One Team, One Dream

Hey, guys! Danielle here, and I’m having a great summer interning at Kansas Soybean. I’m tackling all sorts of things, from learning about biodiesel to preparing an economic impact of Kansas agriculture report that we presented to our Representatives and Senators in Washington D.C.! It’s been an eye-opening experience in ways that I would never expect.

You see, I’ve always been a huge defender of conventional ag. I’m the first person to step up and say that GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) are not a bad thing, and list all the facts and figures to back it up. When people say they only eat organic foods, I was always the person to criticize them and bombard them with pro-GMO statements.

Obviously, telling them all the reasons I think GMO’s are good didn’t change their mind. It wasn’t until this internship that I finally realized that organic and non-GMO agriculture is still agriculture. When you’re in the grocery store, your goal is most likely to buy food to eat, whether you eat conventional foods or not. The goal of farmers everywhere is to feed people. You see how they line up?  

I didn’t.

I got so caught up in defending the farmers who use technology to produce as much healthy, whole food as possible that I forgot about this shared goal. I think a lot of people forget about it as well. There’s so much negative advertising about conventional ag out there that misleads you, the consumer, that it’s easy to lose trust in the food system.

Infographic from findourcommonground.com

Part of my training in this internship was to learn how to talk to people who are confused about who to trust. Here’s where I started to realize that those who choose to stray away from GMO’s aren’t these people who want to ruin the lives of farmers; they’re simply people who want to make sure they are eating food that is healthy and safe. Doesn’t everyone want that?

The fact of the matter is, conventional food is just as whole and healthy as food that’s produced organically, and there are several scientific reports to back that up. Now that we all know that, let’s stop separating the two and pitting them against each other and work towards our shared goal: feeding hungry people. You’re hungry, so you eat. Farmer’s eat the same food that they provide and can’t afford to produce unsafe food.

Trust your food system, it aims to serve you. After all, without you, the consumer, farmers wouldn’t have a job. Avoid listening to all the negative hoopla about conventional agriculture that some companies use to attract your dollars, and work towards your goal: feeding yourself and feeding your family. It doesn’t matter if it’s conventional, non-GMO, or organic. It’s all food and we are all hungry!

Forks up,

Danielle

…The chicken or the egg?

Poultry is not my expertise, nor is it my favorite meat to have at a meal. However, I recently started a position at my company in poultry marketing, and I have to say, the industry is fascinating.

According to the USDA Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Outlook June Report, the United States produces more pounds of chicken, 37.8 million (2013) to be exact, than any other meat. Add the layers with more than 6.8 million dozen eggs (2013), and you have a very large and concentrated industry.

Some background on the poultry business is helpful in understanding how your chicken and eggs are produced. This is a vertically integrated business, meaning companies control almost every point of production. (See the diagram below.) Poultry growers, or the people who raise chickens, can be contracted by a larger company, but it’s important to realize that the individual sites are usually operated by families. By owning and/or operating every point of the business, including breeding, growing broilers, raising layers (the chickens which lay the eggs), and the processing and packaging, a company can increase efficiencies and decrease costs.

 

Diagram Credit: http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/nielsen/www245/lecnotes/unit2.html

Through advances in research and technology, the business of raising chickens and turkeys has changed dramatically over time. See this video for an inside look at a primary breeder farm, one of the only parts of the poultry industry not included in the vertically integrated system. This farm focuses on producing females for broilers (the chicken we all eat) and males for breeding. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ7rrHYmFiQ)

I know many people question the poultry industry on the way they do certain things. However, one thing we can’t question is how much food they produce to feed people across the world. The turnaround on producing a broiler is under 14 weeks which means we can have a lot of chicken in a little amount of time.

 When it comes to making meat, they ain’t no chicken… Get it? J

Your fill-in poultry “expert,”
Cassie Kniebel

ULS Secretary Rodman - Success!

Well, Secretary Rodman spoke about Kansas Agriculture in the year 2025 on Monday night and we are thrilled with the turnout - almost 250 people showed up to learn more about our state's most important industry. Thanks to all who attended and we hope you gained a better perspective of Kansas' role in global agriculture.

As previously announced, the hashtag #ULSRodman was the handle to follow and there were some great tweets by the audience. We've also included some pictures from the evening.

A great turnout for our guest, Secretary Rodman

Secertary Rodman addressed many important issues including water conservation, population and food interactions, future opportunities for young people in agriculture and the desire and capability for Kansas agriculture to expand and meet global food demand.

Thanks again for all who attended - we appreciate your support of agriculture, Food For Thought and bridging the gap!

Until next time,

~ Buzzard ~

BPI Suing ABC over 'Pink Slime' (Lean, Finely Textured Beef) Debacle

Hey - it's actually called Lean, Finely Textured Beef (LFTB).

You may have read/heard that Beef Products, Inc. filed a lawsuit against ABC and three news reporters (Diane Sawyer, Jim Avila and David Kerly) and are seeking $1.2 billion in damages for defamation. But you may be wondering how they can file a lawsuit against a news company and reporters. Let's get down to the facts, folks.

First off, we need to define defamation: it is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual or business, a negative or inferior image. In Common Law it is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (in this case BPI is defamed person). (Wikipedia.org)

or in simpler terms:

Defamation is the false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, as by slander or libel (dictionary.com)

Basically, you can't go out and spread false information and not expect to be sued.

But what exactly is the claim against ABC?  

BPI claims that ABC did knowingly publish and report misinformation in 11 television reports and 14 online news items relating to BPI and LFTB that were false and misleading, which aired from March 7 to April 3. In a press conference on September 13, BPI's lawyers expressed that ABC had been provided with real factual information about LFTB from USDA and several other sources and still chose to release 25 reports that stated otherwise. The pushing of a negative agenda caused hundreds of thousands of parents to ask their schools to cease use of LFTB in lunch programs and ABC also created and release a 'blacklist' of grocery stores who were using LFTB. That's a lot of negative press in a 28 day period. So much negative press that BPI lost 80% of their business and was forced to shut down 3 of their 4 plants and let go of 650 employees. Ouch.

About that misinformation - let's clear some of that up. Here are the facts about LFTB.

- LFTB is 100% beef. One hundred percent.
- LFTB is a USDA approved product that is sanitized and made safer with a minuscule amount of ammonium hydroxide mist.
- Ammonium hydroxide is present in most foods - cheese, cereal, beer, bread, even fruits and veggies.
- LFTB is 94-97% lean. Meaning that when it is used, the product is lower in fat and is healthier than a 80% or 85% lean product.
- The photo that was splashed across every TV station and newspaper of pink oozy stuff coming out of a machine is not representative of LFTB. It wasn't even beef.

So, that's the bare bones facts of it all. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I personally don't see how BPI could lose this case. There were over 500 pages of evidence logged with the claim and it's hard to ignore the hundreds of jobs lost and nosedive of BPI's business.

If you want to read more about LFTB here are some good links

Engineering a safer burger - Washington Post article
Beef is Beef - a collection of articles and more hard facts about LFTB
Q & A about ammonium hydroxide in food production

And if you have questions, we'd love to hear them!


So now that you have the facts, what's your take?

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

 

New Technology Brings Pigs and People Together

    Would you be interested in a video game that is played between real people and their counterparts in the pig world? How could this work, you might wonder? Well, thanks to collaborative research between the Utrecht School of the Arts and animal scientists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the  Playing with Pigs  project has become a reality in the form of a video game called PigChase.

PigChase is designed as a way to bring humans and pigs closer together, as it involves a human playing on an iPad or iPhone video tablet interacting with live pigs in their home environment. It will be much easier to understand if you check out the video.

Researchers have set up a large touch-screen system inside a pen where young pigs are housed. Research has shown that pigs are attracted by moving light and based on this principle, a game was created where humans use their fingers to drag a ball of light with their finger and try to match it up with the pigs' snouts on the other side of the screen.

This is an exciting idea that I must say needs to be applauded for it creativity. In animal science we often discuss the need to bring food animals and consumers closer together, and what better way to do so than by keeping both pigs and people entertained at the same time?

For those of you interested in getting the game PigChase, keep your eyes peeled for its release!

Enjoy,

Technology Has Brought Us A Long Way

I am not a very tech-savvy person. At all. I still don't know how to use Bluetooth and that's been around for about 8 years, maybe more? Anyway, just because I don't understand it doesn't mean I don't appreciate it. Technology has made it easier for parents to teach their children the ABC's at young ages, has improved health care, has globalized  industry and in general has improved our quality of life (although the occasional IT headache does occur). Additionally, technology has made agriculture immensely more productive over time.

What do I mean? Think about it - in the 60's and 70's Norman Borlaug and his associates created new varieties of corn, rice and wheat that vastly improved the amount of food farmers could produce. In some countries of the world, for example in East Africa, food intake went up by 50%. This was achievable with the application of technology.

In his annual letter, Bill Gates highlights these facts and others about the need for technology to feed our growing world. That's right, Bill Gates has gone agvocate. Well, not really but he does make a great case for our industry.

Bill points out that in the 19th century, the majority of the U.S. workforce was in agriculture. Today, less than 2% of people are responsible for all U.S. food production however, in countries like Uganda 75% of the citizens produce the food. U.S. farmers are so productive that the average family spends less than 10% (8.9% in 2009) of their annual income on food. That is a microscopic amount compared to a country like China who in 2009 spent 37% of their income on food.

It's also brought to attention that only $3 billion a year is spent researching the seven most important crops. This amount needs to increase for the sake of our productivity - especially as our climate continues to change which could cause a 25% decrease in the crop yield if we continue to see droughts and floods like this past year. Research into soil science and crop production can help us to be more efficient with our resources, which is especially important with climate change, urbanization and our growing world population. He suggests we need to increase that amount if we want to be able to meet the demand for food over the next 50 years

Before I close, I'd like to share this picture with you. A little Food For Thought, if you will (cliche, I know):

With this picture I'm not trying to say taxes are high, I'm pointing out the extreme affordability of our food supply. We are very blessed in the states to have such 'cheap' food that has been brought about through research, hard working farmers and technology.

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

To read Bill Gates full letter, click here. Photo credit from here

Get it right, Bourdain

You may have read in a previous FFT post about Hannah Hayes' open letter to Chef Anthony Bourdain. If not, you can read her letter here. What you may not have read and probably didn't even hear about is Chef Bourdain's response to Hannah. You can read that here.


Chef Bourdain's beef (pardon the pun) with Cargill, and inadvertently Hannah's dad, is that they get their hamburger from a supplier, Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) who 'use ammonia in their hamburger'. I feel like there are some misplaced assumptions taking place - Chef Bourdain, let's get a few things straight.

1 - Ammonia is a natural chemical found in the human body and also in many foods at significant concentrations. In fact, products like peanut butter, cheese and a few other foods contain ammonia at levels of 400-800 ppm.
2 - Ammonia is not poured into beef, stirred around with a spoon and then served into hamburgers. Gaseous ammonia is used to kill harmful pathogens such as salmonella and e. coli in order to prevent them from making consumers very, very sick.
3 - Quoting the New York Times does not mean you are quoting a reliable source. Here and here are prime examples of misinformation - both articles are grotesquely one-sided and lack scientific based facts.
4 - If gaseous ammonia was not used to treat hamburger, the potential for harmful pathogens to make their way into the food supply would increase ten-fold.
5 - Ammonia is not used to treat all beef, only BPI uses it to treat only their hamburger. It is not used on steaks, roasts, ribs etc.
6 - BPI doesn't supply the entire nation with hamburger. So if you really just can't swallow the idea of having extra-safe beef, purchase hamburger from a non-Cargill supplier.

Again, technology allows us to have a safe, efficient food supply. Much safer than it was 50 years ago when meat plants weren't so heavily regulated....

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~