Animal Welfare Approved has an annual tradition of taking a moment to thank the family farmers who work so hard to produce healthy and environmentally responsible food for our communities. Farming is not an easy job, and we want to encourage AWA friends and followers to take this opportunity to appreciate farmers you know for their contribution to our holiday tables and to our tables every day.

As the only national nonprofit organization that audits, certifies and supports farmers raising animals on pasture, we are fortunate to have become the most highly regarded food label for sustainability and outdoor farming systems.

With an ever-growing family of certified farms, AWA helps consumers find sustainable, pasture-raised products and connect with the farmers that produce them. We encourage you to seek out AWA farms and purchase their products this holiday season as a way to support pasture-based farms. Please also use this forum and social media to share your thanks.

USE THE COMMENT BOX BELOW TO SHARE YOUR THANKS TO FAMILY FARMERS. OR… to use Twitter to thank family farmers, use the hash tag #ThankAWAFarmers. On Facebook, use @Animal Welfare Approved to tag your message. We will share all of these messages with AWA farmers!

Food is a central focus of any holiday, but it has impacts far beyond the table. While the majority of farm animals are raised in extreme confinement, numerous studies have shown that pasture- and range-based farming is better for the environment and brings a wide range of benefits to both animals and consumers.

Our farmers are providing good, healthy food from animals raised according to the highest standards and are moving us all towards a more sustainable future. Every animal we raise outdoors on pasture brings an environmental benefit to us all – in responsible nutrient management, soil conservation and lower environmental impact.

Join us in celebrating these farmers who work so hard to feed us and who are truly stewards of our planet.

In response to farmer interest in labeling, Animal Welfare Approved has launched a new labeling section. The site is designed to help farmers and processors navigate the labeling process and serves as the portal for accessing Animal Welfare Approved’s free labeling service for certified farms. Featuring labeling guidance, information on claims approval and a gallery of approved labels, the new site and service can save producers time and effort in creating an attractive, effective label for certified products. And as with AWA certification, there is no charge for this service for farmers in the program. Farms interested in certification should visit AWA’s Certification page for more information.

Farmers and processors can use the information in AWA’s new online labeling resource to help distinguish their pastured products in the marketplace, and consumers and retailers will be able to use these resources to ensure they are sourcing sustainable products.The launch of AWA’s new labeling section coincides with the release of “Food Labeling for Dummies,” AWA’s new comprehensive guide for consumers.

Christine Abbey and her husband, Jamie DeRuyter, left Orlando in 2003 in search of more open space. They settled in Arcadia, a town with a population just over 6,600, where one thing led to another and they ended up establishing Sprawling Oaks Farm. Now the farm is home to Saanen, Lamancha and Guernsey dairy goats and Buff Orpington, Rhode Island Red, Black Copper Maran and Ameraucana laying hens.

When a government’s independent advisory agency on human health publicly objects to proposals for a new industrial hog operation because of the risks it poses to human health, people tend to take heed.

This is exactly what has happened in a small but very significant planning battle taking place in Great Britain. Midland Pig Producers (MPP) has applied to build a state-of-the-art indoor hog production unit in Derbyshire, which would hold 2,500 sows and produce around 1,000 hogs a week for slaughter – one of the biggest industrial hog farms in the country. But in what might prove to be a fatal blow to MPP’s plans, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) – the U.K. government’s independent advisory body on health – has raised a number of human health concerns about the proposal, including the fact that “recent research has found that those living up to 150m [165 yards] downwind of an intensive swine farming installation could be at risk of adverse human health effects associated with exposure to multi-drug resistant organisms.”

Rufus and Alice Percy raise Animal Welfare Approved pigs at Treble Ridge Farm in Whitefield, ME. Both Rufus and Alice are second-generation farmers from Whitefield. Rufus’s father had a 20-sow farrow-to-finish hog operation, and Alice’s parents had a small pasture-based goat dairy. They both moved away to try other things in their late teens, but soon returned home. They raised their first two pigs together in 2003 and in 2005 they became certified organic and raised their first litter for sale.

Madroño Ranch: A Center for Writing, Art, and the Environment in Medina, Texas is both a ranch with Animal Welfare Approved bison and laying hens and a residency for environmental artists and writers. Martin Kohout and Heather Catto Kohout decided in 2005 that raising bison in a high-welfare system was the best use of the 1,500 acres their family had owned for almost 20 years in Texas Hill Country.

Ken Barefield raises Animal Welfare Approved purebred Hereford hogs at Hog Heaven Farms, LLC in Avon Park, Florida. From a young age Ken remembers helping his father raise chickens and other livestock and growing fruits and vegetables. As an adult, Ken returned to his roots, raising various livestock on his 15 acre family farm since 2008. Presently, Ken only raises pigs, which he breeds and weans for other AWA-certified hog farms.

Christopher McPherson raises Animal Welfare Approved beef cattle in Siler City, North Carolina. Mac Farm cattle are raised with the highest animal welfare standards in the United States, using sustainable agriculture methods on his independent family farm. Animal Welfare Approved farmers raise their animals outdoors on pasture or range their entire lives. All approved practices can be found on the AWA website, making it one of the most transparent certifications available.

When she was 10, while most children are asking their parents for allowance money and believe that eggs come from the grocery store, Shelby Grebenc was soliciting her grandmother for a loan of $1000 to start her own pasture-raised egg business. Shelby and her parents live on four acres in Broomfield, Colorado, 20 miles outside of Denver. She began caring for laying hens when she was just 6-years old. “Dad was trying to teach me to be an adult,” she says, so he gave her chores—watering, feeding, and letting out the family’s small flock of chickens. In the summer, she loved it. When it was 20oF during Colorado’s winters, she hated it, but that didn’t keep her from learning everything involved in raising hens on pasture and starting her own business selling eggs to help expand the family’s income when her mother, Nancy, who has multiple sclerosis, was in a nursing home.

Many years after swearing off the farm life when she left the family farm for college, and following a career as a nurse, Joyce Keibler and her husband Gary chose to spend their “retirement” as sheep farmers. In 2005 they bought Hemmer Hill Farm outside of Louisville, Kentucky’s Northeast End and began raising Saint Croix sheep. While Joyce’s family had experience with both beef cattle and wool sheep, she preferred the smaller size of sheep. After attending a free class at the University of Kentucky which introduced her to different sheep breeds, she decided on the Saint Croix, a small meat breed with hair rather than wool, known for its resistance to the parasite problems that often plague other breeds.