Unbeknownst to most consumers, on January 12^th the USDA quietly announced that its Agricultural Marketing Services department would no longer be issuing and regulating the official USDA grass-fed label. They are quoted as saying that the standards “do not fit within the agency’s statutory authorities” and that it’s not the Agricultural Marketing Services’ role to define grass-fed standards.

Though these grass-fed standards (established in 2007) still allowed livestock to be confined, raised outside of the United States, and fed antibiotics and hormones, studies have shown that (the issue of antibiotics and hormones aside) there are in fact benefits to eating grass-fed meat over grain-fed, including a significant increase in healthy omega-3 fats.

From here on out, the USDA will still approve and regulate the labeling process for grass-fed beef set to go to market. However, it will not hold itself responsible for defining what grass-fed means.

Instead, the agency is allowing the only four companies currently using the USDA grass-fed label to either adopt the USDA’s current standard as their own, create their own standard, or adopt another existing standard. In other words, the grass-fed label will be determined the way these companies see fit. When the label was revoked in January the four companies had 30 days to either adopt the newly revoked USDA grass fed standard, or to develop a new grass fed standard of their own.

The Policy Director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (an alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities), Ferd Hoefner, spoke about the revoked label saying that this policy “… will create a multitude of non-uniform labels, which will open the door to more confusion and subterfuge in the marketplace. It is an affront to consumers, who have the right to know how their food is raised, and to the farmers whose innovation and hard work created the trusted grass fed label standard.”

What can you do as a consumer? Doing your research on an individual company’s practices is the most reliable way to ensure that you’re consuming foods that were raised to your standards. Private labels will be the best assurance you, the consumer, can get moving forward. Three labels you want to look for are the American Grassfed Association (AGA), Food Alliance Certified (FAC), and Animal Welfare Approved(AWA). These private labels guarantee that not only what the animal consumed was of the advertised standard, but also that it was raised and slaughtered in a humane way.