Saturday, August 17, 2013

What About The Farmers Who Can't Afford The Organic Label?



Organic vs. Natural. I was on the Environmental Working Group (EWG) website as I'm a huge supporter of our farmers and ranchers and I realized that I see only support for the organic farmers. But what about those farmers and ranchers that can't afford to have the USDA stamp even though they are exactly the same? Don't they deserve our support and assistance in keeping our food sources going and nontoxic to our kids?


As a previous working Buckaroo (Yes, that is what it is called when you work as a ranch hand in the style of the old Vaqueros of Spain.), I have worked on some of the largest and all natural beef ranches on in the continental US and while they might have the capital to ensure that their beef has he USDA stamp of organic approval their neighbors, the mom and pop farmers, don't. 

Back in the '70s there was a kind of experiment that the farmers and ranchers were trying out. Hormones to promote calf growth after conception was a brief and was soon nixed by the majority of the ranchers due to the mother cows' over stress during calving. It wasn't long after that agriculture went into a recession so traumatic that when the global recession hit they didn't even feel it. With this being the case, coming up with the capital to have hay, fields, equipment and butchers inspected by the USDA inspectors and put into use is severely costly for this vastly shrinking population. 


The question now is, even with the overall agreement to ban the hormones and the antibiotics, aside from penicillin, within the beef ranching community wouldn't you still buy your meat from these farms? Wouldn't you want to not only support your local rancher but also gain all of the nutritional benefit of a USDA certified organic product without the higher cost? Just in beef alone buying meat from a small naturally produced beef ranch would be considerably less costly since it is the rancher that absorbs the USDA seal of approval until it reaches us the consumer.

Now I'm sure that there are several other types of farming where this same situation would apply but as my background is only in beef ranching I can only speak from my point of view. But even if there are other types of farms like these ranches, wouldn't you still or even prefer to buy from someone from a small American ranch the same exact product only it was cheaper because it didn't have a seal? Wouldn't that just make more sense?


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