Beef and cattle interests lauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rollout of its Remote Grading Pilot for Beef program.

The effort aims to help cattle producers and meat processors that face market access challenges by reducing cost and location as barriers to participation in voluntary grading services.

The Remote Grading Pilot for Beef matches simple technology with robust data management and program oversight to allow a USDA grader to assess beef carcass characteristics and assign the official quality grade from a remote location.

The grading program builds on ongoing USDA efforts to increase competition in agricultural markets by leveling the playing field for small- and mid-size ranchers and processors.

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association worked with USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service to provide technical guidance for the beef grading pilot. Through the pilot program, processors will be able to take a picture of beef cuts with their phone and upload it to a secure cloud vault, where a trained USDA grader — based elsewhere in the U.S. — will review the image and assign a quality grade within 24 hours.

The program is specified for use by small and mid-sized operations only, limiting the number of carcasses a processor can present for grading to 100 per week.

USCA Independent Beef Processing Chairman Patrick Robinette said that prior to the program's announcement, "It was simply unaffordable for an independent producer or processor to participate in providing quality-graded beef to the marketplace. On my operation, the cost would have averaged $410 per head to receive grading services, which I would have never recouped.”  

The pilot program would reduce that cost to $4.56 per head, Robinette said.

“Now, the producers I serve will be able to access value-added programs that were previously unavailable to them," he said. "With the free ribeye grid device that will be provided to participating processing facilities, independent producers and processors can qualify for programs like Certified Angus Beef."

Robinette added, “USCA brought forward a producer pinch point in the marketplace, and USDA provided a competitive and producer-driven solution, bringing a process developed in 1916 into the modern era."

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association also lauded USDA's move as an effort to improve market access for smaller firms.   

“The USDA quality grades of prime, choice and select are instantly recognized by consumers and an important way for cattle producers to be rewarded for raising high-quality beef,” said NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane. “NCBA is glad that USDA is launching this Remote Grading Pilot Program and expanding opportunities for meat grading to occur in smaller, local processing facilities. This will increase marketing opportunities for cattle producers and help them capture more value from their product.” 

Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture Kate Greenberg, who attended the Jan. 19 USDA Roundtable hosted by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack where the Remote Grading Pilot for Beef was announced, said the pilot program will offer Colorado’s beef producers and processors more opportunities to find processing options that meet their operation’s unique needs.

"The United States continues to lose farmers at an alarming rate," Greenberg said. "Farmers, ranchers and all who work in agriculture are the backbone of our economy, communities, and food system. More farmers means more opportunity across rural and urban communities."