For many of us who have made a grass-fed change in our own lives it is still hard to pass up some of the delicious cured and brined meats that we grew up eating. Thankfully the folks at La Cense Beef have come out with a whole line of grass-fed corned beef and pastrami! Now we do not have to sacrifice our ethics for St. Patricks day! In Ireland they serve their cabbage with this fantastic parsley sauce that goes really well with salted cured meats. In fact, the classic Irish dish of boiled bacon is accompanied with parsley sauce. I thought it would be the perfect accompaniment to La Cense Beef’s new Cooked Corned Beef and it was fantastic!

Ingredients

• - 1 La Cense Corned Beef brisket (about 3 pounds)

• - 1 Head of a small to medium cabbage cut into eighths

• - 8 Medium red or white potatoes

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Place corned beef in a shallow baking pan and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. You want the internal temperature to reach 145 degrees.

3. Meanwhile bring 10 cups of salted water to a boil and add potatoes (they take 40 minutes to boil).

4. After twenty minutes, add cabbage and boil for another 20 minutes.

Ingredients for Parsley Sauce

• - 3 tablespoons butter

• - 4 tablespoons flour

• - 2 cups cabbage water

• - 1 cup milk

• - Handful of fresh parsley minced (about half a cup)

• - Salt and white pepper to taste

Preparation for Parsley Sauce

1. Melt butter in saucepan, add flour and whisk together.

2. Add two cups of cabbage water, whisk and bring to a boil.

3. Reduce heat, add milk and parsley, whisk some more, and season to taste. 4. Serve with baked corned beef, cabbage and potatoes.

The Grass-fed Party welcomes Kathleen Merrigan to the post of Deputy Secretary of the USDA.  Merrigan's focus on ethics and research, and experience in policy making, leads me to believe that Kathleen Merrigan will be a great ally of Grass-fed Mooovement in Washington.  

Merrigan is responsible for drafting the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 and most recently served as Director of the Center of Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tuffs University.  She was head of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service from 1999 to 2001.

Jean Holloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives as the Consumer's Union said, “Merrigan will bring an excellent perspective to a number of troublesome labeling issues now before the agency, including loopholes in the current ‘grass fed’ standard, lack of uniformity in meat marketing claims across meat, poultry and dairy items, defining ‘raised without antibiotics' label claims, and weaknesses in the current definition of ‘naturally raised.'”

As Director of the Center on Agriculture, Food and the Environment at Tuffs, Merrigan worked on projects to that included the examination of animal health and welfare issues related to organic production; a comparison of the antioxidant capacity of foods grown through conventional and organic systems; oversight of New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, an initiative to assist immigrants with agricultural experience in becoming commercial farmers; and direction to students annually in group research projects, leading to professional publications such as The Conservation Security Program: Rewards and Challenges for New England Farmers (2006).

For those you interested in watching Merrigan talk out livestock and animal welfare on video, you can view a presentation giving by Merrigan last year, Organic Standards for Animal Health and Welfare? Act Now Before It’s Too Late, at The College of Life Sciences and Agriculture at the University of New Hampshire.

In 2006, co-authored a paper Ensuring Comprehensive Organic Livestock Standards, Proceedings of the 1st IFOAM International Conference on Animals in Organic Production.  Daily Kos offers a summary of the key points in the paper:

The paper notes that it is a list of standards used around the world and that not everybody agrees on one standard. Therefore, while I wish I could say the paper was a recommendation of comprehensive organic standards for livestock, it looks like it is more of a brainstorming list of all of the facets that might be covered by organic standards.

Some of the standards included in the paper are:
    -Choosing breeds that resist disease or other health problems and do not need "mutilations" i.e tail docking. Recommendation to choose indigenous breeds and breeds adapted to local conditions and organic production systems.
    -Natural reproduction. 

    -Sick animals must be treated, even if this means loss of organic status

    -Disease prevention should be based on diet and exercise (as opposed to sub-therapeutic antibiotics)

    -"All organic standards require meeting each animal’s nutritional needs, severely restrict feeds of animal origin, prohibit growth promoters in feed, restrict vitamin and mineral supplements, prohibit/restrict feeding of pure amino acids, establish preferential or exclusive use of organic feeds, or require access to pasture and roughage (at least for ruminants)."

    -Young mammals must get colostrum and milk (if not maternal milk, preferably organic 
milk from their own species)

    -Animals must have enough space to exercise and permit natural behavior

    -Tethering is restricted or prohibited

The paper goes on with specifications for each animal, for example, restrictions on keeping calves in individual boxes, cows must be fed a diet that prevents acidosis, poultry may not be kept in cages, forced molting should not be done to laying hens, sows may not be kept in farrowing crates, and pigs should live in an area that allows natural behaviors like rooting.

Merrigan’s Sustainable Agriculture Affiliations include (from her resume):

    American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Network for Science and Innovation for Sustainable Development
    Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture Advisory Committee, a project of the Rockefeller Family, 2002-2006.
    The Organic Center Board of Directors, 2004-present.
    Standards Committee, Human Farm Animal Care, 2003-2007.
    Organic Farming Research Foundation Board of Directors, 1992-1995.
    National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture Steering Committee, 1994-1999.
    Kellogg Foundation Integrated Food and Farming Systems Network Steering Committee, 1996-1998.


The appointment of Merrigan should be credited in part to the large movement that erupted around a Food Democracy Now! petition for sending a Sustainable Dozen to the USDA.  Merrigan was on the Food Democracy Now! list for the Sustainable Dozen, which was signed by over 88,000 people.  Here’s to the power of grassroots organizing in 2008 and 2009!

The folks at Food Democracy Now are still urging people to sign the petition so that the rest of he key positions at the USDA may also be filled with any of their Sustainable Dozen.

Above photo of Kathleen Merrigan courtesy of Tufts University

        Pastureland in County Cavan, Ireland

I had the chance to visit Ireland last week with my boyfriend who was born and partially raised in Ireland. I met a lot of his family who are all farmers and  it was fascinating. I was struck by the similar struggles they faced but I could also see how supportive the EU has been to traditional farming practices. I was pleased to see farm subsidies benefit small farmers who raise their animals on pasture.  That does not mean that farm subsidies in Europe do not benefit agribusinesses but because there is such an ingrained tradition of grass-fed farming in Europe, and especially in Ireland, there are subsidies given to Sheep and Cattle producers who raise their animals on pasture.  Unfortunately, this cannot be said for American grass-fed producers who receive very little support from the federal government.

Nonetheless, Farm Subsidies are not without controversy in the Europe. With 40 percent of the EU budget going toward farm subsidies there is a lot of money and a lot of farms at stake when policy is created.  Critics of European farm subsidies feel that they keep food prices high and do not help small farmers to the extent they should. Even France has been charged with favoring large farms over small farms and many in the EU have been pleading with France to change policies that benefit large cereal farms over small traditional farms that promote biodiversity.  President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to help preserve traditional farming communities in the pastoral communities of the Alps, and in central and western France.  This is good news for grass-fed producers in France but what about producers here in the states?

Grass-fed producers in America have two battles to wage: one is to re-introduce America to grass-fed farming and also to stay afloat. These two obstacles are not easily surmounted but with increased awareness and consumer demand there is room for optimism.  Not only that, policy makers are starting to see the huge amount of power farm subsidies have had in shaping what Americans eat and the plight of small farmers across the nation. Even President Obama talked about reexamining agricultural policy in his address to the nation. This is exciting because there could be a lot of good done if some of our subsidies were put towards sustainable agriculture.   Maybe it is time to be a bit more optimistic after all.