Irresponsible Reporting
Visit anti-beef websites and you will find myth after myth regarding the practices of ranchers. I’m Susan Allen stay tuned to learn about a recent on-line article intended to frighten consumers from purchasing beef. As if they are experts... anti beef advocates who live in urban environments commenting on the way ranchers raise cattle. Turn the tables would anyone believe a livestock producer criticizing a middle marketing manager at Kellogg’? Why do we. A story last week on the Environmental News Network site was titled, In Europe, A Cow Over Hormone-Treated U.S. Beef. Why not celebrate the fact that the U.S. and the EU finally settled their long running trade dispute over beef rather than focus on hormone phobias of a few French environmentalists. The author made the statement that the American cow spends only the first few months eating grass yet conveniently failed to mention that in the US most females spend their entire life on pasture. The article also misstated that cattle pens in U.S. feed lots hold tens of thousand of animals when in reality had this woman bothered to read our national feed lot standards from the American Society of Agricultural Engineers or visited a operation she would have learned that commercial feedlot pens can hold 100-200 animals per pen and all pens whether they contain ten or 200 cows must ensure each cow the same square footage.
