Analyst and trader Jerry Klassen, of Resilient Capital, also joined Phil Franz-Warkentin in Winnipeg recently to discuss activity in the cattle and feed grain markets. While cattle prices remain near record highs, feed grains have come under pressure.

Subscribe to the @producermarketsdesk YouTube channel for more commentary and daily updates on the futures markets. https://www.youtube.com/@ProducerMarketsDesk

The Western Producer Markets Desk is your trusted source for up-to-date agriculture market prices, market trends and expert analysis. Please visit: https://markets.producer.com

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A quick scroll through their blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter feeds shows pictures taken in the field, videos of feeding cattle, links to articles and posts on everything from beehive management to family birthdays.

On screen, Ian Steppler appears in what is obviously a phone video as he takes viewers through making a pollinator seed mix and replaces machine bearings.

On another social media account, this one managed by his brother and business partner, Andre, Andre Steppler sits in a parked tractor cab, surrounded by his children, as he talks about his morning chores and conception rates in the purebred Charolais herd that is his claim to fame.

“The easiest thing to do is just talk about what you know and everything just follows through and if you’ve got something to share and you’ve got a perspective that you want to convey to somebody else, then that just comes naturally,” Ian Steppler said.

The Stepplers are among the growing number of farmers to take their marketing online, one keystroke, YouTube upload and live stream at a time.

The farm’s website includes a blog, updated at least four times weekly by Ian, while the portion devoted to Steppler Charolais links to Andre Steppler’s active Twitter feed, while another tab connects to the farm’s official Facebook page.

Outside of those official accounts, both brothers run their own Facebook pages, while Ian Steppler is active on YouTube, where he posts everything about beekeeping, from winter storage to his own hive disease test results. Those feeds helped earn him speaking invites at beekeeping conferences in Winnipeg and Kelowna, B.C., appointments with MPs and the Manitoba government.

More interest

The Steppler bull sale, one of the farm’s largest events of the year, has seen a noted uptick since they shifted their online strategy to breeding stock. The family ramps up excitement weeks beforehand over social media, drawing audience to their website where stats and video of the animals up for sale are posted.

The farm blog usually sees about 2,000 hits a week, not counting social media, Ian said, numbers that could jump by three times in the weeks right before the sale.

The sale itself is live streamed across the globe.

“We’re getting a huge amount of traffic watching these bull sales and heifer sales,” Steppler said. “It’s translating into sales. We sell a lot of bulls out of our area and heifers too. We sell from Alberta right to — we have some animals in Nova Scotia.”

Other, global customers, are interested in their genetics, making the internet key.

Steppler’s story is not unique.

In Alberta, many rural residents know Dr. Cody Creelman of Veterinary Agri-Health Services by sight, even if they’ve never met him.

Creelman began “vlogging,” or video blogging, in 2015 after joining an old veterinary practice near Airdrie, Alta., and quickly deciding that the online presence needed a facelift.

“A lot of it just came down to me wanting to market the services that my veterinary practice provides and the way to do that was marketing in the age that we actually live in and that’s a lot of the digital media that we actually consume,” he said. “I needed to put myself out there on those platforms for us to be able to market that we are a veterinary practice and the services that we provide and that we provide high-quality medicine and that we’re OK people to talk with.”

The young vet eventually turned to social media and began documenting day-to-day activities on Instagram, a social media site using images and short videos.

Instagram soon morphed into Vine, a now defunct platform using seven-second video clips that Creelman says was “pivotal” to his transformation to a video blogger. Soon, Creelman was producing YouTube videos and found his niche.

The longer format allowed Creelman to go in depth, literally taking the viewer in the passenger seat of his pickup as he hit the road. His casual, friendly, style was the same attitude he found gained traction on other platforms.

“People enjoyed going out on the road with me for the day, so I tried to create that,” he said. “And some of that is literally the pace I am going to get to the next call. I only have the opportunity to turn on the camera when I’m jumping into the truck to say, ‘This is what we’re doing today,’ as we’re pulling out of the parking lot.”

Today, the Alberta vet has over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, 25,700 on Instagram and 5,800 on Twitter. He is the co-founder of Mosiac Veterinary Partners, a veterinary investment group to support rural veterinarians, and his business has grown substantially since he first hit “post.”

The next wave

The latest generation of agriculture program graduates will already have many of those skills in their arsenal.

Agribusiness students at Assiniboine Community College, have two courses on marketing and public relations, including online. One of those tells students to create a marketing plan for an agricultural product or service, which could be a farm, instructor James Ellis said, although most ACC agribusiness graduates are bound for the industry, not the homestead.

“There is research on which demographic they’re going after and then trying to identify what is the best marketing tool or combination of marketing tools to go forward with that. And then they start to make it specific and customized based on that information,” he said. “Really, what I find so interesting is that there isn’t just one way. There’s many different ways to approach it.”

Challenges

Vlogging has been both a boon and drain to Creelman, since he has essentially added “videographer” onto his resume alongside “veterinarian.”

Once the refuge of amateur videos, successful YouTube personalities now spend hours on things like camera angles, background sound, scene cuts, angle shifts and video effects to make content enticing and drive traffic.

Creelman estimates that each video takes four hours of editing, hours he puts in on top of his regular work day.

It’s a strain that Steppler has also felt.

“If you’re going to catch that audience you’ve got to retain that, and to do that you’ve got to keep putting content out there,” he said. “If you’re just going to put content out there and it’s garbage, nobody wants that. You’ve got to put stuff out there of value, so it takes a lot of thought.”

Posting content on the farm’s blog or cattle comes with yet another time-consuming layer, he added.

While Ian Steppler regularly posts on the ins and outs of beekeeping, his beekeeping accounts are not technically linked to the farm and work on the farm’s blog may take a different tone.

“With my bees, it doesn’t matter. I have a lot of opinions and I talk about bees and I’m not selling anything and I try to keep everything professional and non-political, but with Andre, the way I see the cows and represent them online is different than the way he sees them and would like to see them represented online, because a bad picture will totally take away from what he’s trying to do,” he said. “We’re spending a lot of time on it and we really have to make sure that we control our content.”

Creelman’s role as a veterinarian throws another wrench in the works, since he is not only videoing his own work, but another producer’s animals.

“They trust me as a person, as a veterinarian and it was a slow, gradual progression of me telling that story through different means, of taking that picture, showing that video over Snapchat and it was that progression that then allowed them to trust me to be able to show that story,” he said, adding that his clients now often expect him to leave his truck, camera in hand.

Many times, they’re disappointed if he doesn’t, he said.

Beware of trolls

As with anything on the internet, posts on social media or YouTube have opened farmers up to criticism and “trolls,” users who purposefully post provocative comments for the sake of stirring up a response.

The comments section is infamous for critical, rude or inappropriate replies.

For those tied to agriculture, the danger is even more acute. Public trust has become a topic of discussion in almost all sectors of the industry, and the same recognition that puts a business on the map also opens the gates for negative comments.

For a conventional farmer, like the Stepplers, opening the farm for public view might draw the digital wrath of hardline organic proponents. For Creelman, filming the realities of veterinary work can and has earned negativity from animal welfare activists.

But while others might shy away from that negativity, the veterinarian says those are actually his favourite comments to address.

“The problem with things like some of the agriculture advocates on places like Twitter is a lot of times it’s preaching to the choir,” he said. “We’re beating our own drum in an industry and the only ears and eyes that are seeing that are people who are doing the same sort of thing.

“If we were trying to say that what we’re doing is to advocate for agriculture, that’s the only thing that we need to do; first and foremost we need to be talking to the potential consumers and they’re not going to be in some of those same places,” he added.

His counter-argument may not convince a true critic, he said, but his response will remain in writing for others who are less convinced. At the same time, he said, critical questions often let him address concerns around pain control, transforming the criticism into a teachable moment.

Steppler, meanwhile, says YouTube experience so far has been mostly positive. Personal communication has been more problematic. As a businessman with a published contact number, he has had to block harassing calls from viewers upset about something he has posted.

“I haven’t had too much trouble on YouTube per se, not yet,” he said. “I have a lot of trouble on Facebook and I just delete those guys, but I’ve been getting emails because now I’m putting myself out there.”

At the same time, he said, he also gets dozens of positive messages every day.

The post Selling the farm life, byte by byte appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Manitoba Pork says staff, representatives from the Office of the Chief Veterinarian of Manitoba, and the Winnipeg Police Service contained the animal and loaded it onto another truck.

However, pork council chair George Matheson says the public was also quick to respond. Within hours, the wayward pig had been named “Mercy” and a crowdfunding drive set up by a Winnipeg business owner to rehome the pig at a sanctuary.

The owner of the pig had different ideas. Once the sow was inspected and deemed fit for transport, she was sent to the U.S. for slaughter, as was originally intended.

“The determined efforts by an interested group to adopt this pig will serve as a reminder to farmers that our animal care procedures are always closely scrutinized,” Matheson said in the council’s online newsletter.

“As caring and concerned livestock stewards, let’s make sure our farms are always ready for their close-up, whether on YouTube or other media. It is important that we continually evaluate our methods and facilities, and ensure that they are above reproach.”

The post Public rallies around loose sow appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Think of yourselves in a new light and reach out to youth on their terms, says Peter Male.

Male took that message to the recent annual general meeting of the Manitoba Association of Agricultural Societies and spoke of how that approach revived his organization, the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver.

“In the end, really what you are is a socio-economic force that can affect the economy and the social lives of the people around you,” said Male, the exhibition’s vice-president of sales. “That is a powerful thing to be.”

Male was given the job of finding new attractions and year-round bookings to keep the 110-year-old venue “busy,” when he was hired in 1997. It was no easy feat, with a long-standing operating agreement with the city about to be phased out, the local NHL and CFL teams moving to new stadiums downtown, and the province questioning whether it should be in the fair business.

“The place was in a state of chaos. Change was overwhelming it,” he said.

Like many small-town agricultural societies, management had to face the facts and decide where its future might lie. The organization didn’t focus on its infrastructure (six massive buildings, livestock barns, and an amusement park), but instead searched for one “powerful” fundamental principle that would guide change.

“What are we in this marketplace?” said Male. “The common denominator was that we were a gathering place.”

“Bringing people together” became the guiding principle and was key to the revival of the exhibition, which now generates $40 million in revenue from 1,800 event days each year.

That approach is something ag societies in rural Canada need to consider and they should also look at how current trends can be harnessed, Male said.

For example, unemployed youth and those only able to find part-time work are a rich, untapped vein of volunteer manpower, he said.

But to bring them in, ag societies have to step outside their comfort zone and allow youth to participate in ways they want to — which today means digital and Internet technology. But it can lead to surprising and exciting outcomes, Male said.

For example, officials at the Walker Art Gallery in Minneapolis weren’t expecting much when they agreed to host an event screening silly YouTube videos of cats. But throngs of people showed up, many bringing their pets or dressing up as cats. There was also enthusiastic participation in a sculpture contest for cat carvings made out of butter and lard.

“They expected 300 to 400 people to show up, but the thing exploded on them,” said Male. “The entire crowd was chanting, ‘Cats, cats, cats!’”

The event ended up drawing 12,000 people, who paid $25 each to attend, and the Internet Cat Video Film Festival, originally devised as a means of maintaining event continuity at a time when their theatre was under renovations, is now booked solid until June 2014 for showings in Europe and Japan.

The older generation is the foundation of ag societies, but it can’t be an “island unto themselves,” and must find ways to engage youth, said Liz Roberts, superintendent of the provincial organization.

That may mean that a new event or initiative doesn’t have to be directly agriculture related, she said.

“(The PNE) is an agricultural society. Look at how they have rejuvenated themselves,” she said.

There is a tendency to do the same things over and over, while hoping for a different result, said Marlene Baskerville, the association’s executive director.

“You know the coffee shop talk: The world is a mess. They should do something,” said Baskerville.

To bring communities together, ag societies have to reflect the interests of the target groups, she said.

“If YouTube or short videos or whatever is the thing, how can a community create an opportunity for that to happen?” she said.

It’s easy to bemoan the fact that today’s youth spend every waking hour staring into glowing screens, she said.

But if technology is their current obsession, then maybe there’s potential for bringing it into the community event mix, through texting contests or organizing spontaneous “flash mobs.”

“You can’t problem solve your way into the future,” said Roberts. “Instead of seeing problems that need to be solved, we have to start seeing possibilities.”

The post Getting youth involved key to winning, says speaker appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But by far the most potent weapon in their arsenal of clandestine YouTube videos and Twitter tweets is what Ryder Lee calls the “doubt grenade.” Instead of hurling shards of white-hot metal in every direction, this kind of ordnance can inflict lasting damage by casting suspicion from every angle.

“If we get doubt grenades going off on consumers, they are going to buy something else, pork or chicken or maybe not meat at all,” said Lee, manager of federal-provincial relations for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and a member of the National Farm Animal Care Council.

Lee was part of a panel discussing animal welfare issues at the Manitoba Beef Producers annual meeting here last week.

“If it goes off at the retail level, they are going to start telling us what we have to do different. If that grenade goes off at government, they are going to make us change with legislation and regulation.”

The “pink slime” debacle is one example of the carnage that can turn a once-thriving industry — the lean finely textured beef-processing sector — into an instant casualty.

Most ranchers would prefer to “keep their heads down and ranch,” said Lee, but NFACC is trying to head off future fiascos and “retain our social licence to keep raising cattle” via its updated Beef Code of Practice, the draft version of which is open to online comment until March 8.

“It’s a little dusty,” said Lee. “It was done in 1991, so it’s time to renew it.”

Dr. Joe Stookey, an animal behaviourist from University of Saskatchewan, observed that people on both sides of the issue are naturally inclined to think that their own viewpoint is “right” and those with opposing views are either “less enlightened,” or “naive, fanatical or crazy.”

In the case of urbanites especially, perception tends to follow cataclysmic shifts due to cases of “public outrage.” For the ranching community, a shift has occurred more gradually.

Changing views

“Tough questions” from over 80 students a year over two decades has caused Stookey — who comes from a typical farming background — to shift in his own stance on issues such as dehorning.

“Has our view shifted over time, or are we locked in?” asked Stookey.

Dr. Jim Clark of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said animal transport regulations are the current lightning rod for change.

Of the 18 petitions received by Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz’s office since 2009, 11 were aimed at transport rules, and in 2012, over 900 letters on the same topic filled his mailbox.

That, and new OIE standards, are driving a modernization of the transport regulations that have remained unchanged since the 1970s.

For example, Clark noted that Canada’s rules governing the time animals in transport can go without water are among the most lax among the country’s international trading partners.

In New Zealand, the maximum time they can go without water is 12 hours, in the European Union it’s eight hours, and 28 hours in the United States.

“A lot of this has to do with geography, but in Canada it’s 52 hours and can be extended to 57 hours,” said Clark, adding that the maximum time without feed in transit is 81 hours.

Regulatory amendments governing those issues have been underway since 2006, and a draft based on “outcomes” is ready to be released that would redefine overcrowding as well as give CFIA staff the power to euthanize injured or downer livestock.

“We’re not on the same page as some of our major trading partners and society in general,” said Clark. “This could become a trade barrier. The time to update our regulations is now.”

Video auditing

Scott Entz, vice-president of Cargill Meat Solutions in High River, Alta., said that animal handling now is very different than it was when he started three decades ago.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), with annual budgets of $25 million and $100 million respectively, are going after consumers with lurid, attention-getting campaigns such as renaming retailers such as Burger King “Murder King.”

“These folks don’t lack for resources,” said Entz.

Cargill’s strategy is to take away all opportunities for making the industry look bad, such as the “game-changing” Hallmark/Westland hidden “downer cow” video scandal of 2008 that led to a recall of 143 million pounds of beef.

To prevent giving the enemy any “doubt bomb” ammunition, Cargill has installed a 15-camera, third-party-operated, 24/7 video auditing system on key aspects of its slaughter line.

Any deviation from a set list of criteria sets off a chain reaction of instant notifications to management on the situation, he said.

Cargill recently invited a film crew from the “Oprah Winfrey Show” to tour a plant, and the “risky venture” ended up communicating a positive message.

“At the end of the day, it hopefully helped out not only us but the whole industry,” said Entz.

The post ‘Doubt grenades’ lethal to beef industry’s fortunes appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Huber an emeritus professor of Plant Pathology from Purdue University, isn’t backing down, even though some dismiss him as a crank who lacks peer-reviewed evidence to back up his claims.

The retired U.S. army colonel and bioweapons expert who has written 115 journal articles, co-authored textbooks, and spent 50 years studying soil-borne disease and microbial ecology, now travels the world and can be seen in YouTube videos presenting research that he believes shows genetic engineering is “a massive experiment based on flawed science and failed promises.”

“It’s a total betrayal of the public trust. I don’t know how else to describe it,” said Huber, following a presentation at the recent Organic Connections conference here.

Huber, who co-ordinates a committee of the American Phytopathological Society, caused a stir last spring when he warned the USDA that a previously unknown pathogen linked to genetically modified corn and soybeans threatened exports.

“We’re hanging by a thread, if we want to maintain markets,” he said.

He told the Organic Connections conference glyphosate should be subjected to more independent research into its side-effects — a statement that met with thunderous applause in a hall filled with organic farmers and marketers.

He pegs glyphosate as the hidden cause behind increased virulence of crop pathogens such as fusarium head blight and the growing incidence of previously unheard of diseases in livestock and humans.

Although many organic practices “don’t make a lot of sense” to him scientifically, he lauded the organic community’s commitment, tenacity, and vision. “You’ve got the light at the end of the tunnel. I encourage you to promote it all you can,” said Huber.

First patented by the Stauffer chemical company in 1964 for descaling boilers, glyphosate was later patented by Monsanto in 1970 for use as a broad-spectrum herbicide.

Its introduction as a pre-season burn-down is credited with vastly reducing the amount of tillage for annual crop farmers. In the 1990s, genetically modified crops set the stage for near universal adoption, and a recent report predicted that global production of glyphosate by 2017 would hit 1.35 million tonnes.

Huber argues that the chemical’s true mode of action has been ignored since experiments in the early 1980s showed that it killed weeds via pathogenic action, which he compares to a “bad case of AIDS,” not a direct phytotoxic effect.

More than three decades of widespread use have led to an emerging agronomic “train wreck,” with resistant weeds up tenfold and a fourfold increase in fungicide use, he said.

“We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said Huber. “It’s going to take a major calamity — and it’s coming.”

Repeated applications of the herbicide, which he describes as a “powerful antibiotic,” have disrupted the delicate balance of soil ecology that previously held soil pathogens in check. It also ties up essential minerals such as manganese in the soil and plant tissues.

Those tied-up nutrients suppress the immune systems of both plants and animals, he says. Low-level presence of glyphosate residues is suspected to cause disease in livestock by killing off beneficial intestinal microflora and allowing harmful microbes to multiply unchecked.

He said abuse of glyphosate through overuse has led not only to a proliferation of resistant weeds, but also to a re-emergence of dozens of formerly insignificant crop pathogens such as fusarium head blight, take-all, Goss’s Wilt, as well as mycotoxins in grain and diminished survivability in the soil of rhizobia-based legume inoculants.

Glyphosate’s alleged toxic effect on human gut flora has reduced the ability of the immune system to fend off salmonella and E. coli. Residues in food and feed may be a possible cause for the uptrend in outbreaks of illness and massive recalls of tainted meat and eggs, he added.

Citing soaring rates of allergies, celiac, autism, inflammatory bowel disease, and Alzheimer’s, Huber predicted that the effect on human health from glyphosate and genetically modified crops will one day result in repercussions many times than the fallout from the tobacco lawsuits.

Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan said that although Huber’s credentials are impressive, he has a long history of making “sensational claims” that have never been reliably proven. She said his presentation at a conference devoted to organic farming amounts to preaching to the choir about the alleged dangers of two products they don’t use.

“Groups who are ideologically opposed to biotechnology will often jump on unvalidated claims to further their agenda,” she said.

“That’s fine, but I think you also have to look at the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence that clearly underscores that these products are safe and they perform well for farmers.”

She added that the recent defeat of a California ballot initiative that would require labelling of GM products shows that consumers are comfortable with innovation in agriculture.

“We already have a labelling scheme. If you want to avoid biotech crops, shop organic,” she said.

The post Popular herbicide may be linked to increased pathogen virulence, says Huber appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

It was in fact one of three corner groceries within a two-block area. Around the corner was the local fish market, and a block away on Aberdeen the kosher butcher shop. Our synagogue was a few short blocks away on Magnus, one of many in the area.

Also on Magnus lived Mrs. Freeman, the neighbourhood chicken lady. I recall looking forward to visiting her backyard with my mom or dad, where I could see the coop and we would pick up our eggs.

On Saturday afternoon we could walk to a thriving Selkirk Avenue and my brother and I might attend the Saturday matinee at the Palace or State theatres.

Also on Saturdays we might walk a bit farther to the North Main Farmers Market which seemed to my young eyes a feast of colours and a delight to the senses. The market was open for much of the year and local farmers, many of whom came from the market gardens of Henderson Highway along the river, sold their beans or root vegetables on the site of the current Mount Carmel Clinic. California Fruit on the corner of Euclid and Main would be thronged with people, and I vaguely remember chicken being sold for meat hanging from stalls.

All of that is gone now, and with it the rich community life that enclosed it. We have gained something; those of us who have the means can walk into a giant supermarket brimming with produce from all over the world and have an abundance of choices of food products.

But we have also lost something — that more direct connection to our food.

Many people throughout North America are discovering that they want to regain that connection, a sense that they have some power in choosing where their food will come from.

Local food movements and urban agriculture are making a comeback everywhere as more people reach out for an authentic connection to the food that they eat, whether that is through growing and producing their own, or preserving fruit and vegetables for the winter, or through knowing the farmer or fisher who has provided the bounty we take for granted.

But taking our food for granted is less seen as a given but rather very fragile. The global food system with its reliance on oil and pesticides, large monocropping and ease of shipping foods thousands of miles may become problematic with the advent of climate change, expensive oil and financial uncertainty.

So, that to me is a way to understand the current interest in urban chickens, and, for those of us who are old enough to recall the 1940s and early 1950s, it’s not something unknown.

A decision by the city to permit urban hens ought to be seen in the context of a renewed urban agriculture and its importance to a sustainable Winnipeg.

And that decision should be based on evidence that others will be offering today. I believe that it is persuasive.

Now, because seeing it is so much more powerful, I want to show a five-minute video on urban chickens in Portland, Oregon, a city recognized by many as a leader in creating livable, sustainable urban community. It can be found on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC0yB3LjM0E.

The post Why have hens in your backyard? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Lean finely textured beef, as the industry calls it, has never been sold in Canada. Health Canada considers the ammonia treatment the product undergoes to kill off bacteria a food additive, which must be approved. No one has yet applied for that approval. Given the debacle in the U.S., that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

It’s pretty hard to find the product in the U.S. either after most of the plants manufacturing it closed last month, throwing hundreds of people out of work.

It’s hard to say exactly where things started to go so terribly wrong, but it’s clear the product’s makers and ultimately the whole beef industry was caught flat footed when the frenzy began. Then it developed a case of “foot in mouth” as things unravelled.

They could be forgiven for that. After all, the product, which uses a centrifuge to separate the remaining bits of meat from the fat after the main cuts are removed from the carcass and treats it with ammonia to kill bacteria, had been in the food supply for two decades and was used in 70 per cent of ground beef products.

But BPI Inc., the largest manufacturer of the beef product, refused to comment for two weeks after the story broke in the mainstream media. This was already after it had gone viral in social media.

Two weeks is a long time in the PR business. Then, the company was defensive, essentially saying there was nothing wrong with its products and if people stopped buying it, it was going to close plants and put people out of work. The meat industry’s initial response was, “Well, it’s cheap, it won’t kill you and we’re busy feeding the world,” backed up with dry, academic statements about how the process is carried out.

You could argue that anyone who is willing to eat chicken nuggets, hotdogs or pastrami shouldn’t have a problem with lean finely textured ground beef. In fact, as Temple Grandin pointed out to a Brandon audience last week, pink slime is a sustainable product because it reduces waste in the order of 15 to 30 pounds per carcass. This alone should make it a winner in right-thinking households.

It should be noted however, that while much of the public’s shock and dismay was over the fact that it even existed, the underlying story, and the issue that needed airing, questioned the safety of efforts to reduce its unappetizing ammonia smell by cutting back on the bacteria-killing ammonia. There was some evidence to suggest it wasn’t.

In her customary matter-of-fact way, Grandin offered some wholesome advice on pink slime and other issues to livestock producers during her presentation to the packed house in Brandon.

If you wait for other people or organizations to tell your story, you might not like how you are portrayed. Livestock producers need to tell their own story — their normal, everyday life-of-the-farm kind of story, using new media such as YouTube, Grandin said.

But there’s a catch: they also need to tell the truth. And the truth in the livestock and meat business isn’t always pretty.

She argues the industry could have quickly doused the pink slime flames with its own YouTube videos demonstrating the product is not made from floor scraps and by highlighting how it fits into leaner and greener agendas.

But now it’s off the shelves, quite possibly for good. All that can be done now is learn from the experience. And if the Canadian agricultural sector’s response recently to an issue that easily could have spiralled into a major kerfuffle is any indication, it has been doing just that.

Livestock groups and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture were quick to respond to critics of new federal measures that allow producers — under special circumstances and a veterinarian’s supervision — to slaughter meat animals before they are transported to the abattoir. The provisions are mainly there to allow producers to salvage the meat from livestock that is injured so that it cannot be safely or humanely transported.

Some, including a few who should know better, jumped on the provisions as raising food safety concerns, even suggesting that it would result in roadkill being delivered into the food chain.

The response from producer organizations was immediate and matter of fact, emphasizing the meat would still undergo full inspection and highlighting both the human safety and animal welfare benefits of this allowance. Any reasonable person would conclude that scandal had no where to go.

It sure beats getting slimed.

The post Telling your story appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

But ditch the PR and keep it real.

That was the advice of renowned animal welfare expert Temple Grandin delivered at a sold-out presentation here last week.

“When YouTube first started, about two or three years ago, when you typed in cattle feedlot you just got all kinds of horrible pictures and stuff,” the straight-shooting professor of animal science told a packed house of over 700 people.

“Now when I type that in I’m getting owners scooping up grain and things like that. People are interested in looking at normal stuff.”

Grandin, famed for designing low-stress livestock-handling systems, urged pork producers to post video clips of “ordinary things” such as feeding sows or taking care of piglets or to explain practices such as artificial insemination and why they are used.

“Explain it in a matter-of-fact way,” she said. “But it does need to be explained. Don’t put stuff up and not explain it.

“Explain it like it’s a training video. There’s a tendency to get into too much PR fluff talk. Say that I’m a pork producer in Manitoba and I’m proud of what I do. Then give them a tour of the farm like you might do for wedding guests or your relatives from Toronto.”

Grandin doesn’t shy away from the gritty reality of animal production and has, for example, posted videos detailing the proper stunning of animals prior to slaughter.

All about image

If those involved in livestock production want to improve their image they not only need to defend what they do but change their practices when better or more humane methods become available, she said.

Grandin cited CO2 gas stunning boxes as example. Gas chambers are better than having slaughter plant workers capture and shackle thousands of distressed, flapping birds each day — a practice that causes a high percentage of broken wings, she said.

“Birds don’t like to be hung upside down,” she said. “If you go to a chamber system, you get rid of the stressful situation. People are not going to torture dead chickens.”

Combined with incentive pay, incidence of broken wings has been lowered from five to six per cent — formerly considered normal — to less than one per cent. The gas chambers also make workers’ lives easier.

Gas chambers have also been adopted by hog operations to make the task of disposing of surplus or runt piglets easier for barn workers, especially the new recruits.

“Good stock people don’t want to smash a baby pig’s head on the concrete,” she said.

Abundant neuroscience literature proves that animals can feel fear, pain, and separation distress, she noted. But what’s good for animals also benefits the bottom line, she argued, because reducing animal stress leads to better production efficiency, health, and worker safety.

Workers are an often overlooked aspect, she added. Understaffing, poor working conditions, and fatigue can lead to ugly incidents of abuse that might show up on YouTube for the world to see.

“Some people just should not be handling livestock,” said Grandin. “They like to hurt them, they can’t stop screaming, and can’t get the electric prod out of their hands.”

Reality check

On the other hand, there’s no point in shying away from the reality of the livestock business, she said.

“I am not going to call it a ‘harvest facility’ or a ‘harvest floor’ — it’s a slaughterhouse,” she said.

But it’s not the slaughterhouse of yesterday, she added. Grandin toured the Maple Leaf Food slaughter plant in Brandon prior to the event and said it’s a good example of how far the industry has advanced since she started in the 1980s when practices were “terrible.”

With a Hollywood movie recently made about her life, Grandin has had the opportunity to mix with society’s elites and opinion leaders. Many of them are simply unaware of the nuts and bolts of the livestock industry.

“They ask me, ‘What exactly is a feedlot? Is it really bad to feed them grain? Do they almost die?’” she said. “I explained that cattle come running when you feed them grain. It’s a diet of cake and cookies — they love it. But we send them to the slaughterhouse before they get sick.”

She was critical of the industry’s reaction to the recent “pink slime” debacle, which exploded after it was revealed that finely textured meat byproducts were being added to hamburger in the U.S. Consumers went “berserk” and a number of companies went bankrupt virtually overnight.

“I tell people that if we don’t use this product, we’re throwing away 15 to 30 pounds of food per steer. That’s a lot of cattle going in the garbage. Wasting food is a sin.”

Instead of wasting time with denials, Grandin said the damage could have been alleviated by immediately posting YouTube videos showing that it’s not made from floor sweepings.

“I even thought of an advertising slogan: Pink slime, it’s sustainable and green. It’s so gross it’s awesome,” she said to laughter from the audience.

The post Farmers urged to tell their story but keep it real appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

One just has to look at a few headlines to understand why farmers may feel this way. Animal rights groups are focused on agriculture and they are calling on the public to support their efforts. Often our response has been to be dismissive of the concerns raised. But animal agriculture needs to take a step back from the traditional defensive responses to these issues.

Activist groups like to portray our producers as heartless exploiters of their animals. But that is simply not the case. All of the farmers I know care very deeply about the welfare of the livestock under their care. Producers go to extraordinary measures, sometimes at significant personal sacrifice, to protect the health of their animals.

Activists do have it wrong, but that is not a reason to dismiss, out of hand, concerns from civil society. Consumers in Canada and throughout our key international markets are demanding to know more about their food. Where does that steak come from? Who produced it? How was it raised?

Governments are responding to these questions. After all, the people asking are the same ones who elect politicians to office. If we agricultural producers don’t answer these questions, the only people left to provide information are the activists.

Governments are not the only ones that are paying attention to the question “where does my food come from?” Our customers are paying attention as well. Large purchasers like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are developing contracts that specify how the meat they sell must be produced. Our customers are not developing these codes because it makes them feel good, they are taking these steps in response to consumer demand.

New code of practice

Producers should take this trend seriously. We need to tell our story to urban Canadians, who are mostly divorced from the realities of where their food comes from. Producers need to make a much greater effort to demonstrate the high standards of care under which our animals are raised. Our success at accomplishing this goal will determine if the words “animal welfare” will be a nemesis that drags down our industry, or an opportunity to differentiate Canadian products in world markets and enhance our bottom lines.

Beef producers in Manitoba are going to be hearing a lot more about animal welfare issues in the coming year. The National Farm Animal Care Council (NFAC) is in the process of revising the code of practice for beef production. NFAC includes representatives from producer groups (e.g., Canadian Cattlemen’s Association), the federal government, provincial governments and civil society through the humane society. This new code of practice will likely be open for public discussion by the end of this summer or early fall.

Similarly, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has launched a review of the regulations for the transport of animals. In other words, what regulations need to be in place to ensure animals arrive at their destination healthy?

These processes should be viewed as an opportunity for, not an impediment to, our industry. If the NFAC and the CFIA do their jobs, beef producers will have a clear way of proving to society what we already know — we care about the welfare of our animals.

It is critical that our industry is open to conversations with the public on animal welfare issues. Few people understand the measures farmers take to protect the well-being of their animals. When voters don’t understand agriculture the people they elect don’t understand agriculture issues. Politicians who don’t understand will pass legislation and regulations that target agriculture instead of recognizing that producers are society’s partners in welfare protection.

Animal rights groups actively approach consumers in their daily lives and they are finding new ways to get their messages across via YouTube videos and other social media such as Facebook. If we want urban Canada to pay more attention to our message we need to tell our stories and not just leave the playing field to the activists.

Engaging the public in this conversation is one of the key reasons why Manitoba Beef Producers is proud to be part of the effort to bring Dr. Temple Grandin to Manitoba on May 23. Dr. Grandin brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her discussion of animal handling, transport, animal environment and facility design. She is one of the most celebrated and effective animal advocates in the world.

Dr. Grandin is also an active consultant to the livestock industry. Her work demonstrates that animal welfare is not an “us versus them” issue. Going forward on this basis will benefit everyone in the livestock sector.

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