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If slaughter houses had glass walls… (Video)


slaughter house beef pork AMI temple grandin meat transparency

Pork Carcasses in a local slaughter house. Image via Smith Farms.

In the debate over transparency in our food systems and recent ‘ag gag’ bills/laws across the country, there has been a lot of fuss about slaughterhouses and the consumers’ ability to visualize what happens during livestock slaughter. The New York Times ran an opinion article titled “Open the Slaughterhouses” that opened debate on the ‘ag gag’ bills and our ability to report cases of animal cruelty.

In this country we are very desensitized to acts of death and violence, so simply opening up the slaughterhouse images can stir quite the negative response. A good example of this comes from Megan Brown sharing her custom exempt slaughter images and experience when harvesting both cattle and hogs at her family’s farm. Megan received a lot of criticism (some from within the livestock business) for being transparent and explaining how her animals were harvested.

Forrest Pritchard, local farmer in the D.C. area, has also done a great job with transparency, communicating with his customers about how food animals are raised, fed, and processed. His blog answers several questions from his Farmer’s Market customers and one of his recent posts took a brief tour of his local custom slaughterhouse. (By the way, here is my review of Forrest’s new book, Gaining Ground, released May 2013. I promise it’s well worth the read.)

There are several farm-to-fork, local food producers across the country that do a great job of connecting with their customers and answering their questions. However, not all of these messages cast commodity, or larger-scale agriculture in a positive light. Frankly, those larger-scale food producers have not done a good job at transparency. Or at least there is room for improvement.

As the author of the NYT Opinion piece suggests, increasing visibility in slaughterhouses would be a good thing, but there’s a problem with that. As we are so far removed from the reality and graphic nature of the process of death, imagery of animal slaughter comes as a shock to those who do not know what is occurring. Shoot those images straight out over the waves and of course it is a gruesome scene.

I haven’t been to a large number of slaughter houses, but the visits I have taken have been very educational. It’s amazing the massive amount of steps taken to ensure fair handling of the animals prior to, during, and after the harvest process. Food safety is a major concern for all of these processors. I’ve visited large processors like Tyson and JBS along with small regional processors. All my beef and pork as a youth was harvested at our local slaughterhouse. In college, I had the opportunity to take courses where we went through the entire process of harvesting the animal and processing the meat.

There’s a saying passed around to the effect of “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would stop eating meat.“ Through all of my experiences I consider myself more aware of how my meat is harvested, and feel safe when consuming products from our American food system. It certainly hasn’t turned me away from meat consumption.

The American Meat Institute and Temple Grandin are working together to fix a possible disconnect by grasping the glass walls approach. Dr. Grandin is an established animal welfare scientists who has had more impact on how animals are handled prior to and during the slaughter process. AMI and Grandin have teamed together for a few videos that walk us through the slaughter plants for beef and pork. Dr. Grandin chose plants that represent the industry and explain what is occurring and why it is done that way.

Last August, AMI released a video walking viewers through a beef plant as Dr. Grandin explains what is occurring.

Part Two of the Glass Walls project was released this month by AMI. In the second video, Dr. Grandin walks viewers through the process of getting pigs to slaughter and the steps involved in the process.

For a print version of this information, AMI has this PDF available. There are also many great resources related to animal welfare and handling at animalhandling.org.

We may not all be able to visit slaughter houses, and I don’t expect these videos to make people remove their distrust of meat industries, but opportunities to learn from a distance are extremely important. I do hope folks will receive them as a move toward better transparency.

Do you appreciate efforts like this from the meat industries to share more information about how animals are handled and slaughtered?

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Gaining Ground – Saving the Family Farm (Book Review and Giveaway)


The family farm will continue as long as its existence is valued. There is strength in a family, and balance. The earth appears to respond to these things. And who is to say what defines a family? Certainly not I. My best attempt would suggest a congregation of like-minded hearts.

Saving the family farm will forever be a process, not a goal or a destination. Like any necessary chore, the work never ends. It only waits for us the following morning, or the following season. So I wake and enter the day.

Somewhere, another farm awaits its farmer. — Forrest Pritchard

Gaining Ground A Story of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm Forrest Pritchard BookThere’s something to be said about a person, fresh out of college, who can take a struggling business model, endure their critics, and change it into a successful, sustainable business. Forrest Pritchard did that with his family farm in Berryville, VA and writes his narrative in Gaining Ground, set to be released later this month!

Most material I have read in recent years from the local, grass-based farming movement is critical of more-conventional methods of farming embraced by most farmers and ranchers in this country. Pritchard’s words still paint a negative image of modern beef, pork, and poultry farming, but it’s an honest perspective and not what his message relies upon. And I can greatly appreciate that.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the book when Forrest offered me an opportunity to read a copy earlier this year. There’s a foreward written by Joel Salatin – a farmer I respect for taking the road less traveled and opening up the world of food production to urban dwellers, but I’m not always fond of how he describes other farming and ranching methods. I took the challenge and sat down to read the book on Spring Break. In two afternoons on the porch, I had read the entire book.

Forrest Pritchard came home after college to his family farm unsure of what he wanted to do. He was left in shock as his family’s entire corn crop brought home a sum of $18.16 in 1996. He undertook the challenge and shares his narrative in Gaining Ground. Forrest includes the realities of trying build a farming operation on his seventh-generation farm land in the Shenandoah Valley. The stories kept me laughing as I tried to picture Forrest’s encounter with pastured poultry escaping and a flock of Barbados Blackbelly sheep that wouldn’t stay put. My favorite event may have to be when a determined hog outwits Forrest and leaves him treed one morning instead of taking a trip to the slaughterhouse.

Gaining Ground gives a good glimpse of the challenges encountered by a young man making a go in the niche of local food production. Forrest is pretty lucky to have found his place in the Farmers’ Markets and local foods in the larger D.C. area. Instead of broadening sales with the enticement of internet buyers, Forrest encourages others to seek out farmers in their local areas for fresh food.

I hope his story encourages others within reasonable distance of a metro area to seek out opportunities to cater to the urban demand for fresh foods. Be sure to follow Forrest and his farming journey on the Smith Meadows website, Facebook, and Twitter. Don’t forget you can purchase a copy of Gaining Ground: A Story of Farmers’ Markets, Local Food, and Saving the Family Farm on Amazon.

Actually, I enjoyed the book so much, I want to give a copy to someone. Yeah, that’s right. Another giveaway for a lucky reader!

Giveaway – Gaining Ground by Forrest Pritchard

Enter to win your own copy of Gaining Ground by filling out the entry form below. Entries will be placed in a drawing and a winner will be chosen on Thursday, May 23, 2013.

Be sure to ‘Like’ the I am Agriculture Proud Facebook page for more updates.

Follow Forrest Pritchard on Facebook for more of his story.

Only one entry per person. Immediate family of Ryan Goodman or Smith Meadows Farming Family are not eligible to win. Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Wednesday, May 22, 2013. Winner will be chosen by Random Number and notified via email. Winner has 24 hours to respond or prize will be forfeited.

Biotechnology in Cattle: Artificial Insemination goals for dairy farmers


A few weeks ago, I started a series featuring biotechnology tools used in cattle herds across the country. David and Jennifer Heim are friends of mine and own a dairy farm in northeast Kansas. The Heims milk 85-100 Holstein cows and raise their heifer calves as replacements. They also raise corn, soybeans, hay, and other forages, mostly for feed. Jennifer greatly enjoys spending time with her breeding and genetics program and does an awesome job blogging about the events and decisions made on the farm. When she wrote this blog post describing their use of Artificial Insemination in the herd, I was pretty excited that she is allowing me to share it with you.

Holstein Dairy Calf Hutch Artificial Insemination

This little gal (who is not this little any more) is from one of the cows I personally bred, which is a very cool feeling. She’s out of the bull Boliver, who happens to be one of the few proven bulls we were using last year.

Breeding is important, but it really doesn’t matter what you breed a cow to if she doesn’t get pregnant. Last spring, we started using blood tests to confirm pregnancies. Since then we’ve tweaked our protocol to best suit our herd’s needs. Our milk hauler picks up our blood samples, and I am usually home on Sundays to draw blood, so every other Sunday, when our milk will be picked up on a Monday morning, I take blood samples from cows and heifers that were bred between 8 and 10 weeks prior who have not shown a heat since. The test can indicate pregnancy at 28 days, but we were observing a lot of heats just shortly after testing, and about a month after testing, when we were testing earlier. We’ve been on the every-other week at 8 weeks bred schedule for 3 or 4 months now, and have had very few come back in heat after being confirmed pregnant.

Several weeks ago we wrapped up pregnancy confirmations on all our cows and heifers that were bred in 2012. We tallied everything up, and here’s what we learned:

What are your conception rates with artificial insemination?

We started out the year with great conception – about 60%. Then we had two unexplained terrible months in March and April. Summer brought normal lulls due to heat, but was still better than March or April. After the heat subsided and the herd adjusted, we finished the year with solid conception and a lot of pregnancies, including several cows who were on their final attempts. Next fall may be busier than this one was.

How do you select sires with artificial insemination?

We used a lot of bulls – 34 total. Of many of these, we only used one or two straws as we were finishing a cane (the typical semen storage vessel, each holding 10 straws) as the year started or starting one as it ended. But, we were also only purchasing 10 units of most bulls. This wasn’t exactly unintentional. We were using mostly genomic bulls (the numbers come from DNA testing rather than daughter-proven performance), and since the technology is new, we like to balance our risk by using a variety. However, on paper, it was a little shocking,. We also hadn’t realized how few daughter-proven bulls we included in the mix.

What lessons have you learned with AI on the farm?

The excitement of genomics apparently went to our heads. We used 10 units of a sire named G W Atwood who has the show-rings buzzing with his fancy daughters, but in hindsight, that’s one of the worst investments we made. Don’t get me wrong, Atwood daughters are beautiful cows, but many are too tall for our stalls and less efficient from a feed intake vs milk production standpoint than daughters of other available bulls. That’s not what we’re looking for. Thankfully (I guess?), from the 10 units we only have two pregnancies, and they’re both short stocky old cows that should be complemented by Atwood’s dairy type, and their smaller stature will hopefully influence the stature of their potential daughters.

We also learned that conception is important. We knew this, but after the terrible time we had last spring, it really has started to hit home. One of my favorite bulls we used last year isn’t very fancy. His production isn’t off the charts. He’s just a decent bull, but he does his job – he gets cows bred. We purchased Shyster for two primary reasons – 1) his pedigree is a out-cross on almost everything we have (he’s not a cousin or brother to many of our cows) and 2) he was listed as a high conception bull. I’m not sure what his overall conception rate is in our herd now, but I know he was 3 for 3 on his first three breedings including a cow and a heifer who we had already given more chances to get pregnant than most farms would. Shyster gets cows bred, and that’s what breeding is really all about!

What plans does your farm have moving forward with AI breeding?

Our biggest take-away from all the data was the need to focus on our specific goals moving forward. Our plan for 2013 is to use more units of a few carefully selected proven bulls while still mixing in a variety of genomic bulls who best fit our goals, based on both numbers and pedigree. These steps will hopefully help us achieve the focus we feel we are lacking.

What traits are you looking for in dairy cows?

Holstein Dairy Calf Hutch Artificial Insemination

This calf is over a year old now, and we confirmed her bred today. She’s out of the bull Planet, who is still near the top of the proven lists, and is bred to sexed Grafeeti. We are milking two Planet cows currently, and we really like them.

Our ideal cows are moderate in size, convert feed efficiently into milk, and are durable and healthy to hopefully stick around for the long haul. In addition, we have started looking more closely at components (fat and protein), which are the portion of the milk we are actually paid for. Thankfully, components also happen to be very “heritable”, meaning that in just a few generations, they can be greatly improved. And if the cows look gorgeous while producing gobs of milk, that’s great, too.

And I’ll say it again, conception matters. The best bull in the world does us no good if we don’t get cows bred. Conception is affected by a lot of things – the cow’s feed and environment play a role along with our breeding techniques, but the semen plays a role, too. For most bulls there is conception data of some sort available, and we intend to take advantage of it. Semen that doesn’t get cows bred is money down the drain.

Every bull doesn’t have to meet all of these criteria; we look at more than numbers. And we do carefully mate, so we know the cow’s strengths play a role, too. That being said, I am very picky when I select bulls. I think I should be. These are our girls, and we have to do what’s best for them and their future daughters. Anything less would be selling our herd, our milk check, and ourselves short.

Follow Jennifer’s story and learn more about decisions made on her dairy farm through her blog, on Twitter (@jmheim33), and on Facebook.

What do you want to Ask a Farmer about Artificial Insemination or Biotechnology in Cattle?

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How to handle conversations on controversial food issues


Food Farm Agriculture Tips for Controversial Issues Conversations

It would be perfect if we could always discuss food and farms around the feed bunk, but we have to be prepared for conversations to pop up anywhere.

Whether it is a t shirt from an ag conference or a hat supporting a friend’s ranch, wearing Agriculture-related clothing never ceases to strike up a good conversation. This week was no exception.

There is a brewery in town that I love to frequent. They have good pizza, great burgers, and at least a dozen televisions from any vantage point with at least 4 different sports channels on. I was enjoying my burger yesterday when the couple next to me asks about my Livestock Judging hat.

We talked about the judging team in Kansas where I got the hat and being involved in FFA. Conversation goes to my work with cattle and they compliment that with, “we need more people like that.” I say, “Yes ma’am. Someone has to grow our food.” She says, “especially with all the chemicals and stuff they feed them that changes the genetic makeup of our bodies.“

How do you respond to a statement like that?

… I carried on the conversation about our local food options and they had some great suggestions on local meats I will have to try.

The couple from the brewery are locals and there’s a good chance that I will see them again, so hopefully there will be opportunity to dive deeper into the conversation about the “chemicals and stuff” that goes into our food chain.

Tips for approaching controversial topics

When engaging in conversations about food, farming, and agriculture, more often than not we end up involving emotion and ‘facts’ from an array of backgrounds. So how do you handle these controversial subjects?

The setting, time frame, and casualness of the conversation may limit the depth of the conversation. Below are helpful points to come prepared with when you approach the table for discussion.

  •  When possible, set the stage to avoid fear of retaliation from opposing viewpoints
    1. Listen respectfully, without interrupting
    2. Respect one another’s views
    3. Criticize ideas, not individuals
    4. Commit to learning, not debating
    5. Avoid blame and speculation
    6. Avoid inflammatory language
  • Consider your own biases or confusion surrounding the issue
  • Recognize the diversity of the group. This is an asset and can lead to authentic conversation
  • Set a framework and objectives for the discussion that lead to engagement and consideration of opposing viewpoints
  • When possible provide a foundation and context for better understanding
  • As a moderator, foster civility and prepare to deal with tense or emotional moments
  • At the end of the conversation summarize and reflect, then always leave the door open for follow-up conversations.

The other members of the conversation may not have these tools in their belt, but sometimes it only takes one level-headed person to make a difference in the discussion. Learn more about preparing for difficult conversations and find more resources, in this link.

Opportunity for food conversation exists all around. You just have to pay attention. Sometimes it’s not about converting, educating, or even debating. Once in a while it’s just important to leave a good impression.

As my friend Janice says, there are times it’s best to choose the middle ground. But if you still have an itching to engage in an argument, my friends at Just Farmers have shared some tips you need to read first.

Related links where I’ve discussed how to approach food and farm conversations: