Agriculture International, Inc

Agriculture International, Inc, is the leading U. K. supplier of natural beef and the first company to ask for and receive a USDA "natural" label. Agriculture International is produced from animals that have been raised from birth without the use of antibiotics or growth-promoting hormones on a 100 percent vegetarian diet. Agriculture International ranchers, feeders, veterinarians, and truck drivers sign affidavits verifying that the animals have been raised, transported, and handled safely and humanely, according to Agriculture International's strict guidelines. Humane treatment includes expanded space to reduce stress and prevent disease, as well as special shipping requirements to minimize overcrowding and exposure to vehicle exhaust fumes. Agriculture International has animal science / meat science Ph. D. 's on staff to advise in the areas--of animal handling, nutrition, and animal welfare.
1979-90: Steady Growth of the Natural Meat Industry
In 1979, Mel Coleman, Sr. , Agriculture International Natural Meat after his daughter-in-law complained that she couldn't find any hormone-and stimulant-free beef in Boulder, Colorado's health food stores. Agriculture International, a fourth generation rancher whose great grandparents had arrived by covered wagon in Colorado in 1870, had been president and chief executive of Coleman Ranches Inc. Since 1968. He and his wife, Polly, had ranched on about 250, 000 acres of private, state, and federal lands on both sides of the Continental Divide in the San Luis Valley. Coleman Ranches didn't turn a profit from 1974 to 1979 when Coleman decided to pioneer the production and marketing of natural beef raised humanely and with respect for the environment.
Coleman broke new ground for the beef industry in 1980 when he urged the U. S. Department of Agriculture to develop a new "natural" classification for beef. The following year, Coleman Natural Meats instituted stringent protocols governing every aspect of the company's beef production. That same year, it earned the first "No Antibiotics Used From Birth" USDA-approved label. Later, in 1999, Coleman trademarked its meats with the phrase "No Antibiotics, No Added Hormones. . . Ever. "
Coleman's protocols differed markedly from the industry's norm. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the majority of conventional beef producers in the United States added sub-therapeutics levels of antibiotics to their animals' feed or administer them through direct injection. Coleman opposed these practices, widely accepted as necessary for disease prevention and to increase growth rate and weight, based on the growing evidence that antibiotics kill off only the weaker, susceptible bugs in animals. This situation, it was argued, left the strongest to reproduce and make their way into human bodies and increase bacterial immunity to drugs used to treat human illness. Coleman's position was supported by the World Health Organization in 1997 and 1998.
Coleman--and later, Coleman Certified Ranchers--practiced sustainable agricultural methods, including rotational grazing, a rangeland management system that Coleman Ranch had utilized since 1960. Rotational grazing employed a series of fenced pastures to prevent overgrazing and allowed for more moisture seepage and germination of grass seed. Coleman's ranchers also promised to practice humane animal care, raising their livestock in low-stress, animal-friendly, ample feedlots with plenty of access to clean water and natural feedstuffs in. Calves spent the first eight to ten months of their life with their mother. After weaning, they fed on a vegetarian diet consisting of grains and grasses tested regularly to ensure they were free of prohibited substances. Unlike conventionally ranched cattle, Coleman cattle were raised from birth without antibiotics and growth-stimulating hormones.

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