Grass fed is no longer an indication of agronomic virtue because there is now a USDA AMS standard and a mechanism for verification. It's a nasty kluge, necessarily so since the idea of a single standard to apply to such a large and diverse nation with such variability in climate and land guarantees a brain dead bureaucratic pile of nonsense that is antithetical to good environmental practice or the production of healthful foods.

As with other USDA systems the objective is to protect large and influential entities from competition by strangling smaller producers in record keeping and inspections. It's an unholy alliance of big business and big government that inflates production friction and siphons off rents from the public to pay for a bureaucracy. It's a jobs program for leather bottomed time servers.

The key to understanding where it all went wrong is the explanation for the standard: this is a marketing claim centered on a production method. That opens the door for a hugely expensive and intimately intrusive bureaucracy much like the nonsensical organic standard, and will fail to serve the public for the same reasons.

A far better approach would be to simply test the meat and dairy products and publish the results. Let the money be spent on something useful. A standard that required lab testing and labeling of products would create a boom in the testing lab business rather than government bureaucracy and give the consumer real information about what they buy and consume. The technologies of testing would flourish and improve due to the inflow of funds and competition among providers so that over time the initial barriers to entry erected by a new standard would fall.

The recent kerfuffle about the lack of virtue in organic products - they are no more nutritious than foods produced by other methods, and often less nutritious though they are more expensive - will be repeated now for grass fed beef and dairy. At some point some crusading journalist will point out that the stuff doesn't always test well and that the marketing claim is hollow. Grass fed will then have the same negatives in the social mind as organic has now. A small cohort of true believers will loudly advocate for it, but most of the public will actively avoid it, as they do now with organic.

Organic producers are shifting around trying to come up with some hook to justify themselves. The best of them now seek to produce "nutrient dense" foods, the sort of foods long called "functional" foods. The issue isn't the production method, it's the nutritional value, the true quality of the product as revealed by testing it.

My intent is to shift away from grass fed claims as the grass fed standard comes into force - it's voluntary at this point though the iron fist of government will soon follow - and emphasize the nutritional value of my products as verified, truly verified, by lab testing. I'll still have a production narrative - local, pasture, compassionate animal handling, yada yada - but won't use the tainted words "grass fed". Just as the best producers are "beyond organic", we will also be "beyond grass fed". We're neither organic or grass fed: we're better than those simplistic marketing standards, we actually have good food produced in environmentally astute ways and sell it for prices that you can pay. You don't have to mortgage your house to buy a good steak, and our grass really is greener since we do good environmental management grounded in science rather than superstition.

Update: This is the meat of the AMS document, abstracted from a lot of discussion about inputs from various interested parties, posted here for convenience.

U.S. Standards for Livestock and Meat Marketing Claims, Grass (Forage) Fed Claim for Ruminant Livestock and the Meat Products Derived From Such Livestock.

Background: This claim applies to ruminant animals and the meat and meat products derived from such animals whose diet, throughout their lifespan, with the exception of milk (or milk replacer) consumed prior to weaning, is solely derived from forage, which for the purpose of this claim, is any edible herbaceous plant material that can be grazed or harvested for feeding, with the exception of grain. Forage-based diets can be derived from grass (annual and perennial), forbs (e.g., legumes, Brassica), and browse. Animals cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season. Growing season is defined as the time period extending from the average date of the last frost in spring to the average date of the first frost in the fall in the local area of production. Hay, haylage, baleage, silage, crop residue without grain, and other roughage sources also may be included as acceptable feed sources. Consumption of seeds naturally attached to forage is acceptable. However, crops normally harvested for grain (including but not limited to corn, soybean, rice, wheat, and oats) are only eligible feed if they are foraged or harvested in the vegetative state (pre-grain).

Upon request, verification of this claim will be accomplished through an audit of the production process. The producer must be able to verify for AMS that the grass (forage) marketing claim standard requirements are being met through a detailed documented quality management system.

Claim and Standard

Grass (Forage) Fed—Grass and forage shall be the feed source consumed for the lifetime of the ruminant animal, with the exception of milk consumed prior to weaning. The diet shall be derived solely from forage consisting of grass (annual and perennial), forbs (e.g., legumes, Brassica), browse, or cereal grain crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state. Animals cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season. Hay, haylage, baleage, silage, crop residue without grain, and other roughage sources may also be included as acceptable feed sources. Routine mineral and vitamin supplementation may also be included in the feeding regimen. If incidental supplementation occurs due to inadvertent exposure to non-forage feedstuffs or to ensure the animal’s well being at all times during adverse environmental or physical conditions, the producer must fully document (e.g., receipts, ingredients, and tear tags) the supplementation that occurs including the amount, the frequency, and the supplements provided. Authority: 7 U.S.C. 1621–1627.

Dated: October 10, 2007.
Lloyd C. Day,
Administrator, Agricultural Marketing Service.
[FR Doc. E7–20328 Filed 10–15–07; 8:45 am]