When consumers have doubts about beef or beef production, we typically point to a lack of exposure and understanding, or even worse, a sense that beef producers have something to hide. Increasingly, stakeholders are realizing a growing need to improve consumer trust though greater transparency and a dialog with consumers and influencers. With that in mind, The Colorado Beef Council and Colorado State University this week hosted a conference titled “Beef + Transparency = Trust” in Denver.
The one-day conference targeted influencers such as consumer media, food writers, nutritionists and food-business executives, with some journalists representing trade media such as Drovers/CattleNetwork also in attendance. A notable lineup of speakers including ranchers, cattle feeders and scientists provided objective, honest and factual information about modern beef-production practices and the reasons behind them. Over the next few days, we’ll summarize some of the meeting’s highlights, providing readers with background they can use in discussions with curious consumers.
Chandler Keys helped set the stage with an opening presentation outlining the makeup of the diverse U.S. beef industry. Keys spent years as NCBA’s representative on Capitol Hill, then performed similar duties for JBS SA and now runs his own consulting company, the Keys Group.
Keys told attendees the U.S. beef herd currently numbers about 29 million cows, which is the smallest inventory since the 1950s, yet produces about the same volume of beef. He also described how the U.S. dairy industry, with about 9 million cows, contributes cull cows and steer calves to the total U.S. beef supply.
He explained the role of the roughly 750,000 cow-calf producers in the United States, whose average herd size is about 40 cows. About 20,000 of those have 200 cows or more, and it takes a cow herd numbering 450 to 500 cows to earn a rancher a full-time middle-class income.
Calves graze on pastures at least until weaning, and after weaning typically sell at local auctions and move to stocker operations where they remain on forage until they are a year old or older. Next, they move to feedyards where they shift to a more grain-based diet for 150 to 200 days. Feedyards typically use implants and beta agonists to improve growth and efficiency.
Keys stressed that most beef cattle spend the majority of their lives on pasture or range, and that large-scale consolidation in the cow-calf and stocker sectors is unlikely because of the large land and capital requirements.
Next up was Kim Stackhouse-Lawson, PhD., NCBA’s director of sustainability research, describing what sustainability means in the beef business and ongoing efforts to improve. She began by explaining how perceptions of sustainability in beef production often are clouded by the well publicized 2006 U.N. report titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” That’s the report that claimed livestock is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for more than all the cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and other transportation combined.
She explained how one of her former professors at the University of California – Davis, Frank Mitloehner, PhD., debunked the report’s claim. The authors, it turns out, conducted a comprehensive “lifecycle analysis” of livestock production, estimating emissions from every stage and every input – preparing and fertilizing grain fields and pastures, harvesting, drying and transporting grain for feed, etc. For the transportation sector, they limited their estimate to tailpipe emissions, ignoring the inputs necessary to manufacture vehicles and provide them with fuel.
In the United States, the EPA estimates livestock production accounts for 3.4 percent of GHG emissions, while transportation accounts for 28 percent.
One thing the report got right, she says, was in concluding that intensification of livestock production will be part of the long-term solution as production efficiency enhances sustainability. The media, however, generally missed that part of the report.
In 2010, the Beef Checkoff set out to develop a comprehensive analysis of beef production’s environmental impacts and identify steps to ensure sustainability.
The group initiated a detailed lifecycle analysis that goes beyond GHG emissions to include environmental issues such as wildlife habitat, water, biodiversity and others, along with economic and social sustainability. The ongoing study includes pre-harvest and post-harvest components, assessing impacts across the beef-production system. The assessment will compare impacts from the 1970s with those from 2005 and 2011, to provide baseline data and a glimpse at trends over time. Researchers are collaborating with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska in developing the pre-harvest model and with chemical company BASF on the post-harvest portion.
About 90 percent of the pre-harvest portion is complete, as is about 8o percent of the post-harvest study. Once the analysis is complete, the group plans to identify priority areas or sustainability challenges along the beef value chain. Eventually, they plan to provide interactive self-assessment tools for each production phase, helping ranchers, feeders, packers and others identify specific areas for improvement within their operations.
The bottom line, Stackhouse-Lawson says, is that “we have a sustainable product, but we want to make it even more sustainable.”
Watch Drovers/CattleNetwork for further summaries of how ranchers, cattle feeders and scientists provided conference participants with an honest portrayal of U.S. beef production.
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