Rep. Nathan Deal (D-Ga.) caused a real flap in the organic henhouse when he wrote a measure into a government spending bill that allowed companies to feed chickens regular feed and still sell them as "organic."
Deal contends that since fruit and vegetable growers can sell organic produce grown from nonorganic seed, livestock producers should be able to sell organic meat from animals fed less than 100% organic feed. The congressman calls this a "vegetarian bias."
Deal's proposal was buried in a $397-billion spending bill. And when organic farmers found out about the measure, they got madder than wet hens. "That's baloney," says Richard Sechrist, a devoutly organic broiler grower from Fredericksburg, Texas.
"Either you're organic all the way or get out of it," he continues. "I pay three and a half times the cost of regular feed for organic feed."
Sechrist and his wife, Peggy, market certified organic chickens grown in shelters on pastures. They sell their birds through a local store and to online shoppers.
According to Chris Riley of Deal's office, thousands of poultry farmers want to be able to feed chickens available grain and market them as organic until adequate organic grain is available. So the Georgia congressman has asked the USDA to hurry with a study on the availability of organic grain.
The sad thing about this flap is that the USDA's national organic standards were finalized just last October. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has proposed the Leahy-Snowe Organic Restoration Act, which eventually killed Rep. Deal's measure.
Free-range chicken growers have been in a terminology gray area for a long time. Obviously, there aren't many ranches where chickens actually roam free on the range. Free-range usually refers to operations that keep chickens in portable pens that are moved through pastures or in houses that allow the animals to venture out in pretty weather.
The usual definition for free-range chickens is free access to the outdoors. But there are no regulations that require free-range birds to actually go outside, according to the American Pasture Poultry Producers Association.
"Free-range doesn't mean anything," says Joel Salatin of Swoope, Va., whose family processes and sells 12,000 pasture poultry broilers a year. "The USDA says free-range is the ability to move all appendages. That can be done in a Tyson house. It's meaningless."
But when it comes to marketing, pasture poultry packs a power punch, says Tom Delehanty of Socorro, N.M. He sells over 50,000 pastured Real Chickens annually to upscale restaurants and food stores near Santa Fe, N.M.
Delehanty gives his birds organic feed but emphasizes their outdoor lifestyle.
"The model of pasture poultry is more powerful," he points out. "You can feed chickens organic feed and still keep them in dusty buildings. Eating green plants and insects out in the sunshine is what gives our chickens the texture and flavor customers want."