Organic: Looking beyond the label

We put a lot of thought into our decision to forego USDA organic certification. The more research we did, the more we saw how flawed the USDA Certified Organic system still is. Instead of seeking certification, we invite you to visit the ranch to see for yourself. We guarantee that the best interest of our pigs is at the forefront of our minds, always; they are after all, our livelihood. Because of the way we raise our pigs—frequently rotated in clean pastures with God-given open air—disease is almost non-existent, and thereby the need to use antibiotics is reduced as well.

What happens when a pig gets sick? Instead of letting an infection fester, or allowing a disease to spread from one pig to another (possibly endangering the entire herd), we will isolate and treat the sick animal with a small amount of therapeutic antibiotics. In the end, it’s more humane to treat minor illness effectively and without a lasting consequence.

Understand that this sort of therapeutic use of antibiotics is completely different than the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics that subjects large-scale factory farms to well-deserved criticism. Instead of using sub-therapeutic antibiotics in the animal’s everyday feed, we make sure our pigs’ living conditions are superb and they are fed naturally, thereby greatly reducing the need for antibiotics in any form.

Why Revival Meats isn’t certified organic
(and why that’s OK)

Organic sounds so cozy, but it’s an enormous money-making business—more than $25 billion in retail sales in 2008 alone—that tends to benefit industrial giants more than small farms like ours. The argument could be made that the USDA Organic certification actually hurts small farmers more than it helps.

Many consumers blindly purchase a product labeled USDA Certified Organic, but have no real idea of the living conditions of the animals. It’s possible for a certified organic supermarket chicken to live in conditions nearly identical to those of its conventional counterpart—except it gets organic vegetarian feed.

The small cages can still be there, the high mortality rates can still be there, the lack of daylight can still be there, but the package boasts that little green USDA Organic sticker that makes customers feel warm and fuzzy.

Of course, many organic farmers go well beyond the letter of the law and raise true pasture-raised animals, grazing in the open as God intended. But the USDA seal doesn’t assure you of that. Knowing your farmer, seeing their operation first-hand if at all possible, is the only assurance you have that your meat is being raised in a sustainable, ethical fashion.