Disclosure: This post was created in partnership with Midwest Dairy. My attendance to the 2019 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholder’s Summit was sponsored and I was compensated for my time. As always, all opinions are my own and I have not been paid to alter my views.
Earlier this month I attended the Animal Agriculture Alliance’s Stakeholder Summit in Kansas City. I couldn’t have been more excited to have this local event practically in my own backyard (hooray for no travel and sleeping in my own bed!) and I can’t thank the team at Midwest Dairy enough for making my attendance possible.
You might be asking, “Why would a dietitian be attending an event all about animal agriculture?” And that’s a fair question. Most of the time dietitians can be found in clinical settings like hospitals or outpatient offices, retail settings like grocery stores, or working in the community to counsel for nutrition-related interventions or wellness programs. However, dietitians have really been branching out over the last several years and although our range of skills is expanding, we still tend to focus on food after it becomes, well…food.
That is to say, there’s a lot more to the story that we can (and perhaps should) be considering. It’s trendy to talk about sustainability. We all like to try to reduce food waste. We want to be conscious of how our food decisions impact the environment. No one wants to eat a product that was grown or produced inhumanely or in a way that harms the environment. But what if it isn’t as simple as recommending that everyone turn to a plant-based diet?
I’ve tried my best to hear both sides of the story – that’s why I made it a point to have a seat at the table for conversations about the merits of eating plants AND animals. If anything, it only made me more aware of what I didn’t know.
So now I’m more curious than ever. I want to know more about the other half of the story: before food becomes food.
Where Does Our Food Come From?
This question used to be a lot easier to answer! In past generations, more of us were involved in growing our food or otherwise owning a part of the process. Granted, it may have been out of necessity. That’s one of the reasons why fewer and fewer people continue to be involved in agriculture and food production; at this point, only 2% of Americans are directly involved with feeding the other 98% of us. Agriculture has seen massive surges in innovation and improvements in technology and that means we (as a country) can produce more food with fewer inputs.
This is part of what’s been driving the disconnect between us and our food; we simply don’t know where it comes from. This is something I often hear echoed by my clients, who have concerns about the safety of their food or don’t understand what the labels referring to growing or production practices really mean.
The morning session on Day 1 kicked off with a consumer insights panel and many of these panelists responded with the same concerns about where their food comes from. However, one of the overarching themes of this conversation was that, at the end of the day, most consumers are still incredibly budget sensitive. That sometimes has to override our desire to shop for what seems like a “premium” product – but why do we perceive a value product as somehow being less safe if it doesn’t have all of the front-of-package labeling that more expensive items do?
Many of us want to know the answer to that question of who’s growing or producing our food. And it’s fascinating, in my opinion, to see how innovations in other industries are benefiting the agriculture world as well. Block chain technology is one example. That was the focus of another session later in the day, and there were many examples of how this type of system could have wide-reaching benefits for the food system as a whole.
Here are just a couple of examples of how it could be used (and in fact, is already being used in some places):
- Tracking fish and seafood (like line-caught tuna) from the time it’s caught, shipped, and sold so there is consistency throughout the entire supply chain. This could reduce fraud, which is common in the seafood industry, as well as validating sustainability labels like “line-caught” vs. less environmentally-conscious fishing practices.
- Alerting the industry and the public to food borne illness outbreaks. In the case of leafy greens, block chain technology could trace the contaminated products back to their point of origin and issue a recall based on what is affected. Rather than tossing all potentially contaminated products, only the contained produce is pulled, reducing food waste and potentially easing concerns that would prevent shoppers from eating produce during a recall.
- Allocating resources and inputs such as groundwater. This could have some interesting potential for regions affected by drought, such as California.
So while I will continue to rely on others to produce my food, I learned a great deal about how the agriculture industry is working to be more transparent and advocate for strategies that make food buying less confusing for us. After all, if I’m a dietitian who lives and breathes food, and I still have questions…what does that really say about the way food is marketed and sold? These sessions really gave me a lot to think about but it was reassuring to know that many in the agriculture world feel similarly.
Who’s Producing Our Food?
When I looked around the room at the other 300+ attendees, I saw a wide range of people represented. And I had the pleasure of having some great conversations with a few of them over the course of the two-day event. Of course, no single event can ever capture everyone within a wider industry, but there were opportunities to hear from a number of farmers with diverse backgrounds and operations.
One of my favorite things about attending ag-related events is connecting with the people who feed me. I think one of the most common misconceptions about modern food is that most of what we eat is produced by “corporate farms”…when in reality, the majority of farms in the US are still family-owned.
A different panel on Day 1 featured someone from one of those families. Debbie Lyons-Blythe is a cattle rancher from the Flint Hills region of Kansas. If any of you are familiar with the Flint Hills, you know there’s, well, not much to see. But while it’s not ideal for some uses, it happens to be an excellent area for cattle ranching. And Debbie shared a lot of insight about how good land management practices and stewardship can actually be beneficial for the environment. She went further to note that any conversation about sustainability should also include financial sustainability.
Consider this: If we were all able to focus on what we’re 1. Passionate about and 2. Skilled at, it stands to reason that we would continue to get better and better at doing that thing. We’d also be less likely to burnout or leave the industry for something else that meets our basic needs. That holds true in agriculture, where farmers who are financially secure have more capacity to focus on reducing their environmental impact. My fellow dietitian (and event speaker) Kim summed it up:
One big takeaway was the respect and support that runs through a community like this. There’s room for choice because it seems everyone in the room was on the same page (or at least close to it) about working towards a common goal of doing the right thing for people, animals, and the planet.
What Does This Mean For Me?
I hope this has made you a little more curious about where your food comes from and the people behind the scenes. One thing I’ve come to realize is that farmers are among the most transparent, straight-forward people I ever have the privilege of speaking to. But oftentimes we’re very quick to jump to conclusions based on what we hear or read in the media. We don’t stay skeptical long enough to hear the full story, often from someone on the other side.
So for now, I’ll leave you with this thought:
A healthy dose of skepticism and curiosity will serve us well when talking about the future of food. I talk a lot about the nuance of things (hello intuitive eating!) and things are rarely, if ever, black and white. If you feel up to it, channel that curiosity into reaching out to someone to learn something new or talk about a topic that challenges you.
As for me, I’ll be continuing my efforts to learn as much as I can about the food I eat. Follow along with me for National Dairy Month (can you believe it’s right around the corner??) as I team up with Midwest Dairy again for future posts. And if this post is any indication, social media is where a lot of it will end up! I hope you’ll stick around for it. I’d love to share my seat at the table with you.