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New, major policies proposed by the USDA livestock/pasture rule (never reviewed or recommended by the National Organic Standards Board) include:
• Eliminating the fattening of beef cattle on grain, in feedlots, for the last few months of their lives. Although many might view this proposal as meritorious it would radically change the industry and could force some operators out of business. Full analysis and discussion by the organic community is vitally necessary.
• Requiring animals to be outside year-round, without exemptions for extreme weather conditions, would put the lives and well-being of livestock at risk and economically injure farmers.
• Setting aside part of a farmer's land in a "sacrifice" pasture for when weather conditions make grazing unsuitable. This might be a provision that some current operators cannot meet and might violate certain state and federal environmental standards. This may have positive application, but its overall impacts have never been fully analyzed.
• Classifying bees and fish as livestock will likely garner positive and negative response from that industry sector depending on its perceived present and future regulatory impact.
• The USDA draft rule ignores the NOSB recommendation to eliminate the "continual transition" of conventional cattle, brought onto organic dairy operations. The industry has universally agreed that all animals brought onto a farm, after its initial transition to organics, must be managed organically from the last third of gestation. Animals raised for meat already have to meet this higher standard. Many industry experts feel that the USDA has misinterpreted the law, for years, allowing giant factory farms to "burn out" their cattle and prematurely sending them to slaughter, then replace them with cheap conventional cattle on an ongoing basis. This new rulemaking proposes that the Department's "misinterpretations" become institutionalized as law.
"This 26-page document put forth by the USDA may so muddy the water that we could be facing years of additional delays until the widely agreed-upon provisions for dairy are enacted," said Kastel.
Certain industry players, including the dairy giant Dean Foods and Aurora Dairy, the nation's largest private-label producer of organic milk (Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, Safeway, etc.) have based their business model on exploiting the trust of the organic consumer and violating both the spirit and letter of the organic law (full documentation available).
The USDA's proposed pasture rule, along with the "alternative" proposal endorsed by organic farmers and consumers, can be viewed at:
http://www.cornucopia.org/usda-proposed-organic-pasture-livestock-rule/
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