Agricultural News
UC Davis Professor Says U.S. Livestock Producers Have Made Great Strides in Sustainability
Tue, 21 May 2013 17:18:46 CDT
Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the University of California at Davis, says that "sustainable intensification" is the way of the future in animal agriculture. He spoke at the Alltech International Symposium in Lexington, Kentucky, this week. He also talked about the concept with Radio Oklahoma Network's Ron Hays on how American farmer and ranchers have made great strides in this area, and how he thinks animal agriculture in this country will continue to reduce its environmental footprint .
"One important aspect of reducing the environmental footprint is to become very efficient. The more efficient you are, the fewer animals you need. And we've known this for a long time. Intensification is really aiming at improving efficiencies and optimizing efficiencies and we have done a pretty good job in this country of doing that.
"However, in some fields and some areas, this intensification is not done in a sustainable manner. For example, animals are housed under conditions that are too cramped and, therefore, people have welfare concerns for those animals or we have conditions where some kind of food safety concerns occur. The area of welfare, of food safety, of worker health and safety training, all play into sustainability as environmental quality does."
"What we need to do is to marry those sustainability areas and produce in an intensive way that takes care of sustainability at the same time. Sustainable intensification, in my opinion, is the way of the future. That's the way we all need to embrace and that's the way we are going, in my opinion, in the agricultural production of the next decades."
Mitloehner says the principles of sustainability are very important and interlocking.
"In livestock production, sustainability rests on five main pillars. The one is environmental quality. The second is animal welfare. The third is food safety. The fourth is worker training, worker health and safety. And the fifth is economic viability. All of those five areas are equally important and if one of them is impaired, the whole system is not sustainable."
He notes there are a lot of people that are detractors of U.S. agriculture, especially the livestock sector. They feel producers don't need to be doing the things that they're doing. They'd like to get rid of animal agriculture, in some cases, in the U.S. Mitloehner says the first temptation is to refute them, to push back and tell the story of sustainable agriculture, but, he says, that course is not very productive.
"Well, I don't even think we have to refute anyone. Rest assured the vast majority of citizens in this country like meat and like livestock products and will consume them no matter what. About four percent of consumers really want to know where their food comes from. And about one percent, those are the real vocal activist types. They are the ones you will never convince. It doesn't matter what you spend and what kind of speakers you have, you will never convince them. They have made up their minds to get rid of animal agriculture.
"They also want to get rid of your pet, your dog at home or your cat. They don't want any control of humans over animals. So, don't spend a dime on convincing the one percent, but do spend your time to inform the 95 percent that want to consume your products, but want to be assured that it's raised in a sustainable manner. They do care how they are raised. They do care for the welfare of animals and that it's safe. They do care that the environment is not impaired."
Mitloehner also says U.S. producers have made strides in improving the sustainability of animal agriculture.
"This is really one of the big success stories throughout the world: we have doubled livestock production with half the number of animals now versus 50 years ago. That is exactly the direction we have to go worldwide."
You can listen to Ron Hays's full interview with Dr. Mitloehner by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
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