Taking Back Our Language
By Jen Hill
In 2022 language seems to mean everything and nothing, all at the same time. Our words have definitions, but in this new world they shift like sands in the wind, molding themselves to fit with the political whims of the day. It has mostly been the radical left who’ve taken advantage of these murky waters where what Webster says no longer rules. They’ve been so aggressive in their stance on the grey hill of ambiguity that we’re left with a cultural shift allowing a Supreme Court nominee to openly declare that she cannot define a woman because she’s not a biologist, and no one is shocked. The left realized long ago, tracing all the way back to when they look the term liberal and transformed it from a derivative of ‘liberty’ to mean ‘more government’, that changing the language changes the culture. In agriculture it was historically the retailer that helped define our product for consumers, but lately we see the animal rights and environmental activists defining more terms that will forever impact our ability to maintain our businesses and market our products. However, in this new era where it is easier than ever to communicate directly with our consumers and the world we have an opportunity to take a play from the liberal book and raise our voices loud enough to define our own terms.
Sustainable
In the last decade I’ve watched ag producers become increasingly terrified of this word in response to the demand for “environmental sustainability” coming from the left. Their fear is not unfounded, as we know that the same people who like to throw that word around believe that animal agriculture is responsible for global warming and that we’d all be better off living on lab meat. But their radical version of sustainable doesn’t have to be ours. Merriam-Webster defines the word sustainable as a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. Given that phrasing it’s easy to see that ranchers have always been sustainable. If we weren’t, we would’ve been out of business and grass generations ago. Rather than cowering in fear every time we hear someone say “sustainable” we should jump at the chance to say, “yes, we are, and let me tell you how”. It’s the perfect opportunity to talk about your holistic grazing practices, your crop nutrient balance and how much more efficient our industry has grown. It’s also an excellent place to transition the conversation to the version of sustainability that we’re all concerned with right now, economic sustainability and discuss the ways increased input costs and lack of market competition are killing the American rancher.
Vertical Integration
Vertical integration is the act of a business taking on either the down or upstream process of their product. In ranching this can look like a rancher purchasing a hay pivot and putting up their own feed, building some pen space and feeding out some cattle or selling direct to consumers. It’s a way to help insulate your business from rising input costs or take more control of your marketing options. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Most often it provides some small level of diversification and padding to your bottom line. It’s also always a risk. We recently purchased some pivots, then the price of fertilizer exploded. Am I worried that we made the wrong choice? Duh. But we also couldn’t stomach cutting that hay check anymore, so we decided to do some vertical integration.
The problem is when you mention this growth strategy in agriculture circles everyone’s mind automatically goes to the Big Four and the perceived future where they purchase all the way down to the cow-calf man, taking full control of the beef cycle. Yes, that’s terrifying. Several weeks ago I wrote a piece about the value of vertical integration for regular producers and heads exploded, mostly because nobody bothered to read beyond the headline and see that I wasn’t talking about JBS. But is that maybe dystopian future enough to turn the entire approach into a slur, taking the option of small and medium operator vertical integration off the table? No. We should be encouraging one another to find economic stability where we can, even, or maybe especially, when it means taking more control of your up and downstream.
Product of USA
Labeling matters because words matter, but our consumers are beginning to lose faith in the words we use on our products, and they should be. After years of raised eyebrows around ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ and many consumers waking up the fact that these labels often mean little, ‘Product of USA’ is ripe for a turn in the spotlight. As it stands the label can be used on any product that is processed in the US, even if it just means a change in packaging. This leaves our consumers in a position where they may think they know what they are consuming, but don’t. It also leaves our industry in a position where consumer trust could be easily shaken. But this is where the controversy comes in; should the government mandate by force (because that’s what all government mandates boil down to) the labeling requirements and thus definitions of these words? Right now as producers we have options, we can chose to market our cattle into a voluntarily labeled program that promotes a pasture to plate USA product. These retail companies are growing and with some research, are easy to find. But what about the consumer end? How do they know which products are truly American? With current rules it all comes down to education. Instead of leaving consumer education up to the Beef Checkoff let’s take some of that back, and with social media it’s never been easier. Push the retail brands that offer truly American beef. Fill consumer newsfeeds with the list of voluntary labeled programs and call out those that you know to be suspect. Quit waiting for the government to define the words and get down to the hard business of educating the consumers however you can.
Refusing to engage in conversations that include words we’re avoiding or scared of doesn’t mean those conversations no longer happen, it only means our voices won’t be heard in them, and that’s a problem.