Grass-fed certifications explained
"Grass-fed" on a label can mean very different things. Third-party certifications set written standards and send inspectors to check them. Here is what each one requires, in brief.
American Grassfed Association (AGA)
Covers beef, bison, goat, lamb and sheep, plus dairy cattle and pastured pork under separate standards. Ruminants eat only forage from birth to harvest, with no grain; hay and silage are allowed when pasture is short. Animals can't be confined except briefly for handling or emergencies, never receive added hormones, and must be born and raised in the US. An animal that needs antibiotics is treated and then removed from the program. Independent inspectors audit farms at least every 15 months.
Certified Grassfed by AGW
An add-on to Animal Welfare Approved, so farms must meet both. Covers beef and dairy cattle, bison, sheep and goats; poultry isn't eligible. Animals eat grass and forage for life, apart from milk before weaning. Grain is not allowed, with a limited exception during declared drought. Farms keep records from birth to slaughter and are audited by A Greener World.
AGW Certified Grassfed standards (2024)
OPT Certified Grass-Fed Organic
Launched in 2019 by Organic Valley and Maple Hill, and common on grass-fed milk. Farms must first be USDA Organic. The diet is forage-based with no grain, animals graze at least 150 days a year, and grazing makes up a larger share of the diet than the organic rule alone requires. The slaughter or processing plant must also be certified. Accredited organic certifiers inspect alongside the annual organic inspection.
Animal Welfare Approved by AGW
A welfare certification, not a grass-fed one. It requires continuous access to pasture or range, a pasture management plan, and slaughter at an audited plant, but it doesn't by itself prohibit grain. Look for the separate Certified Grassfed by AGW mark if grass-only feeding matters to you.
USDA Organic
Requires organic feed and, for ruminants, at least 120 days a year on pasture with at least 30 percent of their diet from grazing, averaged over the grazing season. The grazing minimum doesn't apply during the final finishing period, and organic rules don't ban grain, so organic alone does not mean grass-fed or grass-finished.
USDA Organic Integrity Database
A plain "grass fed" label
The USDA withdrew its own grass-fed marketing standard in 2016. Today, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service approves grass-fed claims on meat labels based on documentation the producer submits, and since 2019 feedlot-finished beef can't be labeled grass-fed. In 2024 the agency strongly encouraged producers to use third-party certification for animal-raising claims. Grass-fed dairy has no federal definition at all.
A farm without certification may still raise animals entirely on grass. On our farm pages we quote exactly what each farm says and show a certification only when we found the farm in the certifier's own listing.
FSIS animal-raising claims guideline (2024)
NSAC on the 2019 label update