Colorado State University’s Animal Science department is planning to construct a new, updated building on campus, and faculty member Temple Grandin, PhD., suggested they make the walls out of glass. They’ll actually use traditional brick and mortar, but Grandin’s suggestion is consistent with her strong advocacy for transparency in livestock production.
Grandin and other scientists including Dee Griffin, DVM, and meat scientist John Scanga, PhD., brought that transparency to a conference last week hosted by Colorado State University and the Colorado Beef Council. The conference, titled “Beef + Transparency = Trust,” targeted influencers such as consumer media, food writers, nutritionists and food-business executives, intending to provide objective, honest and factual information about modern beef-production practices and the reasons behind them.
Temple Grandin, known worldwide for her work in animal behavior and handling, told the group that if the livestock industry needs to show the public what they do. And if there is something we are unwilling to show, we probably shouldn’t be doing it.
One challenge though, is the context in which members of the public see things. To someone with no background or experience in agriculture, processes or activities done for good reasons and considered acceptable within the industry could seem distressing. For that reason, when she conducts tours of slaughter plants, Grandin leads groups through a progression of events, explaining along the way. She begins by showing the unloading process, noting that cattle are unloaded from trailers calmly and rested in un-crowded pens for several hours to avoid stress. She explains how the animals are brought into the facility calmly, using curved alleys with high sides designed to keep them calm. The actual slaughter process is quick and humane.
Grandin showed the group a video tour she recorded with the American Meat Institute as part of the “Glass Walls Project,” which shows the beef-slaughter process in detail, while explaining the reasons behind each step.
Grandin explained that most plants use video monitoring to continuously audit animal welfare practices, and that meat customers such as McDonald’s have driven a trend toward regular third-party audits of plants and continuous improvement. When problems occur, they need to be fixed. Grandin says about 10 percent of people are simply not suited to work with livestock, and farmers, ranchers and packers need to identify those people.
John Scanga, a technical consultant with Elanco, took on the task of explaining how and why livestock producers use various pharmaceutical technologies. He began by noting that by 2050, the world will need to produce twice as much food as today, and 70 percent of the increase will need to come from technology, as there is little opportunity to farm more land. The food industry needs to provide accessible, safe and affordable food, while also offering choices to consumers who want premium or specialized products.
Scanga explained there are two classes of pharmaceutical products used in livestock – those for keeping animals healthy and alive, and those for keeping them growing efficiently. He outlined how farmers and ranchers use antibiotics, under the direction of a veterinarian, for treatment and prevention of disease. By law, they must follow label directions and specified withdrawal periods. He showed the group a package of implants, explaining the low dose of hormones they deliver to cattle. A three-ounce serving of beef from an implanted animal, he says, contains 0.6 nanograms of estrogen, compared with 1.6 million nanograms in a similar serving of soybean oil.
He also described the use of beta agonists such as Optaflexx and ionophores such as Rumensin to improve growth and efficiency in feedyard cattle, explaining the long, detailed and expensive process companies follow to prove the safety and effectiveness of these products to federal regulatory agencies.
Finally veterinarian Dee Griffin, from the University of Nebraska, outlined how animal health relates to animal welfare, beef quality and producer profitability. It is in the producer’s direct economic interest, he says, to care for cattle regardless of time of day, weather or other priorities.
Griffin, a long-time advocate and leader in the Beef Quality Assurance program, says prevention of sickness is the key to success for ranchers, and it begins with a healthy calf. Calves born to healthy mothers and receiving colostrum from their dams within the first few hours are almost five times less likely to become sick later in life compared with calves born to unhealthy or un-nurturing dams.
Griffin outlined how vaccination programs work to build immunity and prevent sickness, and how responsible use of the right antibiotics at the right dose at the right time can cure sick animals without causing development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. He also noted that regular random testing for antimicrobial residues in beef by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service have found essentially zero incidence in beef cattle since 2003.
In discussions following his presentation, Griffin explained there are two separate issues that cause confusion among consumers regarding antibiotic use in livestock. One is concern over antibiotic residues in meat, which testing shows are practically non-existent. The other is concern that use of antibiotics in animals could help create drug-resistant pathogens which could then pass from livestock to humans. That concern is legitimate, he says, but current evidence shows that with judicious use, the risk is very low.
Comments (0) Leave a comment