The Sustainability Discussion
It is important that Cattle Raisers be a part of this challenging and important national conversation that will affect how we ranch. By Stephen Diebel, vice chair, Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee
HANKS TO THE GOOD WORK
done by beef producers to create and maintain
ISSUES POLICY T
Stephen Diebel, vice chair, Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee
high standards of food safety, consumers are confident that beef in the retail case — regardless of the brand of the product — is safe. No one brand is considered safer than another because producing safe beef is our standard operating procedure. We are trying to develop
that same level of confi dence — that beef is sustainably produced regardless of brand. To accomplish this, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) leaders and staff have spent 2 years participating in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (USTRB), part of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB). Working with representatives from other beef
cattle associations, conservation groups, and com- panies such as Cargill, JBS and McDonalds, TSCRA members are helping to create systems to document the sustainability of the techniques ranchers use to raise beef cattle. Ranchers may look at the word “sustainability”
with a cynical eye and I agree that the concept is hard to defi ne. When this conversation started, I probably had the same questions and indignation many of you have. Isn’t sustainability just a fad among the young “foodies” these days? Who are these people to question what we do when we’re obviously doing it right, or we wouldn’t be here generation after generation? Don’t they know that we care about the land, our cattle and our communities?
74 The Cattleman July 2016
Well, no, they don’t know that we care and they
don’t know us. Think about the Millennial generation, people be-
tween 18 and 34. They include the grandchildren of the Baby Boomers. Some Baby Boomers, people between 52 and 70
years of age, were raised on the ranch, but most were a generation away from it. Baby Boomers may have spent the summers of their youth at the old home place with aunts, uncles or grandparents, but for the most part, they didn’t grow up to make their living on the ranch. Now, consider the grandchildren of the Baby Boom-
ers – the Millennials. For many, their closest ties to the land are great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents. They didn’t spend summers at the old home place be- cause it had been sold years ago. They spent summers at sports camps or daycare. Millennials are beginning to have their own fami-
lies and their kids are known as Generation Z. They like cooking at home from scratch. They want to know where their food comes from and how it was produced, whether they get it at an upscale grocery, at the drive- through or have the fresh ingredients delivered to their door in a box. Our new consumers have no generational back-
ground with food production and can’t be expected to unconditionally trust that beef is sustainably produced. It has never crossed their mind to trust us, especially since they’ve grown up the negative concept of “fac- tory farms” lurking in the background of their culture. It’s safe to conclude that our Generation Z consumers
won’t have any more opportunities to experience farm and ranch life than their parents did, so the notion of needing to prove the sustainability of our production methods is here to stay.
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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