Spring is around the corner, and as Midwesterners might be dreaming about firing up their grills and stocking up for barbecues, there is a renewed push for a federal law change to improve label transparency for beef products.

A bipartisan bill has resurfaced in Congress to reinstate what's known as mandatory country-of-origin labeling for things like steaks and hamburgers. Supporters said the handful of large companies dominating the meat industry have an unfair advantage, because loopholes allow them to add a "Product of U.S.A." label on imported beef.

Nick Nemec, a longtime cattle producer from central South Dakota, said shoppers should not be misled when inspecting what they buy.

"Consumers want to support American farmers and this is one way they can do it," Nemec emphasized. "Goin' to the meat counter in the grocery store and the meat said 'Born in the USA,' that means something to 'em."

Advocates for the bill said full transparency provides reassurance about beef being produced under tougher food safety regulations and would give smaller livestock producers a fair shake. In 2015, under pressure from multinational meat companies, Congress repealed mandatory labeling. Opponents of the bill said they worry about further disrupting trade relations with Canada and Mexico if the rule is put back in place.

Nemec noted even if the bill passes and is signed into law, he fears large industry groups will use their vast resources to water it down during implementation.

"Farmers don't have lawyers on staff, but the big (meat) packers do," Nemec pointed out.

He added it is why independent farmers and their supporters need to stay on top of the issues, even if a policy victory is potentially within sight. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced rule changes to bring more accuracy to meat labeling but the guidelines were voluntary.


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By Grey Moran for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Zamone Perez for Virginia News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Last August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food & Safety Inspection Service, the federal team responsible for ensuring the safe and accurate labeling of the commercial meat supply, issued letters to several dozen meat producers to inform them of antibiotics detected in beef. This isn’t an unusual finding — antibiotics are widely used on industrial animal farms — yet the meat sampled was on track to be sold as “antibiotic-free,” “raised without antibiotics” or a similar label promising that the animals were never administered antibiotics.

These letters, recently obtained by the advocacy group Farm Forward through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that the world’s largest meat producers — JBS, Cargill, and Tyson — raised cattle that tested positive for antibiotics prohibited under USDA-approved labels advertising the beef as free of antibiotics.

“This strongly suggests that the US antibiotic-free beef supply is deeply contaminated and deeply deceptive to American consumers,” Andrew deCoriolis, the executive director of Farm Forward tells Sentient.

The USDA’s Food & Safety Inspection Service found that 20 percent of the samples under this label tested positive for antibiotics, raising questions about how widespread mislabeling is in the U.S. commercial beef supply. These findings were announced last August, but the names of the companies which tested positive for antibiotics were not made publicly available until recently, as part of a new report released by Farm Forward questioning the validity of this popular label.

“It does seem to violate the nature of the label,” says Keeve Nachman, the associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Nachman is not concerned about immediate health impacts — consuming antibiotic residue does not cause an immediate illness, but contributes to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria — though he is concerned about the broader lack of transparency around antibiotic use on farms and how that contributes to longer-term antibiotic resistance in humans and animals.

These faulty labeling practices result in a “mischaracterization of the magnitude of antibiotics being used in agriculture,” Nachman says. It’s been estimated that 70 percent of medically-important antibiotics sold in the U.S. — those used to treat human infections — are used to produce meat, dairy and other animal-sourced products. The difference between what’s presented on labels and actual use means the public may not understand the urgency. “It is going to mean that we don’t have the full appreciation of the pressure our agricultural industry puts on the ability of those drugs to resolve human infections,” says Nachman.

The World Health Organization calls antimicrobial resistance “one of the top global public health and development threats,” responsible for millions of deaths every year. The problem is only going to get worse, according to public health experts. The misuse and overuse of antibiotics — both in humans and farm animals (who often receive the same antibiotics) — leads bacteria to develop more resistant genes that then fail to respond to the medically necessary use of these drugs.

The USDA’s Food & Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) sent a total of 27 letters to offending meat companies, advising them to “conduct a root cause analysis to determine how antibiotics were introduced into the animal and to take appropriate measures to ensure future products are not misbranded.” FSIS sampled between one and four cattle carcasses per processing facility, which were randomly selected as part of a 2023 initiative. In the letters, FSIS stated that it would “not take immediate enforcement action in response to individual test results.”

“USDA is continuing to review policies and actions taken by the previous administration,” a FSIS spokesperson told Sentient in an e-mail, in response to questions about whether they intend to take any follow-up enforcement or policy actions. “FSIS remains committed to ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply and protecting public health.”

deCoriolis points to the USDA’s lax oversight of this voluntary certification program, which requires that companies submit documentation to receive the USDA’s approval for use of this label. The USDA relies on self-reported information to validate these and many other claims, including humanely-raised and free range claims.

Meat brands are required only to submit written statements attesting to their process for ensuring antibiotics are not part of their meat supply chains. As deCoriolis sees it, the certification process is vulnerable to exploitation — companies can charge a higher price for meat sold as antibiotic-free but there is not enough oversight to ensure compliance.

“Despite the USDA knowing that this label claim is, in many cases false, they continue to approve the label without requiring testing to verify the claim,” continued deCoriolis. ”From our perspective, this is the USDA deliberately maintaining labeling policies that allow meat companies to mislead the public. And the effect of that is the USDA is giving meat companies a consumer liability shield to protect them from consumer protection laws.”

The Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) set the federal legal frameworks for meat and poultry product labeling, which refers to the language on the back or front of meat packaging in grocery stores. Previously, courts have held that if the manufacturer’s labels are approved by the USDA, they can be legally used for advertising — effectively giving the USDA the final say on what winds up on meat labels.

Following these test results, the USDA updated its guidelines to “strongly encourages the use of third-party certification to substantiate animal-raising or environment-related claims,” but the agency fell short of actually requiring third-party verification. The updated guidelines were announced in August under President Biden’s administration, and there has not been any further action in this vein under USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Sentient reached out to every meat producer that received a letter to see if they had followed the USDA’s recommendations in conducting a root causes analysis to determine how antibiotics entered their food supply, or any other additional measures.

According to FSIS’s letter, inspectors identified monensin — an antibiotic that is banned in the European Union as a growth promoter in farm animals — in animal carcasses sampled at Swift Beef Company in Greeley, Colorado, a subsidiary of JBS USA, one of the largest meat companies in the world. JBS USA claims beef sold under its Aspen Ridge brand come from cattle that “have never received growth promotants of any kind.”

In an e-mail to Sentient, Nikki Richardson, JBS USA’s Head of Corporate Communications, wrote that “the product impacted in this instance was identified at the facility and never made it into the food supply.” She also wrote that JBS USA conducted an audit following this incident. No evidence of either statement was provided. Sentient asked if the company would be willing to provide Sentient with “the results of the audit, for the sake of consumer transparency,” but Richardson did not reply.

Similarly, FSIS detected monensin in an animal carcass at a Cargill facility in Fort Morgan, Colorado and tulathromycin (used to treat bovine respiratory illnesses) at a separate Cargill facility in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. Chuck Miller, the global external communications lead for Cargill, replied that the company has not violated any regulatory requirements.

“Cargill complies with USDA and FSIS regulatory requirements to ensure safe and compliant products enter the market,” stated Miller, in an email to Sentient. “I would also like to reinforce that there has been no evidence that meat with antibiotic residue levels in excess of regulatory standards entered the food supply.”

Tyson did not respond to a request for comment. However, Tyson has scaled back on its previous pledge to raise beef without antibiotics, following previous public scrutiny of these labeling claims. 

There are shortcomings to FSIS’s testing program. The tests performed didn’t distinguish between selective antibiotic use to treat an illness and constant low-dose exposure to antibiotics administered directly into the animals’ feed. While both are prohibited under the labeling program, the excessive, chronic use of antibiotics poses a much more serious risk to public health, contributing to the development of antibiotic resistance. 

“If a cow is selectively treated for penicillin two years ago and gets harvested, that’s one thing. But if it’s been constantly exposed to a drug, over and over again, leading up to 30 to 60 days prior to the time it was harvested, that’s going to be a whole other level of residue,” says Marshall Bartlett, the co-founder of Home Place Pastures, a cattle and pig farm and processing house in Como, Mississippi. FSIS’s letters don’t indicate the level of residue. 

FSIS found that one of Bartlett’s cattle tested positive for penicillin, which is commonly used on small farms to selectively treat illnesses. He performed the root cause analysis as recommended, tracing it back to a nearby producer who sells him cattle, who forgot to tag that animal to indicate that it could no longer be sold under the labeling program. “The producer was very apologetic and understood,” says Bartlett. 

Out of all of the meat producers, Bartlett is the only one who said he performed this analysis and was willing to share the results. He hopes that the USDA expands and refines its testing for antibiotics use. “As far as we’re concerned, we’re really committed to transparency and figuring this out, trying to be an advocate for local farmers in our supply chain,” he says.


Grey Moran wrote this article for Sentient.


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By Dawn Attride for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

It's no secret that industrial animal agriculture is draining our planet's resources and is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions - responsible for somewhere between 12 and nearly 20 percent of climate pollution. On a personal level, reducing meat consumption and adapting to a plant-forward diet are one of the most effective forms of climate action. When it comes to more systemic solutions however, lawmakers and development banks have favored interventions that tend to be tech-based, or human manufactured. These solutions, like dairy digesters that convert manure into biogas, or synthetic feed additives that reduce methane emissions from livestock, also tend to be hotly contested by a certain swath of environmentalists.

While such technologies promise to curb emissions, the reality is not so simple - and they also may do little to combat agriculture's stress on water, soils and biodiversity. These strategies often don't address issues like soil health or the deforestation of land - at least not directly.

A new report makes the case that the best way forward may lie in investing in nature-based solutions, rather than technological ones. The findings were published by The Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return Initiative (FAIRR), an investor network covering risks and opportunities in the global food system.

Investing in Nature Take Time, but Benefits Ecosystems

A nature-based solution uses natural techniques and ecosystems to address environmental challenges, such as planting trees or restoring wetlands to capture carbon.

The new FAIRR report is the "first of its kind" in developing a framework to attract investment for long-term climate solutions in a way that considers the whole planet holistically, Sajeev Mohankumar, senior technical specialist of climate and biodiversity at FAIRR, tells Sentient.

"Industrial farming produces more calories and produces more product per unit area because they are so efficient and their only goal is to maximize profit. But what we wanted to emphasize in this report is that that is not the only system of agriculture -- it also has to deliver for the animals in terms of welfare, human health and planetary health. That's where nature-based solutions come into play," he says.

FAIRR evaluated 22 on-farm interventions (12 nature-based, 10 tech-based) often cited to address agriculture's climate and nature risks. They found that nature-based solutions such as hedgerows (rows of shrubs that act as a carbon sink and reduce soil erosion) and silvopasture (integrating trees into grazing pastures) had a greater positive impact collectively on emissions reductions, biodiversity, freshwater use and the flow of nutrients across ecosystems. "Nature-based interventions can deliver 37 percent of the mitigation required to meet 2030 climate targets, along with significant nature co-benefits," the report states.

Nature-based solutions are touted as offering more holistic rewards, but can take time to show impact, which can be difficult to sell to investors. "I think there is a lack of knowledge in terms of connecting some of the financial returns to environmental outcomes," Mohankumar says. "This involves changing the behavior of farmers and tying them into a long-term contract...it takes a long time to yield benefits."

For example, technology like synthetic animal feed additives reduce methane emissions from livestock by roughly 10-30 percent, but offer few co-benefits for nature. Hedgerows, by comparison, reduce emissions but also have positive environmental benefits, such as reducing soil erosion and curbing nutrient runoff into water. On the other hand, hedgerows need to be planted in large quantities, and require a long timescale of up to 10 years to sequester significant amounts of carbon.

A Ticking Climate Clock Requires Thoughtful Solutions

Nature-based solutions have another added benefit: they tend to boost climate resilience, often in a more cost-effective way, according to a recent review of over 100 peer-reviewed articles. Sixty-five percent of studies found that nature-based solutions were better at reducing disaster risk, and 71 percent of studies found that they were more cost-effective than tech-based ones.

Currently, the majority of on-farm intervention investment flows toward technological advances, which, FAIRR says is "concerning." This is because tech-based climate interventions "are more likely to be aligned with intensive livestock production practices, and lead only to incremental emissions reductions relative to the long-term systemic changes from implementing nature-based interventions." In other words, these solutions cut down on emissions a little, without addressing the problems caused by industrial food systems, like poor animal welfare or water pollution.

Not every climate researcher sees a clear preference for technology or nature-based solutions. Sentient asked Richard Waite, director for Agriculture Initiatives, Food, Land and Water Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), to take a look at FAIRR's research, with which he was not involved. Waite was a co-author of a 2019 report from WRI that recommended a suite of solutions to meet the challenge of feeding even more people on the planet - 9.7 billion by 2050 - without draining natural resources and driving up global temperatures to an unhealthy degree.

"This report looks at many interventions that are commonly cited when talking about reducing agriculture's impacts on climate and nature. It recommends more investment in nature-based solutions, while also noting that such interventions may lower food production," Waite tells Sentient.

"In our world of increasing food demand linked to agricultural expansion and deforestation," says Waite, "we must be very careful to assess any tradeoffs related to shifting to agricultural systems or practices that produce less food and require more land."

When it comes to food systems, tradeoffs can have significant consequences. For instance, shifting a factory farm to a regenerative beef operation could mean more space for farm animals to roam. That sounds like a better scenario for farm animals. But research has also shown that regenerative cattle ranches use twice as much land to produce the same amount of food. If Americans and other Global North populations were to continue to eat meat at even close to the same levels they do now, there is simply not enough farmland to shift all industrial farms to regenerative operations. And trying to make that shift would undoubtedly result in more emissions and more deforestation.

For Waite and WRI, a mix of solutions is key. "Our own research suggests that both tech-based and nature-based solutions will be essential to feeding 10 billion people by 2050, while protecting nature and the climate."

The Bottom Line

Fierce debates over climate solutions seem to be going strong, yet global temperatures - and food system emissions - continue to be heading in the wrong direction. If countries are serious about meeting their climate goals, they will likely need to consider comprehensive solutions that account for impacts to both climate and nature.


Dawn Attride wrote this article for Sentient.


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A recent poll by the National Wildlife Federation showed Texas farmers and ranchers benefit from voluntary conservation programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and many would like to see the programs expand.

Respondents said the funding helps improve their bottom line and protect soil and water.

Aviva Glaser, senior director of agriculture policy for the federation, said Texas producers use the programs in various ways.

"Prescribed grazing and brush management and range planting were very popular practices," Glaser pointed out. "There's been the Working Lands for Wildlife program that has helped with the Monarch butterfly decline through voluntary measures the farmers (and) ranchers are doing with the help of this funding."

She noted only 5% of the more than 500 farmers and ranchers polled disagree with increasing long-term funding from the USDA.

Almost 70% of producers said designating funds specifically to help farmers adopt climate smart agriculture practices is a good use of federal money.

Glaser pointed out the wildlife federation has created a mapping tool which shows how much federal funding each state has received and outlines how farmers and ranchers are using it.

"That could be a range of different practices," Glaser observed. "Practices like cover crops or grazing management or it could be a conservation easement. It could be putting in a buffer strip."

More than eight in 10 producers support passage of a new Farm Bill. The legislation is supposed to be renewed every five years but the last version was passed in 2018.