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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Organic Certification Includes Grazing

WASHINGTON (CN) - The Agricultural Marketing Service amends livestock provisions of the National Organic Program regulations, to make them specific enough that the agency and accredited certifying agents may efficiently administer the program and facilitate and improve compliance and enforcement.

Also, under new amendments, beef and lamb producers are required to: provide year-round access for all animals to the outdoors, recognize pasture as a crop, establish a functioning management plan for pasture, incorporate the pasture management plan into their organic system plan, provide the ruminants with pasture throughout the grazing season in their location, and ensure the animals derive not less than an average of 30 percent of their dry matter intake requirement from pasture grazed over the course of the grazing season.

The amendments also require that producers maintain ruminant slaughter stock on pasture for each of the last days of their lives if it during the grazing season. However, this rule exempts ruminant slaughter stock from the 30 percent dry matter intake from grazing requirement during that finishing period.

Although the agency issues this as a final rule, it requests comments on the exceptions for finish feeding of ruminant slaughter stock.

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