I grew up on a farm and my dad produced the best beef I've ever eaten year in and year out. Nothing I can buy from my grocery store or even my local butcher can compare. While we were never certified organic we used sensible methods of raising our animals. We knew the farmers we bought our corn from that we use to make the feed. We bailed our own hay, chopped fresh grass, and yes - fed them grain. None of it certified organic but all very clean. Organic standards are such a mess that it doesn't mean a whole lot anyway as many of the food labels in the US.
Anyway, long rant, sorry. Great post. I really hope somebody steps up and can bring a movement forward that lets transparency back into our food markets again. That will do more for the quality of our food that most of the techniques since the worst offenders will be forced to change or go out of business to have the gaps filled with better providers. Keeping the costs down will be the big hurdle.
We've quite often thought of sourcing our meat & poultry from the neighborhood farm as opposed to the stock "organic" that you get at the supermarkets. This article and several I read probably just helps me make that decision faster. I generally use whole foods today - level 4 rating on the chicken & 100% grass fed on my meat.
The farm, while being more expensive, invites you to see how they treat and feed the animals. This is as opposed to hidden practices in the organic & dairy industry where they are so tied to not giving the animals antibiotics that they will rather kill the animals as opposed to treating them for fear of losing their "organic" status.
To your point, my neighborhood farm does not have "organic" certification. They don't want to go through the paperwork. They treat their animals humanely and invite you to view their operation if you so wish. I believe eatwild.com has a list of farms as well.
One major drawback of (if you wish to call it that) is the meat is typically seasonal (as it should be). In the sense - there are specific harvest times when you need to order. You can't just walk in and get a steak or chicken for the evening. That means you need to plan 6 months to an year ahead and invest in a freezer with battery backup.
You absolutely need a deep freezer if you want to buy local meat. Most producers, us included, sell frozen cuts only -- managing inventory of non-frozen meat would be way too hectic.
Deep freezers are only like 200 bucks at Costco. Assuming you have space for one in your home, they're also great for making sauces and whatnot in bulk. Also highly recommend a cryovac kit. Cryovac'ed frozen veggies keep more or less forever, and you can also prepare foods (eg, meatballs) at scale on a Sunday afternoon and then just defrost stuff for the rest of the week.
When my wife and I were first married we lived in an impossibly small efficiency and still made room for a chest freezer because of the tremendous efficiencies in food storage it provided for - it was something like $200 on sale at Costco. We still have it, 15 years later doing good service for us and payed for itself many times over.
I'm not sure what your intended meaning was here, but don't make the common american mistake of assuming
if ($americanThing === TERRIBLE) {
$anywhereThing = TERRIBLE;
}FWIW, European enforcement is supposed to be much better but that's outside of my firsthand domain knowledge.
We know of farmers who go to cattle auctions and buy the cheapest steers they can find -- often sick and/or emaciated ones coming from farms in financial distress -- then fatten them up on grain while giving them pasture to forage, and sell it as grass-fed at farmer's markets. Just install a pretty girl in a tank top and a Realtree baseball cap at your booth and it all goes off without a hitch.
A good rule of thumb is that 1 acre of grass supports 1 head of herd. When you go to the farmer's market, ask the people selling you beef what their herd size is and how many acres they have under pasture. They should know these numbers cold. They should be ready to talk your ear off about how much of a pain in the ass haying is. They should know how calving is going and how many calves they've lost this year.
It is very possible, easy in fact, to raise animals (or vegetables) in toxic conditions and turn around and sell into farmers' markets. If you want clean food the answer is simple; buy into CSAs with farms run by people you trust. They should be willing to let you come to the farm, walk around, ask questions. Many of the best farms are not certified organic because they smartly use stuff like potash that is cheaper, makes better vegetables, and ecologically way better than organic equivalents when used in the right amounts.
I find it interesting that much of the discussion on this thread has centered on enforced standards. There has never been good enforcement of governmentally-sanctioned standards pertaining to high quality farm produce in the US. Certain private organizations are OK but the people administering them tend to be assholes so that results in a lot of farms (including ours) doing things the right way and selling to people who trust us, without getting formal certification.