It is reported that next week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to publish new rules clarifying organic access-to-pasture standards.

According to Ed Maltby of the Deerfield, Mass. –based Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, regulators from the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP) who he spoke to at the recent Natural Products Expo East trade show in Boston told him that Lloyd Day, administrator of USDA's Agriculture Marketing Service (which oversees the National Organic Program), has signed a rule establishing feed and time requirements for dairy cows and other ruminant animals.

The new rule may be published in the Federal Register this week, to be followed by a 60-day comment period.

Many in the organic dairy industry hope the new rule contains language to require farmers to provide dairy animals with at least 30 percent of their food requirements from pasture during the growing season, for not less than 120 days/year.

Currently, organic rules are unclear, simply requiring "access to pasture," with no standards requiring a certain percentage of ruminant diets to be pasture based.

At present, Maltby said, prices for organic grain and forage are driven up by dairies which don’t graze their animals for a significant part of the year, putting pressure on farmers who use moderate amounts of purchase feed to supplement their pasture.

The 120-day rule is intended to rectify this.

Changes to the access to pasture rule have been much discussed by regulators and the organic industry for years. Many believe that lack of clear rules denigrates the integrity of the organic seal, and also puts farmers that would like to transition to organic at a disadvantage, because the acreage necessary to satisfy future "access to pasture" rules cannot be determined. This makes it difficult to plan investments in operations, and hard to provide clear financial projections to banks when seeking loans, according to Maltby.

For more information: Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance

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