Agricultural News
Understanding Transparency a Big Step in Getting Your Arms Around Sustainable Beef Production
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:50:22 CDT
Sustainability is a three-legged stool held up by economics, environmental stewardship and societal participation, according to Dr. Sara Place of the Animal Science Department at Oklahoma State University. She told Farm Director Ron Hays that she believes farmers and ranchers have the economic and environmental factors pretty much down already. It's the social component for which producers need to improve upon.
"I think producers are really good at the technical day-to-day in terms of improving their production practices," Place said, "and I think again researchers at Oklahoma State and other universities, we're continuously working to try and make sure that producers have those tools to get better."
Based on consumer polling, Dr. Place says that some of the main concerns people have are animal welfare and a general suspicion of modern technologies being used today; be it GMOs, growth promotants, etc. She asserts that people have these concerns because they really just don't know what is going on and the reasons why producers do what they do. She added that negative news stories about isolated cases of animal abuse are often perceived as an industrywide commonplace. Transparency she says, simply showing how products are produced is a great remedy for this.
"I think those issues are really what's probably going to be driving concern in this general area of sustainability going forward," Place said. "So addressing those areas specifically with information and then also just listening to what people's concerns are to make sure that when you're talking to somebody - that you're actually addressing their direct concerns and not talking over their head."
Listen to Dr. Sara Place explain why consumers have concerns about beef production and what it means to be transparent with Farm Director Ron Hays on today's Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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