL. TIMES. Polywire will be a psychological fence. For horses to respect it, they will most likely touch it when they see it first, and it will need to shock them. It does not hurt them, but it will ensure that they stay away from it from here on out.
So to sum it up, the second step to adaptive grazing is to pick out areas that need to be mowed, are thick with weedy vegetation, or are neglected areas of your farm. If you do not have a bunch of trees throughout your property, in the beginning (especially during the hotter months), you can use a shaded area as the base point of your rotation.
If you are ready to learn how to set up paddocks, read the next article on the Portable Pasture Equipment