The anti-grazer movement?

Somehow I seem to trip over stuff that just “torques my shorts!” And this little diddy from Iowa, particularly from their land grant university – Iowa State, has ruined another pair of my underwear. Read the story below from The Stockman Grass Farmer” and Allan Nation:

Pro-Grassfed Statement Creates Controversy at Iowa State Thursday, 02 December 2010

Apparently thinking that cattle should eat grass can cost you your job at Iowa State University. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ricardo Salvador, who was thought to be the front-runner for the directorship of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State, made an off-the-cuff remark that seemed to endorse grassfed beef. He said that he was in favor of beef “produced in the natural way that meat should be produced, which is on lands suitable for grasses and perennial crops.” This apparently brought the wrath of the Iowa Farm Bureau down on him and he was passed over for the post. The president of Iowa State said he thought it was important for the center’s director to “walk the middle ground” and not antagonize conventional agriculture interests. When the Dean of the school of agriculture was asked by The Chronicle whether or not she thought cattle were evolved to eat grass, she replied, “I don’t have an opinion on that statement.” Dennis Keeney, the Leopold Center’s first director, said he firmly believed that cows should eat grass but said the real point of the matter was whether or not the Leopold Center has the independence, not only to criticize conventional agriculture if necessary, but also to state facts about crops are grown and livestock is raised. Pressure from outside groups, and from supporters of conventional agriculture within the university, may make it so that “the center can’t be governed anymore.” Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau, said the organization “must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule.”

I had to add this one as well – shows how much clout conventional ag has with our search for “the truth” at some of our universities. Money is power.

Texas A&M Refuses To Produce Grassfed Beef Study
Friday, 23 July 2010
Requests for a copy of the original study cited in a recent press release from Texas A&M Agrilife Research pooh-poohing the health benefits of grassfed beef have gone unanswered. The study reputedly showed that eating five grassfed beef hamburgers a week for five weeks did not lower the cholesterol of the participants and was widely bandied about by pro-feedlot agribusiness. The study was paid for by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association whose primary support comes from feedlots. Andrew Gunther of Animal Welfare Approved Beef wrote in the American Grassfed Association newspaper Open Pastures that his requests for a copy of the study to Dr. Stephen Smith, the author of the paper; the dean of Texas A&M’s School of Agriculture and the NCBA had produced no results. Gunther said the British research cited only concerned ten individuals whose diet was totally unsupervised and all of whom had high cholesterol levels before the study began. The Texas study admittedly only covered 27 people who ate five burgers a week for only five weeks at a time. Again, the rest of their diet was totally unsupervised. “What other food did they eat?” Gunther asked. “And what about the health status and initial cholesterol results of the volunteers? We just don’t know.” A form letter from Dr. Smith said the study was currently under peer review for possible academic publishing but several nutritional researchers told Gunther that the study group was way too small to produce any meaningful results. “Sorry guys, but it is time to put up or shut up if you want consumers to believe your science,” Gunther said. “Based upon what is already published we know that the science shows that grassfed products are far healthier than grainfed as grassfed products contain higher levels of vitamin E and omega 3. Grass beef is unlikely to be carrying E coli 157 – sadly not something you can say of all grainfed, feedlot beef.”

I’m not picking sides on the health benefits of grassfed beef but at least present the data Aggies!