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Years in the Making, Organic Animal Welfare Rules Killed by Trump’s USDA [1]

['Lynne Curry', 'Lisa Held', 'Grey Moran', 'Jake Price', 'Jaya Saxena', 'Christina Cooke', 'Meg Wilcox', 'Amy Mccarthy', 'The Civil Eats Editors', 'Carmen Kohlruss']

Date: 2017-12-18

[Update: On May 6, 2019, the federal Ninth District Court of Appeas granted the Center for Food Safety access to Trump Administration documentation and communications about the decision to withdraw from the OLPP, allowing the Center and other organizations to continue their legal efforts to implement the OLPP.]

[Update: On March 12, 2018, the USDA announced that it would withdraw the OLPP rules, ending the possibility that they would be implemented.]

As we’ve written about before, the animals behind your certified organic meat, eggs, and dairy may have been treated more humanely than their conventional counterparts. But the odds are just as high—especially if you’re buying them from a large producer at a relatively low price—that they haven’t been.

All that was set to change under the Obama Administration, as a group of farmers and advocates pushed for many years to see new rules, called the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP), put in place. The rules were finalized on January 18, 2017, but that didn’t stop the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from delaying them multiple times in the wake of President Trump’s post-inauguration regulatory freeze. Then, in a Friday announcement, the agency published its decision to abolish the OLPP all together.

Scheduled to go into effect on May 14, 2018, and now it its fifth “final” version, the OLPP specified a set of standards for organic livestock and poultry designed to minimize stress, facilitate natural behaviors, and promote well-being. Championed throughout the organic industry—from farmers to consumer groups to retailers and animal-welfare advocates—the OLPP was intended as a course correction for the $43 billion food industry, formulated to bring organic dairy, eggs, and meat production into line with consumer expectations of higher animal welfare. Trust in the organic seal depended on it, some advocates insisted.

But this latest USDA decision codifies the big rift between the majority of certified organic producers, who follow the spirit of the law, and the fewer, much larger producers who seek to gain market advantage, primarily by continuously confining animals that are required by law to have outdoor access. The USDA’s ruling preserves the status quo, and fails to establish the USDA Organic label as the “gold standard” for organics that OLPP promised.

After the recent ruling by the National Organic Standards Board to continue certifying some hydroponic operations as organic—and the ensuing anger from many traditional organic growers—and several efforts by the mainstream media to highlight sizable gaps between the spirit and the letter of the law when it comes to certification, last week’s ruling adds to the existing turmoil in the organic industry. It also promises to add fuel to the fire for those seeking to carve out new better-than-organic labels such as “Certified Regenerative.”

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) immediately decried the USDA’s decision on Friday, pointing to the immense support from all sectors of the organic industry and the public at large. “By the department’s own count, out of the more than 47,000 comments the department received in the last public comment period … 99 percent were in favor of the rule becoming effective without further delay on Nov. 14,” said OTA in a statement. As we reported in September, OTA sued the USDA, alleging that the agency unlawfully delayed the OLPP and failed to protect the integrity of the organic label.

Organic producers, consumer groups, and animal-welfare organizations also reacted in force. “Today’s announcement is a subversion of comprehensive federal animal welfare standards approved by the USDA,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, “and it will prove crippling to family farmers all across the nation who treat their animals well and want to be able to market their products under an authentic ‘organic’ label.”

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[1] Url: https://civileats.com/2017/12/18/years-in-the-making-trumps-usda-kills-organic-animal-welfare-rules/

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