Grass-fed Party Platform

August 1, 2008

Preamble

The Grass-fed Party believes that it is time in America for a revival of traditional ranching practices to help the smaller communities thrive, to help preserve and enrich range lands, and to help cows eat according to their natural diets while giving them access to clean air and water.

The Grass-fed Party believes that we can no longer afford to keep feeding cattle grain and polluting the environment with feedlots and the waste they produce. We can no longer afford to keep feeding our people meat that is laden with antibiotics, hormones, and unhealthy fats. We believe that it time for the grassroots of America to rise up and rekindle the power we have as producers, consumers, lawmakers, and activists.

We are committed to restoring America’s heartland, food supply, and animal treatment standards. We believe we have the power to renew America’s strong agricultural tradition by abandoning the feedlots and corn-feeding practices made popular in the last half century, reviving old ranching methods, and making time-tested, grass-fed practices new again with modern resources and science. Growth in grass-fed enterprises will help rebuild the rural economy and produce resources necessary to meet the nation’s call for healthier, safer food sources.

With this Grass-fed Revolution, we will take back our land from the large meatpackers that look to cut costs at all cost, resulting in a depressed rural America where all sense of possibility and pride in one’s work has been squashed by those making the crudest of choices to appease a rock bottom line. We will make the beef industry more accountable for its actions, encouraging them to consider the health and well being of our country.

We believe the people of this country can reclaim their power in consumer choices and activism. The people have the power to instigate a radical change in beef production – a shift to a more sound, sustainable process that will benefit both consumers and producers alike. The Grass-fed Party will empower citizens with the knowledge necessary to make the best choices, whether their role is to feed a family or to run a cattle operation. This choice, whether it is from a producer or consumer, will be a vote. One vote will become many, and we will have the power to create one, strong, grass-fed America.

The Grass-fed Party is committed to reviving the values of good ranching that are still alive at places like the La Cense Ranch in Montana. We offer the American people a leader who was born and raised on this Ranch, one of the oldest working cattle ranches in Montana. Angus La Cense, as the leader and founder of the Grass-fed Party, promises to return the enduring values of hard work, trustworthiness, respect, and responsibility to the modern American agricultural state. Angus La Cense and the Grass-fed Party will create a new covenant between rancher, packer, and consumer that will reverberate through all life in America, and restore our gratitude to the land and animals from which we harvest our bounty.

Our Agenda

Restoring Tradition

We want to restore the tradition of keeping animals in ways that allow them to act according to their nature for most of their lives, thus restoring the natural balance between animal, keeper, and the land. We believe in restoring the power of independent producers to be attendant in the life and well being of their cattle from birth to death. We believe in restoring the tradition of rangelands as grazing lands, considering their important role in maintaining the integrity of the natural biological and cultural features of the landscape.


Cow Welfare Reform

Grass-fed cows are happier, healthier and do not require hormones or antibiotics to stay healthy. A grass-fed diet works with a cow’s ruminant system, there are no feedlots or corn, only happy pasture raised cattle! A feedlot is a hot, crowded, stressful place for a cow. A grass-fed cow is a happy cow!


Healthcare

Grass-fed beef has been proven in numerous studies to have much less of the deadly E. Coli bacteria because grass-fed cattle are not crowded into feedlots nor do they eat a diet that inflames their stomachs like corn can. Not only that, but grass-fed meat is lower in fat and calories. The fat that grass-fed meat does have is high in healthy fats like Omega 3 fatty acids, CLA, folic acid, beta-carotene, essential vitamins, and anti-oxidants.


Combating Drugs

Grass-fed meat does not require the antibiotics that are necessary for cattle that are crowded into feedlots. 70 % of the antibiotics used in the United States are used on livestock. With grass-fed meats, the customer and America is given the ability to say no to antibiotics, but also hormones.


Making Ranching Work

We believe that we can make sustainable ranching work economically by educating more consumers and producers about the benefits of grass-fed beef. We believe that supporting Grass-fed products will give more ranchers the confidence to produce them. We believe that grass-fed production can help ranchers re-gain control of their livelihood and reduce dependence on large packers and buyers. Additionally, more conservation easements and legislation supporting estate tax breaks for ranchers looking to preserve a family ranch rather than sell to developers are also integral to making ranching work in the 21st Century.


Responsibility to the Environment

Grass-fed ranching is sustainable, and works with nature not against it. Grass-fed farming does not create toxic run off nor does it require fossil fuels like factory farming or feedlots do. Grass-fed ranching removes more CO2 than it creates; allowing animals to graze on marginal land is a responsible use of natural resources. Not only that, but pasture land can remove 40 tons of carbon per acre, while cultivated cropland can only remove 26 tons per acre.


Preserving and Enriching Rangelands

We believe that practices important to successful grass-fed beef operations, such as managed intensive grazing, can help enrich rangelands and keep the ecosystems in a natural balance. Preservation happens on two levels: large landscapes are preserved for their historical and aesthetic values, and the integrity of the land as healthy grass-land is preserved heading fires, weeds, subdivisions, disrupted views, and loss of wildlife habitat.

Education Reform

The Grass-fed Party is excited about spreading the grass-fed revolution all over America! We want to introduce people to grass-fed meat as a healthy alternative to feedlot meat. We want to show the world that there is a better way to raise livestock, one that is in tune with the earth, our rural economies and our health! We will promote the integration of more sustainable ranching techniques, including grass-fed systems, into the curriculum of more university and state extension programs.


Strengthening the Ranching Community

We believe the self-reliance of grass-fed production can help strengthen the rural economy by reducing both producer and consumer dependence on multi-national corporations. The entire community grows stronger when ranches can become more independently profitable, infusing both the pride and confidence of ownership important to the vitality of a community. We believe that as grass-fed ranching proves to be both economically and environmentally sustainable, more people will feel confident to inherit or choose the ranching vocation.


Diplomacy

Grass-fed ranching is an old, treasured tradition that transcends borders and nationalities. It is the way our ancestors raised animals. Grass-fed ranchers are committed not only to quality meat but also sustainable methods that preserve the earth. This philosophy, where food is created in keeping with our traditions, brings people together regardless of their backgrounds. We hope that more grass-fed ranching in the U.S. will help restore the trust in our food relationships with other countries.


Art and Storytelling

We strongly support poets, painters, and other storytellers who reflect agrarian life, the history of the land, and the people who have dwelled on it. We believe that the work of art and the story are equally important places of preservation. A work of art is a place where histories can be understood, generations bridged, and where landscapes and ways of life can be preserved. We believe that supporting artists will help to prevent future destruction of actual landscapes and cultures.


Responsible Officials

The Grass-fed Party is committed to finding and supporting officials who care about the benefits grass-fed ranching and farming. While grass-fed ranching is a revival of old ways, many farmers and ranchers who are interested converting to grass-fed practices lack the support that is available to conventional farmers. Our hope is to elect officials who can offer farmers help and expertise when it comes to grass-fed practices, whether it is senators or local agricultural corporative extensions.


National Security

Feedlots pose a threat to national security because they make our food supply vulnerable to terrorist attack. The US military found hundreds of pages of information detailing agricultural targets in the US that were left by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Densely packed feedlots pose a soft target where it is easy to compromise the American food supply, and permanently damage our important agricultural sector.


Empowering people

We believe that all people can take part in creating grass-fed change by making consumer choices that support independent grass-fed producers, participating in organizing efforts, calling on lawmakers to curb the monopolization of the beef industry, and supporting legislation that would make it more economically feasible for next generation ranchers and farmers to inherit their family land and continue to use it for agricultural purposes. More cooperative efforts can be made between environmentalists and ranchers by considering the value of grass-fed ranching as it supports both land preservation and economic stability.


The Grass-fed Party Platform has been co-authored by Ulla Kjarval and Grass-fed Franny.