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Published: May 02, 2008 12:27 pm
Making sure the beef story is properly portrayed
Originally published in the May 2, 2008, print edition.
Editor’s Note: Every spring the Minnesota Livestock Breeders’ Association inducts members into its Hall of Fame to honor those making a significant contribution to the Minnesota livestock industry. Gary Morrison of Osakis, Ron Eustice of Savage, and David and Kathy Skiba of North Branch were this year’s honorees. Eustice’s story follows, Morrison’s story was in the last issue and the Skibas will be featured in a future issue of The Land.
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“Yes. It’s all about relationships,” is the response of Ron Eustice, executive director of the Minnesota Beef Council, when asked if the general public needs to understand this business of food production and agriculture.
Used to working with the media in his 18 years with the Minnesota Beef Council directing a highly coordinated effort to improve the safety of ground beef, Eustice knows the value of good relationships. In his more recent consumer campaign talking irradiation as the most effective technology to eliminate the scourge of E. coli 0157:H7, media has been his key ally.
“The media and other major influencers need to know that we can be relied upon for factual information in a credible way with open and honest dialogue on the issues that arise from time to time in the food chain,” Eustice said.
Issues management is what his professional work is all about. He simply says that it is extremely important that agriculture has a voice and that “... we put a face on the product that we bring to the consumer. As our society becomes more urbanized with little or zero exposure to production agriculture, it is crucial that those of us who understand this amazing industry explain to consumers how America’s farmers provide the safest, the most diversified and the lowest cost nutrition of any country in the world.”
He acknowledges many aspects of modern agriculture are confusing, and generally misunderstood by the consumer. This puts even more emphasis on the safety and quality of food production. “Though seemingly unconcerned about actual source of their food, they are checking labels for specifics on nutrition value, fat content, cholesterol and a growing list of health factors. Soon country of origin may also become a factor in their buying habits. And here is where the popular press can be so valuable to American agriculture, if their reporters and editors take the time to have some appreciation of where food production really starts.”
Citing the two big Twin Cities daily newspapers, Eustice said, “We miss Lee Egerstrom” (long-time ag business writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press). He acknowledged that the printed media is under great pressure these days competing against the new technologies of the internet and the “instant access” electronics now bring to the marketplace.
“Many consumers today don’t subscribe to a daily newspaper. The internet, radio or television is their only information source so getting the food production story told in honest, detailed manner is extremely difficult. The internet today is the most powerful tool we have at our disposal.”
He cites three factors as most dramatic in impacting society on food production, food quality, even food health issues:
• Communications
• Globalization of agriculture
• Science and technology
Communications
His job at the MBC is all about communications. He recalled the “downer” cow issues at the South St. Paul Stockyards in 1992, and since then a seemingly endless series of major meat recalls because of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination in 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2007.
“Then there was the cow that stole Christmas on Dec. 23, 2003, when we had our first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or as the media likes to call it ‘mad cow’ disease. I recall doing about 30 media interviews on Christmas Eve, the last just as we sat down for a prime rib dinner. My message to each: Our beef is safe.”
He speaks candidly of the “disgusting” video images showing animal abuse at the Hallmark/Westland meat packing plant in Chino, Calif. “Our goal is not to be the lead story on the nightly news, but when bad things happen we need to tell our side of the story. And if we’re not available to reporters and journalists someone else will be interviewed and we may not agree, or like what they had to say.”
Eustice has some concern about undercover cameras in the future. He points out that by using satellite images available on an internet search engine called Google Earth, anyone, anywhere, can take a relatively detailed peek at a farm, ranch of place of business.
“Communication has brought many improvements to our lives but along with it comes the very real possibility that what goes on at our place of business could very well be the lead story on the 10 o’clock news.”
He said Minnesota is an agricultural giant because it ranks in the top tier of states in virtually every commodity produced in the state, and also because the state is home to some of the world’s largest and most advanced processors.
“Minnesota will continue to be a world-class producer of food and fiber as long as we continue to be visionaries and lead the crowd. Remember SPAM, Scotch tape, Wheaties, Green Giant and Bisquick helped establish a name for Minnesota-produced quality in the marketplace.”
Science and technology
According to Eustice, in 1870 the average lifespan in the United States was 40 years. Today, life expectancy has nearly doubled to about 76 years for men and now over 80 years for women. And science made the difference citing pasteurization of milk, immunizations against disease and chlorination of water as being key contributors.
Recalling the doomsday predictions of pasteurization opponents, Eustice has faced much of the same contrary thinking in his recent efforts to promote and educate beef producers, consumers and food company officials about the benefits of food irradiation.
“The Hudson Foods E. coli outbreak in 1997 resulted in 21 million pounds of ground beef being recalled. The media called and at that time I didn’t have answers. But a call from state epidemiologist Michael Osterholm soon paved the way for providing answers. He encouraged the MBC to study food irradiation because he believed it could do for ground beef what pasteurization did for milk. And he was right.”
Eustice said since their research work began, more than one million samples of irradiated ground beef has been served at food shows, fairs, health events across Minnesota and other parts of the country.
He’s emphatic about irradiation and food safety stating that to the scientific community and health experts the idea of food irradiation is a “no brainer. Plain and simple, irradiation can do for ground beef what pasteurization did for milk. There is no ‘down side’ to irradiation. Yet today only about 15 million pounds of ground beef are irradiate annually, about the same amount as in 2002.”
He wonders, “What’s holding us back? Why are we allowing children to suffer and die when food borne illness is easily preventable?”
Dr. Robert Tauxe of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that if 50 percent of poultry, ground beef, pork and processed meats sold in the United States were irradiated, the potential benefit would be a 25 percent reduction in the morbidity and mortality rate caused by these E. coli infections. Tauxe indicates that irradiation could prevent nearly 900,000 cases of infection; 8,500 hospitalizations; more than 6,000 catastrophic illnesses and 350 deaths each year.
Some food firms do irradiate their products. Schwan’s and Omaha Steaks have irradiated all their ground beef for nearly a decade. Wegmans, an upscale retail supermarket chain on the East Coast, also is a strong proponent of irradiation.
It’s the opinion of Eustice that with consumers demanding more food safety, irradiation is a technology that needs to be used more extensively in the meat and produce processing business.
Message beyond borders
Eustice grew up on a southern Minnesota farm, attended Owatonna High School, and holds a degree in agricultural journalism and animal science from the University of Minnesota. He was an International 4-H Youth Exchange student to Uruguay and has returned several times to Uruguay to revisit his host farm families.
He worked in Mexico two years teaching artificial insemination classes to local cattle producers. He then spent several years marketing semen internationally and became fluent in German, plus conversant in Italian, Portuguese and French. He and his wife, Margaret McAndrews, (also a former IFYE) took their three small children to Indonesia for three years where Ron conducted “Train the Trainer” classes in the Indonesian language for young Javanese who trained local farmers about dairy cattle husbandry.
He was hired by the MBC in 1990 and reminded his dairy industry friends that dairy producers are in the beef business too. He initiated the first Dairy Beef Quality Assurance program in the country and this past winter conducted the first ever Quality Assurance workshop in Spanish. One of his goals at the MBC is to promote the beef and dairy industries to work together more closely.
A key financial source for the work of the MBC is the national beef checkoff program which collects $1 per animal when marketed.
Building value
A particular source of pride for Eustice is the close work of the beef council with the Minnesota Heart Association, an idea proposed by longtime beef producer Leonard Wolf of Morris. The intent being to demonstrate to the medical world how lean beef could be part of a healthy diet.
“It’s really neat to sit down with 700 health professionals at their annual Heart Gala event and 93 percent of them choose the 6- to 8-ounce steak as their entree for the banquet dinner,” Eustice said, saying this sends a powerful message to the medical world that lean beef works.
He also notes the success of a new steak, the Flat Iron steak, processed from the chuck portion of the beef carcass. These are new cuts of beef created by checkoff research that have added new and additional value to the total beef carcass. “These used to be muscles that we didn’t know how to best utilize so we mostly ground them into hamburger. Now the Flat Iron Steak is tremendously tasty, tender, palatable, and very lean as well. It’s so good the name has stuck, even white-linen restaurants now have Flat Iron as one of their steak entrees on the menu.”
Thanks to this muscle-profiling research, these new cuts of beef have added about $60 additional value to each beef carcass. That’s partially why beef demand keeps increasing, and more importantly, why cattle producers are getting more value.
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