White Oak Pastures

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Greenwashing

As a major supplier for General Mills, White Oak Pastures is "not just a small local farm, but actually part of a powerful and massive multinational company, and an important arm of its branding and marketing." Its claim to produce "carbon-negative beef" through Holistic Management[1] has been refuted, after General Mills-funded research was found to have "significant lapses that grossly exaggerate or misrepresent the true SOC sequestration capacity of their farming techniques." [2] This research was cited by the Savory Institute as part of the Climate Collaborative's 2020 report on Regenerative Standards, an organization financed in part by General Mills.

Jason Rowntree, principal investigator in General Mills White Oak Pastures study, declared no conflicts of interest... (but) declined, however, to mention that he sits on the board of the American Grassfed Association and has received research grants from corporations such as McDonald’s.[3]

As the owner of White Oak Pastures, Will Harris boasted to The New York Times in 2015, "We cheat to win," and that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was one of his "heroes."[4]

Savory Network

According to their website, White Oak Pastures is "proud to be named 1 of only 23 Global Savory Hubs" organized by the Savory Institute and participates in Savory's Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) program as a "frontier founder".[5]

According to Allan Savory, scientific evidence against his methods is irrelevant because holistic management "cannot be peer-reviewed." He has made this argument several times, perhaps most recently on Twitter in March of 2021[6] in defense of its application by White Oak Pastures on behalf of General Mills in response to evidence of greenwashing. [7]

Sources

  1. ↑ https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/climatecollaborative/mailings/1633/attachments/original/PPT-FINAL-Regenerative_Mapping-min_compressed.pdf?1579205603; p. 41
  2. ↑ https://plantbaseddata.medium.com/the-failed-attempt-to-greenwash-beef-7dfca9d74333
  3. ↑ https://www.science20.com/spencer_roberts/the_regenerative_ranching_racket-255623
  4. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/dining/at-white-oak-pastures-grass-fed-beef-is-only-the-beginning.html
  5. ↑ https://whiteoakpastures.com/pages/savory-hub?_pos=1&_sid=8b39d043f&_ss=r
  6. ↑ https://twitter.com/allanrsavory/status/1368586780790906885?s=21
  7. ↑ https://plantbaseddata.medium.com/the-failed-attempt-to-greenwash-beef-7dfca9d74333
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