Please join us for our next stakeholder session on Minimum Regenerative Standards for retail food claims. This session will focus on ruminant livestock production. Guest panelists include Carrie Richards of Richards Regenerative, Matt Maier of Thousand Hills, Dawn Sherman of the Tanka Fund, and Lucille Contreras of Texas Tribal Buffalo Project. As our work groups sessions unfold, we now turn to how ruminant livestock in managed from birth to slaughter. It’s imperative to know feed is grown, how grasslands are managed, and how grazing is accomplished. Hormones, vaccinations, antibiotics and other pharmaceutical use will be examined. Animal welfare and environmental outcomes are key. And, we can talk livestock without examining how Big Meat is curtailing access to retail and institutional markets and promoting imported product. This session on regenerative livestock production builds on previous conversations about Synthetics, Soil Health and Fertility and Compost, Manure, and Cover Crops and Tillage Practices by asking what are the best practices – and worst practices – when managing ruminant livestock production in a regenerative system, especially within the constraints of a tightly controlled market. Our panelists are practitioners with skills honed from decades of experimentation and learning. They also bring cautionary tales of shortcuts and unpredicted outcomes. In this session we are addressing the complex issue of RUMINANT LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION. To make it easier for everyone to follow the conversation, we are breaking it up into distinct parts. At the end, we will try to put those parts all together. First, to establish a baseline we will describe the historic range of buffalo and their essential role in North American ecology: grass to protein; urine, manure and hoofs on the soil; instinctive movement to fresh pastures. Second, how can we replicate parts of this system? We will discuss appropriate ways to raise cattle, goats, and sheep on large and small operations to achieve the same ecosystem benefits of wild herds. Third, when done right, can we avoid the ecological challenges of industrial livestock production such as deforestation, GMO grain production, low animal welfare, the use of antibiotics and hormones, and contaminated manure? Next, what about the workarounds and shortcuts we see in many industrial ruminant production methods? How do we address areas of tension like GMO and monoculture grain finishing, early weaning, sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics, vaccinations, and confinement feeding? Are they deal-breakers? Finally, what is our right relationship with livestock animals, the planet, and with each other? We will address the human aspects of ruminant livestock farming such as economic and food security, community culture and vitality, local slaughter and processing, government regulations, access to wider markets. Note on Regenerative Minimum Standards In drafting a guide for retailer buyers to use when reviewing retail food product packaging that displays regenerative claims, it is important to provide a clear decision tree based on what inputs and practices are reported by the brand. Our expert panelists will try to answer these questions based on their hard-won experience — and pose new questions as well. We invite you to attend and participate in this session. The session begins with about 45 minutes of wide ranging prompts discussed by the panelists and moderator. You will then be able to ask your own questions through a moderated Q&A function. Finally, we will open up the call for public comments on the topic. You can also submit written comments or questions any time via the Reply section on the main regenerative minimum standard program page. All session info at https://ifoamnorthamerica.org/regenerative-minimum-standards/ New podcasts released every three weeks.
