Organic Poultry

The Cornucopia Institute’s motto is “Promoting economic justice for family scale farming”. In many cases family scale farming involves organic foods. Spokesperson Mark Kastel is very concerned that lots of production agriculture operations falsely present themselves as organic producers. “When I think of organic poultry I think of free range chickens which means that that chicken is out in some flower covered meadow eating organic feed. But some big agriculture operations keep 1000 chickens in a cage and feed them organic feed, and they're still called organic chickens? You are close to painting the right picture, but try 100,000 birds in a single barn. They are laying organic eggs. And try 1 million birds on one farm. That is the scale we are talking about. And we are not talking about chickens running around the barnyard. There are plenty of agricultural producers who are certified organic who are doing this on a commercial scale and providing outdoor access. Generally that might be 5000 to 20,000 birds in a building with varying degrees of compliance in terms of how many birds get outside. The real gold standard for poultry production either oilers or laying hens is pasture poultry.