The Beef Industry Must Communicate with The Public

By Temple Grandin, Dept. of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University

During the months of January and February, I was on a month long tour for books and the HBO movie. I visited many major cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and many others. I was shocked at the public’s complete lack of knowledge about how beef cattle are raised. Several people thought that beef cattle were raised in stalls like veal calves and many did not know the difference between beef and dairy cattle. When I talked to people about how cattle are raised, they were surprised to learn that beef may have the best welfare compared to animals such as egg layer chickens. In several cities, I informed people that all beef calves are raised by mother cows that live their entire lives on grass. They looked at me with great surprise when I informed them that the beef that goes to Whole Foods and the beef that goes to WalMart all originates from calves that spend half of their life on grass.

Open the Door Electronically

The beef industry needs to show the good things that they do by putting up videos of tours of feedlots and ranches on www.YouTube.com. If you do not know how to do this, your kids can show you how. As an industry, we need to look at everything that we do and say to ourselves, “How would your out of town wedding or Christmas guests react to a tour of your feedlot?”

About a year and a half ago, I put up my training videos on cattle handling and slaughter plant design on www.YouTube.com. It is important that the videos be narrated to explain why things are being done a certain way. Some people in the industry were concerned that videos showing stunning would not be understood. My response was, the only videos on the Internet are all bad. Many people think all plants are like the atrocious abuses shown on animal rights websites. We need to show that many places do things right. However, you must be prepared to get some really nasty hate comments with swears words on your site. You will need to block email addresses that put “F bombs” on your comments page. On the other hand, do not block or delete all dissenting views. It is good to have civil discussions on your YouTube site. Out of over 1000,000 people who viewed my stunning video, only about eight to ten e-mail address were responsible for filthy or hate postings. You also need to put comments on other videos that show feedlots. Never respond in anger. Calm down and post well thought out comments. Let your kids be your “tech support” but you should do the writing. The beef industry must start communicating with the younger generation.