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 3: Portable Fencing Equipment for horse pastures
Hi there!
You are now committed to looking into what you will need for portable pastures. Pat yourself on the back! You are on your way to implementing your adaptive grazing plan.
You can purchase the equipment needed for adaptive grazing for less than $500. You can have adaptive grazing spaces around your farm and get your horses out on a paddock within a week.
Here is the list:
Polywire/Poly Tape - $50-$100
Step in posts ($152/50 posts)
Energizer (solar or Energizer+battery) ($250)
Shade (optional)- FREE (TREES)!
1. Poly Wire/Poly Tape: You first need to decide if you want to use, Polytape or Polywire. These products are equally effective, but the polytape will take up more room on your reel than polywire. Some horse owners feel their horses can see the polytape better than polywire, so they naturally want to use something more visible. In our experience, if you move the horses during the day when they can see the new space, it doesn’t matter either way. We feel the poly wire is easier to roll up and put into the stakes than poly tape. It also doesn’t sag much since it isn’t as heavy as the tape strands.
2. Step-in posts are essential to your adaptive grazing plan. We are currently using plastic step in posts. The downside to these posts is that they break with excessive force during significantly colder weather. We now use a rubber mallet to pound them in because it has become very dry in our region over the summer. The “step in” option wasn’t effective, and the mallet has been a game changer. When you are pulling them out, they may feel stuck. If you gently kick the bottom of the post to loosen the stake, it will pull up easily. If you carefully put them in and pull them up, they will last many seasons.
3. Fence Chargers: Thank goodness for technology and the many options on the market for electrifying portable fencing. We have used many options, and they all tend to work well. We may prefer one option over the other depending on equipment cost to animal ratio or portability of equipment.
Solar Chargers: Solar chargers work great when you are moving animals daily. This solar charger will work great for you if you have a lot of sunshine, as we do here in South Carolina. They are light, durable, and generally dependable throughout the year. Our favorite solar charger is the Gallagher series solar charger. It has withstood many moves, and the parts have not broken on the device. It offers a consistent charge and continues to work after over two years of constant use. Another option is to use an energizer plus a marine deep-cycle battery. You will need two batteries so that one can be charged and ready at all times. We like the Speedright 1000 plus a 12 V battery for our horse paddocks. This way, the weather will rarely be an issue affecting fence performance.
4. Shade- Depending on where you are and your land, you may or may not have available shade. We are in South Carolina, where it gets sweltering during the summer months. Horses can and do often go without shade, but we know that given a preference, they would always prefer to have shade available. We have constructed a shade mobile out of an old hay wagon. It now has adjustable “wings” that expand during implementation and fold up during moves. A great option with adaptive grazing is that you can easily incorporate shade into your daily pasture plan if you have trees near your grazing areas. A couple of ideas include:
Make a set of trees or barn your central point to your pasture rotation. You can rotate circularly if a bunch of trees is in the middle, or you can make a path back to the shade, as I did here in this video.
Use a mobile shade device- If you are handy and willing to test out your engineering skills, building a shade mobile will unleash all sorts of possibilities on your farm. With shade options, your animals will be more comfortable and peaceful, grazing on your pastures. A shade device can be as simple as a big frame with a tarp covering. Be creative, and it will blow you may blow yourself away!
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