The past few months have been a whirlwind to say the least. I have worked in the most powerful city in the country, DC, I have graduated college with 2 degrees, and I have ended some of my favorite chapters in my life. While on vacation and visiting with family I took some time out for a friend of mine to go out and eat. My friend, who is from an agriculture background, brought a friend with her whom has lived in the city all her life. Now, I will preface this by saying that I am an advocate for all of agriculture, I think that we are already the underdog without beating each other up. So, for me the argument of organic vs. conventional is of interest of me because I want people to think about the decision and make the decision based on facts. Then if they know the facts and make an educated decision I am happy they know something about their food. The night started out with her talking about her grocery shopping habits and how she preferred an organic product to a conventional one. Well, since I am the type of person who wants to understand people's decision-making when it comes to organic vs. conventional, I asked her why should bought organic and what opinion did she have on conventional. She didn't have a straight answer, except that all animals that are used in conventional are abused and live in unhealthy conditions. She said that organic was more natural and healthier for her body. This is where I saw a need for advocating and decided a little more education can help this girl. Over dinner we talked about facts pertaining to conventional and organic agriculture. I agree that conventional agriculture has a lot of development when it comes to animal welfare, environmental issues, and sustainability issues. However, I also know the organic industry has some issues that need to be address, for example, if a cow has mastitis in an organic dairy they can not treat her. This is due to the law that says no antibiotics may be used.
Mastitis is an infection of the udder, this bacterial infection causes uncomfort, can cause death of mammary cells, and eventually can, if left untreated, cause death to a cow.
After I had simulated her interest in learning more about her food, I started asking her questions about what she new. From what I gathered not a whole lot. So, since we were on cows, I figured we could start with dairy. You would be amazed how many people do not know that a cow must have a calf to produce milk. They just assume that since they are a dairy animal then they automatically produce milk. So we started there and ended with humane slaughter. I feel that to truly understand slaughter that you need to know the whole truth, so I took her through the whole process. First, I asked her if it was ok because we were eating beef. She said that it was fine to talk about it, she had a tough stomach.
After going through the entire process, she started to understand the process and then started to understand our industry just a bit. And if that is the only thing I did that day, I feel like I was productive. Informing a consumer, it always makes me feel better.
