AMS Proposes Changes to Grade Standards for Beef

The Agricultural Marketing Service is proposing changes to its U.S. Standards for Grades for Carcass Beef, it said (here). The agency’s proposed rule “would allow dentition and documentation of actual age as additional methods of classifying maturity of carcasses presented to [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] for official quality grading,” it said. “Currently, the standards include only skeletal and muscular evidence as a determination of classifying maturity of carcasses for the purposes of official USDA quality grading,” AMS said. Comments are due Aug. 18.