Future of Farming - The sooner we stop talking about ‘social license’ the better

By: "Farm Tender" News
US & World News
May 27, 2019
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This article is bought to you by Australian Fodder Industry Association.

By George King - Managing Director at The Whitney Pastoral Company Pty Ltd, "Coombing Park"

I see farming as one of the most noble and honorable pursuit one could choose in life. Farmers are wardens for the environment and animals whilst provide humans with sustenance – and because we have farmers humanity can afford every other pursuit known to man.

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Farmers alone do not feed people, supply chains feed people and the most important part of the supply chain is the consumer. Every dollar which enters the supply chain is consumer related.

The combative relationships up and down the supply chain are not helpful, fighting for a share of the consumer’s dollar instead of collaborating on key issues to increase the value chain. As an industry we need to engage with each other to get collaboration on some key issues facing our industries ‘consumer license’ to operate. The sooner we stop talking about ‘social license’ the better – a multi-billion dollar industry employing hundreds of thousands of people whose license to operate is decided by noisy & fanatical minorities?

Some of the critical issues we need to face and co-ordinate on for our consumer license to continue are:

1) Animal welfare.

2) Nutritional benefits of meat.

3) Environmental protection and Climate Change.

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There is a saying that you should never argue with an idiot as they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Engaging with the anti-meat activists falls into this category, they are a dangerous and destructive mob who left unchecked have the ability to disrupt civilization and cause untold environmental disaster. Their disconnect from reality is astounding.

1) Animal welfare – every living thing on earth owes its life to the lives which have gone before it and every living being on earth is going to die. There is a food chain where sentient beings kill and eat the sentient beings below them. The entire ecology of the earth has evolved with this food chain. All life is sacred and all death should be treated with reverence. As humans we have to offer the best care and attention to the sentient beings in our care including a humane death.

Perhaps the average life span of domesticated stock would be greater than the same stock in the wild as disease, infant mortality, predation, starvation and dehydration are mostly alleviated by human management.

The free range chicken industry has demonstrated that 99.9% of the chickens prefer to live inside their climate controlled sheds with permanent food and water than be outside on the grass with the predators flying above. As emotionally confronting as a picture of cattle in a feed-lot can be the reality remains that the cattle are most content when they are in their social group with ample feed and water away from potential predators, this is genetically programmed into herbivores.

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2) Nutritional benefits of meat - Humans have evolved for millennia as omnivores, our rapid cognitive progression has been credited to the taming of fire which opened up meat into our diet. A US survey noted that 84% of vegans and vegetarians go back to eating meat, the essential macro and micro nutrients and oils for proper health and in particular proper brain function are only readily available in meat. It appears you have to be an unemployed millionaire to have a healthy vegan diet

3) Environmental protection and regeneration – consumers want to know the food they are buying is not at the expense of the environment. 70% of the earth’s surface is brittle tending, that is it has erratic rainfall and is not suitable to cropping. The biological processes which break down the grasses on this 10 billion hectares of the earth’s surface live in the stomach of rumen animals which graze these areas. The only option humanity has to restore these environments is grazing animals

Arguing how much water is ‘wasted’ per kilogram of steak is ridiculous. There is approximately 1,400 million cubic kilometers of water on the earth circulating through the hydrological cycle, this figure stays the same as water cycles through green, blue and grey stages. Beef is 75% water by weight, in other words a kilogram of steak contains 750ml of water.

The carbon issue is similar, the problem is the carbon is in the wrong place, increasing the organic carbon in the farming soils will increase their water holding capacity and productivity. Agriculture has the ability to sequest all 550Mt of the current industrial emissions annually. The methane debate needs to be stopped, it is a natural process of living animals. When methane (CH4) is released from an herbivore it is mostly rapidly photo-oxidized into H2O and CO2 by hydroxyl radicals formed when sunlight interacts with the transpired water vapor. Generally green grass can photo-oxidise 100 times the CH4 released from the animals grazing that area.

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When our peak bodies can engage more effectively with us via the online world will be within a chance of collaborating and then engaging with our consumers. Educational videos showing animal behavior and the cycle of life, stories of environmental outcomes using livestock. No more whingeing stories of battling farmers needing to make a living at the expense of animal welfare and ecosystem destruction.

Informing our consumers of the health benefits of meat, how we are caring for the animals and the environmental necessities of running livestock will encourage consumers to pay value for the product. Branded niche products have proven this time and time again. And if we are to effectively engage with our predominantly female consumers it would be prudent to have more educated, intelligent and motivated women in Ag leadership roles, above the current 13%.