WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2016 - USDA’s
Agricultural Marketing Service is getting rid of its labeling standards for
grass-fed and naturally raised livestock, which will allow producers to develop
their own. The notice was published in the Jan. 12 Federal Register.
“Because AMS does not have express
authority to define grass-fed or naturally raised, it is inappropriate for the
agency to offer it as an AMS-defined marketing claim,” the agency said on its website. “Instead,
companies can use voluntary USDA-Certified or USDA-Verified programs to verify
compliance with standards that they develop.”
Applicants often seek to market the
USDA-verified marketing claim on their food product labels, the service said,
but in order to do so for meat products, they must get approval ahead of time
from the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which regulates food
labels. “Without express authority from Congress, it is not AMS’ role to
define standards; that responsibility lies with FSIS,” AMS said.
Users of the marketing claim can convert
the USDA grass-fed claim into their private grass-fed standard, use another
recognized grass-fed standard, or develop a new grass-fed standard, AMS said.
They will have until Feb. 11 to identify the standard they wish to use, and
until April 11 to implement it.
The decision received swift criticism from
the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, whose policy director said, “Actions
such as this take us into a Wild West situation, where anything goes and both
farmers and consumers lose.”
NSAC’s Ferd Hoefner said the voluntary
standard had “widespread farm and consumer support” and that rescinding it
would make meat labeling “even more confusing for farmers and consumers.”
Simply because there’s no guarantee that
FSIS would approve a marketing claim is no reason to abandon the standard
entirely, he said.
“It is both sad and true that these two
USDA agencies often do not coordinate, and, worse yet, that in some cases FSIS
has looked the other way, allowing particularly unscrupulous meat companies to
abuse the USDA standard,” Hoefner said. “The common sense solution is not to
revoke the standard, but instead to tackle siloing and lack of interagency
communication head-on.”
The grass-fed label claim standard is
nearly 10 years old, having been published in the Federal Register on May 12,
2006. It resulted from “several years of meetings between farmers and farm and
consumer organizations sponsored by AMS and facilitated by NSAC, as well as by
a formal public notice and comment process,” NSAC said.
Among the standard’s requirements were that
“grass, forbs, and forage needed to be 99 percent or more of the energy source
for the lifetime of a ruminant species after weaning in order to qualify as
grass fed.” NSAC said. “Prior to the setting of that standard, grain fed
animals were often sold as grass-fed, with USDA’s approval.”
But AMS spokesman Samuel Jones-Ellard said
that “without express authority from Congress – as with the National Organic
Program – AMS does not have the statutory authority to define labeling
standards and determine if food marketing claims are truthful and not
misleading. Because AMS does not have express authority to define
“grass-fed” or “naturally raised,” it is inappropriate for the agency to offer
these as AMS-defined marketing claims.”
Jones-Ellard added that “only about six
companies were using the USDA grass-fed standard, and we are working directly
with them to ensure there is no negative impact due to this clarification of
AMS’s role.”
A spokesman for the North American Meat
Institute said, “At this point we’re just evaluating the change to determine
what it means for our members.”
A conference call to
discuss the changes will be held with stakeholders on Jan. 14.
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