American Agriculture Today
“We’ve lost 536,543 farms. Over half a million farms. Gone. At the same time we’ve lost 165 million acres of farm land.” That is part of a keynote speech by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack during the USDA’s 100th Agriculture Outlook Forum in Washington D.C.
Tom started with… “In 1981, Bob Berglund was leaving his job of Secretary of Agriculture for Minnesota, and he began to have concerns about the societal impact of this focus on just solely productivity. And he said, ‘you know, we may lose farms, and when those farms are lost, we lose the farm families. And when those farm families are lost, we lose young people going to the rural schools, and perhaps that will have an impact on rural education. We lose customers for small businesses and maybe that will impact Main Street businesses. We’ll lose population and maybe that will impact and effect our ability to provide basic healthcare. His concern was for small communities.”
A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!
On March 11, 2024, we took a step in the right direction for American consumers! The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has officially changed its voluntary ‘Product of the USA’ labeling regulations. The new ruling states that to label meat ‘Product of the USA,’ it must be derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered, and processed in the USA.
This is a HUGE WIN for consumers who want to buy American raised meats on grocery store shelves. It will take awhile for enforcement (packers using the voluntary claim will need to comply by 2026). However, it is still a voluntary claim meaning that not all meat raised in the USA will have that claim on the package, just that meat not raised in the USA will no longer be able to claim it as a product of the USA.
But, American farmers and ranchers and consumers can be assured that only their meat products (those born, raised, slaughtered, and process in the United Sates) will bear that American flag and that proud name of Product of the USA.
“We welcome the end of this era of consumer deception,’ said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “No longer will multinational meatpackers be allowed to trick consumers into believing that foreign beef was produced by United States cattle farmers and ranchers.” Bullers said that while the final rule effectively ends the voluntary mislabeling of beef, it doesn’t require anyone to label anything. “While this is an important step in the right direction, Congress needs to pass MCOOL as quickly as possibly to require all beef sold in grocery stores to be labeled as to where the animal from which the beef was derived was born, raised, and slaughtered. Only then will consumers be informed as to which beef was produced by American cattle farmers and ranchers and which beef was produced under some foreign country’s food safety regime.”
WHAT CAN WE DO TO SUPPORT AMERICAN AGRICULTURE?!
We can start by supporting American farmers and ranchers, encouraging young or new farms wanting to get started or grow in agriculture, and pointing them to our M5 ENTREPRENEURS program to follow our featured farms and ranchers.
You can buy groceries direct from a ranch or farm in the USA… visit our directory at www.m5friends.com to find one near you!
Or you can order our premium beef, pork, and lamb right from our ranch shipped overnight to your doorstep (anywhere in the USA!) at www.fivemarysranch.com
