Podcast: Are cattle raised sustainably and humanely? 

Clinton Monchuk: 0:07

From Canadian Food Focus, this is Ask a Farmer . I’m your host Clinton Monchuk, a Saskatchewan farmer. In this podcast, we talk to food experts to answer your questions about your food. Here we are with the Ask a Farmer Podcast and we have Erika Stewart with us today to talk a little bit about the Verified Beef Program. Now, before we kind of get into a little bit more of the program, I just want to ask you a little bit about yourself. Erika, I know, we’ve had the privilege of walking with you at Pine Ranch over the last couple years on Canadian Food Focus, but maybe just give us a little bit of a background of your ranch and your family and just help all our listeners know a little bit more about yourself.

Erika Stewart: 0:57

Sure. Thanks Clinton, and thanks for having me on the podcast today. My name is Erika Stewart and I am a third-generation rancher and we currently ranch in Morse, Saskatchewan. My husband Cyle and I and our three girls ranch alongside my parents. We have about 300 mother cows and then we grass some yearlings as well.

Clinton Monchuk: 1:17

So Erika, one of the things that I noticed since I’ve watched really all of your videos that you have on Canadian Food Focus, but one of the things that I really take note of is the fact that you have three little girls and they follow you around and jump up on the horse with you. You have them strapped to your chest or your back depending on what you’re doing. How does that actually work? I know you and you and Cyle are committed to your cattle, but also obviously very committed to your three little girls.

Erika Stewart: 1:50

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s just so fun having them with us. We try to take them with us as much as we can. Sometimes that means that we are not very efficient. Cyle actually calls us the “efficiency crew”, so usually efficiency goes down when we come and help. But yeah, it’s just we love ranching and the neat thing is, is you can do that with your family. I mean, it is getting a little bit harder now that they’re getting a bit older. When they were younger, like you said, they were on our back or on our front or whatever. And carriers are the best invention ever, but it is getting harder in a way. But now they’re asking more questions and they want to be outside with us. All of them have their own cows and they know their numbers. And so just trying to hopefully provide them with an opportunity to know agriculture and hopefully love it like we do. And it’s just, it’s such a fun thing to do all of us together too. We just appreciate that we have that opportunity to essentially take our kids to work with us every day.

Clinton Monchuk: 2:54

It is interesting because it just sparks that interest of growing food in their lives and in their hearts. And I think back when I was you know, around their age, I used to play farming with my brother, now who I farm with. It really kind of just feeds that passion for agriculture.

Erika Stewart: 3:12

Yeah, absolutely. It’s pretty fun and special to grow up like this. So yeah, we are just trying to provide that for our girls too.

Clinton Monchuk: 3:21

So, you’re not originally from Saskatchewan though. Maybe tell us a little bit about the story of how crazy it was to move from some beautiful winters out in British Columbia into Saskatchewan.

Erika Stewart: 3:32

Yes, winters are different out here than what we’re used to, that’s for sure! So, I’m actually originally from Merritt, BC. I grew up on my family’s ranch there, the same ranch my dad grew up on, and our first daughter was born there. It was a place that, you know, was very much a part of me and I loved very much and just I always thought that we would raise our family there and I would live there. But we made the really hard decision in about 2016 that it was just where we were located anyhow, it was just too hard to ranch there. So, we started looking for places out here, which was actually a really fun experience. We got to see a lot of Saskatchewan and like actually see places, you know, so it was, it was really fun. But then it got a bit stressful. Our ranch sold and we didn’t have a place yet, so we had to be out by April 22, 2017. And we had no place for all of our cows or us. But then we did finally find a place in Morse and we hauled all of our cows out here, [plus] equipment and belongings. Moving a whole ranch was was quite an interesting time.

Clinton Monchuk: 4:39

I can’t even imagine. So like, I’ve moved a few times. The first few times I’ve moved, I could fit everything in the back of my Plymouth Acclaim, right? And so, everything I owned kind of fit in a suitcase. So, moving a farm would’ve been one heck of an experience.

Erika Stewart: 4:55

Well and going through the shop—Dad’s tools, how many crescent wrenches do we have, do we need this or just that? Yeah, it was a lot.

Clinton Monchuk: 5:03

Quite the ordeal. We want to talk a little bit more about the Verified Beef program and maybe if you could just give us a little bit of an overview of what the program is to help everybody understand what it is and then we’ll talk about some of the reasons around why the cattle industry decided to implement it.

Erika Stewart: 5:22

So the Verified Beef Program, or the Verified Beef Production Plus as it’s called now, is the quality assurance program for the Canadian beef industry essentially. When it first came out in like the late 90s, the whole focus was food safety. And then in 2016, with the inception of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, the Verified Beef Program, because we are actually a certification body for the CRSB, the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, we wanted to make sure that our program fit the CRSB’s definition of what sustainable beef is. There are three new modules added and that’s why now it’s VBP Plus or the Verified Beef Production Plus Program, just to include those new modules. The new modules are animal care, biosecurity and Environmental Stewardship, along with the initial module of food safety.

Clinton Monchuk: 6:16

Maybe what we could do is just talk a little bit about each of those three components of it. So, the first one is around animal care. Do you want to just kind of walk us through what that means for a typical rancher here in this country?

Erika Stewart: 6:29

Each module has standard operating procedures that are taught in the training. So, the first step of the Verified Beef Plus training would be to actually take the training and it’s offered online all the time. Or a big part of my job as the provincial coordinator in Saskatchewan is to organize in-person workshops, so I go around the province and deliver the training in-person to producers. The point of that training, or kind of what happens is, I would go over each of those modules and the standard operating procedures that are required by the program through, for each of those four modules. For the animal care component, it’s a lot like any of the requirements of the Beef Code of practice which then become a requirement of the VBP Plus program. Most of these are things that most of the time producers are already doing, right? We want to make sure we’re providing animals with shelter from extreme weather conditions. We want to make sure we’re providing them access to quality and quantity, nutrition and water. So, most of these things are common practices, but the Verified Beef program just helps maybe formalize them or give actual protocol to producers to follow.

Clinton Monchuk: 7:44

So, are you an auditor? Actually, I should ask.

Erika Stewart: 7:47

No, definitely not. The programs made that quite distinctive. I am the provincial coordinator. I’m the first point of contact f or producers and my role is education. So, I’m there to teach the training to make sure producers are prepared for their audit. But I’m not an auditor in Saskatchewan. We have three trained auditors in the province. They actually go out and do the audit just so there’s that clear distinction, right? If I was helping educate and train and being an auditor, we could say there could be a little bit of gray area there. They want to make sure the audit process is rigorous. It would be the same findings that we would find in Saskatchewan on an operation and in BC and in Ontario because VBP Plus is a national program. No, I’m not an auditor.

Clinton Monchuk: 8:30

So that’s interesting. I think a lot of people sometimes think the auditing of these programs is done by those who are kind of teaching the program. And it’s nice to see that there’s that division to make sure there’s independent auditors that if there is, you know, things that need to be improved upon on, on different ranches or in feedlots, that it actually takes place.

Erika Stewart: 8:50

That’s exactly right. We want to make sure our program is rigorous and we’re able to provide a standard and make sure that, you know, producers are doing that standard.

Clinton Monchuk: 9:01

This kind of gets into the consumer side of things. We work a lot with the Canadian Center for Food Integrity and one of the studies that just came out this last year was talking about consumers views or beliefs on different pieces of the food system. And one of them is around the humane treatment of animals. It’s interesting because when you look at the numbers, there’s a lot of conversation I think about people say switching their diets, but within the numbers it shows fairly clearly that the vast majority in 95-96% of Canadians still consume animal proteins. But what’s concerning is the level of Canadians that actually don’t believe animals are raised humanely. The figure that came out was roughly only a third of Canadians actually feel that animal agriculture raises their livestock or poultry humanely. So, based on this then, Erika, do you feel that this is a program that kind of drums up a little bit more of that support for the humane treatment and the care of cattle here in this country?

Erika Stewart: 10:13

Yeah, I think that was one of the goals. One of the focuses of the program is to instill consumer confidence in Canadian beef and how we’re raising that beef. So, I think that does align. I do just want to say kind of before I get into the verified beef answer, if that’s okay. Like when you say that stat, that actually like hurts my heart as a producer myself, if you think about it in terms of that this is my career, this is what we strive to be better at all the time and we take a lot of pride in producing beef for our family, for families in Canada and around the world. So just to hear that, that consumers are that unsure about how we’re treating animals is yeah, like actually like hurts a little bit. I mean I just think about our ranch and the things that we do on a daily basis. The animals are the priority when it’s cold out. In the last two years, calving season has been hard. We calve in April, so you’re hoping green grass and a little bit of sunshine. But we’ve caught some really bad snowstorms at the end of April and it’s cold. We’re out there, we’re trying to make sure that those calves are okay, we’re up at all hours of the night. We’ve actually taken to wearing ski goggles. They become really handy when it’s cold and windy out.

I just find that fascinating. I think it’s good. Like, don’t get me wrong, I really encourage people to try to ask questions about how their food’s being produced and raised. That’s good. I’m all for that, but I just think if you have questions about it, try to dig a little deeper and find out. Don’t just, you know, believe the first thing that comes up on your social media feed because there’s a lot of organizations out there that are actually anti-animal agriculture. They have agendas, they have big budgets to try and stop this. So, you know, when you hear something I just super encourage a little bit of critical thinking or find another side to the argument or ask a producer. There’s lots of producers out there like myself who are just passionate about what we do and telling our story. We’re just doing our job. We’re trying to share our story on social media and there is quite a few people out there. So, I just, yeah, I do encourage that because you see those numbers and it’s a little bit hard to see when we’re here doing it in minus 40 water’s freezing. Well when water freezes it’s usually really cold, but then we’re out there trying to make sure we can get it thawed for them because we know they need water. A nice hot vacation in Mexico sounds lovely in Saskatchewan winters, but we can’t do that because we have cattle to feed. So, I would just yeah, love somehow for that side of the story to, to get out there a little bit more and just be able to tell consumers what we’re actually doing.

Clinton Monchuk: 12:59

You talk about the trip to Mexico. So, we have a layer farm on our farm back in Lanigan, Saskatchewan. Similar to a lot of poultry or swine farms in confined agriculture, there’s a lot of sensors that are in our barn. And a sensor went off when my brother was in Mexico indicating that the barn was starting to get a little cold and kind of came up with the sensors. And I went back through a closed highway—Highway 16 was closed, but I drove through it because I knew I had to get back to that barn in an effort to close down some vents where the electric winches had frozen up and there was a strong north wind blowing into the barn. Of course you, kind of risk your own life to make sure that things are okay with the animals in the barn. So, I’m with you on that one. I see that and it kind of hurts me because I think of, [the fact that] we’re close to the Yellowhead highway so two out of every three vehicles that go by aren’t too sure whether or not, you know, we’re producing our animals humanely. That’s a tough pill to swallow, right?

Erika Stewart: 14:10

Oh absolutely. So, I can kind of circle back and answer your question if you. I wasn’t trying to get out of it! The short answer would be, yes, programs like VBP Plus are trying to help consumers understand what we’re doing and provide that verification. So, in the verified beef program there’s two streams. There’s a training stream, so that’s the one I talked about initially. It’s just providing producers with continuing education or opportunities to learn more or new things that are coming out in the egg industry or the beef industry. And then there’s a certification stream. All of this is voluntary. So, if producers take the training and want to implement those requirements of the program on their operation, then they can request the on-farm audit. I think that the word audit is a little bit scary for producers, makes them a little uneasy, unsure. But we hope that that word is also comforting for consumers. It means there’s been a third party verifying humane treatment of animals, that they’re in compliance with the beef code of practice and that they have these protocols in place on their operation. But then take it a step further because we also require records like treatment records. This one I find very interesting and something I like to share about the program because I think it really, the VBP plus program really provides a good framework to discuss this. There’s a lot of negative narrative about antibiotics and not using antibiotics in animal agriculture. And so again, I think that’s another good one. If you see the commercials, you hear the negative narrative, maybe just ask a producer what they do. Do you use antibiotics and why? Personally, we do when something’s sick. I want to be able to have that ability, just like I want to be able to take my kids when they’re sick to the doctor and if needed get antibiotics to treat whatever infection they have. With products in Canada, like our vet products, everything has what’s called a withdrawal time. So, if an animal on our operation has a minor infection, we might use a common product like oxytetracycline if I give them a shot of it subcutaneously, under the skin. The withdrawal time is 42 days. So, on all of our vet products there’s these withdrawal times and they can be measured in days or hours and so it’s the time that when, after giving an animal health product, the time before that animal can be processed for human consumption. If we adhere to that withdrawal time as producers—which we do—all meat is antibiotic-free. So, I think that’s a really interesting piece to this that doesn’t get discussed enough. And so with verified beef we talk a lot about responsible antimicrobial use and then one of our record requirements would be anytime you treat an animal that you record it. We would require all producers to record the date the animal is treated, the animal’s identification, the dose and route: how much they were given according to the labeled instructions and how it was given. It can be given subcutaneously, so under the skin or some in the muscle. And again, it tells you on the products and then the withdrawal time. That’s really important. Producers that are certified with the program are proving that they’re recording this information. And again, most like producers are doing this, we’re just taking it a step farther and actually having them record it. That’s one of the other things the auditor would verify when they’re doing their on-farm visit is they would actually look through those records and make sure that everything that we require is there. Another record we require is called the shipping record. So, before a producer sells their animals, we require them to go through their treatment records to make sure that none of those animals they’re selling is inside a withdrawal time. I mean some producers have a lot of cattle, you know, we don’t want things to be forgotten. This is just another step where they would check those treatment records and check off this group of cattle that I’m selling today. None of them are inside of withdrawal time. So again, we’re just putting protocol in place to make sure there’s no chance of residue in the beef for consumers.

Clinton Monchuk: 18:27

See it’s interesting when I think about this, I think that this is kind of similar to the ‘MyHealth’ records that I have for myself and my family, right? It’s very thorough and something that goes back to verify to consumers what’s actually going on in the cattle industry.

Erika Stewart: 18:44

Yeah, absolutely. I guess the opportunity that we’re, the beef industry’s trying to respond to consumers saying they want a certified sustainable product. So, this is the opportunity for that as well. I mean the beef industry’s doing these things anyhow, these are common protocols, but it’s just if a consumer wants to make sure and buy products that have claims on them like this, this is an opportunity to do that. So, we’re trying to listen to what consumers are telling us too.

Clinton Monchuk: 19:14

Exactly. And you think of how the industry has evolved over time and here we are at, a state in really the world today where the consumers are demanding certain things from us as producers of food and we have to listen to what they’re saying to make sure that we provide the products that they want. So, it’s great to see the uptake of this. Now I think we’re going to do a fun farm fact. Did you know that the Canadian grassland sequester the same amount of carbon as taking off 3.62 million cars from the road? Isn’t that awesome?

Erika Stewart: 19:55

Yeah, it’s truly amazing.

Clinton Monchuk: 19:59

The fun farm fact kind of gets into the next kind of area of conversation that I want to talk about and it’s the environment. When I say that the grasslands are sequestering this amount of carbon, from your perspective, how many consumers do you think actually realize—we have 40 million people roughly who live in this country—we have a lot of land that obviously cannot be used for crop production. I’m just kind of curious have you had some conversations with individuals, especially maybe back in British Columbia that did not realize what an environmental benefit the cattle industry is to our country?

Erika Stewart: 20:39

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s so interesting too, these narratives saying that cattle are bad for the environment and then you hear a stat like that and without these cattle we wouldn’t have these grasslands and they wouldn’t be sequestering that amount of carbon. So again, I just find that fascinating and it’s just the other side. There’s missing parts to these stories that are being told right now. And yeah, I have had those conversations. I am fortunate enough to… I actually went to university in Edmonton to the U of A and I played rugby there and I’m so grateful for it because I met a lot of people outside agriculture that I wouldn’t have before. So I feel like sometimes we do a great job of telling our story to ourselves, but I feel we have trouble breaking out into consumer space and where we need to be. And they’ve really helped me realize that. I guess we’ll have conversations and they’ll say things like, “well, beef’s bad for the environment.” And you’re like, what? I feel like I’ve done a terrible job as a rancher friend, but you know, to have those conversations, they’ve made me really cognizant of we’re at a good starting point, but we do need to still make a lot of ground to get that message out there to the people in the city. It’s not their fault they don’t have a connection with agriculture. So just yeah, trying to be cognizant of that and really help to reach out and help fill that gap because if we don’t provide our side of the story somebody else out there is. I just think we need to be in that space as well.

Clinton Monchuk: 22:07

It is interesting too to kind of think of the history of this continent too, before European settlers came over and it was just the Indigenous people here in on this land, what controlled the grasslands? Right? It was the bison. You look at the ruminants that were doing the job back then and you know, we have the ruminants doing the job right now, so it’s great to see. One of the other things that you had mentioned with the VBP plus program is the environmental side of the program. Do you want to just expand a little bit on that holistically looking at sustainability, how is this environmental side comes into play with VBP Plus?

Erika Stewart: 22:48

So yeah, there is the environmental stewardship module portion of the program and a lot of that module is wanting to make sure that we’re conscious of our practices and say if we’re storing manure to compost it. It’s not beside water for runoff, leaching issues, but I mean most of that’s being done because as farmers or ranchers we’re working with the land and lots of these operations are generational operations. So we have to have been taking care of the water and land. Another portion of it would be more continuing education I guess, like providing producers opportunity with what are some new grazing management practices that are happening that are contributing to improved soil health? Which you know, if there’s a healthier plant and soil health is improved, then we’re actually taking more carbon out of the air and putting it into the ground. What are we doing for grazing management? What could you improve a little bit with air? And the Verified Beef program, the national program has actually just launched a new website that is going to house the Verified Beef training but also we’re hoping it can be a hub of continual learning and courses for the beef industry. And then the BCRC (Beef Cattle Research Council) has great webinars and great resources for producers to make sure they try and stay current with what’s going on. Because I mean we’re in like an amazing age and time where research is changing all the time and we can find out information so easily and then easily adapt it to our operations or learn a little bit here and and see what works for our place and try things. It is truly amazing what’s happening right now in the research that’s going on or even different species of grasses to plant or grazing practices like I’ve said. Or there’s some government programs that can help with water management. Like you can fence out that dugout and put in a water system that’ll actually help put on more pounds of beef for your cattle and protect that riparian area. That’s the thing about these grasslands too. They’re home to so many other species and lots of times species at risk. As producers and ranchers, if we have good grazing practices, it actually helps the other species on these grasslands too.

Clinton Monchuk: 25:09

Erika, I hear a lot more when it comes to just general food production and waste, right, so we’re looking to different portions of the industry to reduce our waste of what we produce for food based on a lot of what we’ve talked about. What are some of those ways that the cattle industry is actually proving to be a waste reducer?

Erika Stewart: 25:33

I think that’s such a great question Clinton, because that’s another side of this story that I don’t think is being shared enough when they talk about eliminating an animal agriculture or you know, what’s going to help save our planet. In reality, beef production in Canada only represents 2.4% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. I think that’s a really interesting fact that I don’t think that’s large enough to try and get rid of it altogether. And then like you’re saying, if we did get rid of animal agriculture, how much more food waste there would be? I don’t know if people realize how great of a job cows do at actually upcycling food products that can’t be used by humans. Most of the areas that cattle are grazing are areas that cannot be used for crops. But then also there are feedlots right now that are using waste from the grocery stores, I shouldn’t say waste, but produce that isn’t going to be used by humans. So maybe it’s a little bit off or it’s not the right shape, it’s not appealing – these products can be fed to cattle, obviously alongside nutrition consultation because all these feedlots have a nutritionist. We have a nutritionist to work with, so we’re making sure that the cattle are getting what they require in their diet, but isn’t that a really neat attribute of cattle that they can really help us eliminate food waste? If we got rid of them, we would just have all these other parts of the food chain that aren’t being used that’s just wasted. Last year in my area we had a terrible drought and so feed was really scarce to find and we actually sourced some pea powder. I was just listening to a very interesting podcast with Diana Rogers about this and she said that for every one pound of protein that’s produced from plant sources creates four pounds of waste. That’s a huge number, but cattle can use that. When we grow a plant, the only part humans are using is the protein part, but cattle can actually use the rest of that plant. I thought it was very ironic that we were feeding our cows byproducts from these plant based products, but it was a great protein source for our cattle. So it just goes to show how cattle can really be there to support and upcycle these products that would be wasted otherwise into a super dense, high quality protein for humans.

Clinton Monchuk: 28:00

The way I look at it, and I grain farm, we have a lot of grain land, my goal at the end of the day is to get Canadian number one milling wheat or malting barley or peas or whatever it happens to be that we’re growing. But nature doesn’t always work that way and I don’t always get number one Canadian grade on those products and without having a source for my barley or feed barley or feed wheat to go into a feedlot or a hog operation, whatever it happens to be, that’s waste, right? And I think therein lies some of that, trying to make sure people understand the full food system that goes on in agriculture and how it’s really interconnected. Your ranch is connected to my grain farm and it’s connected to the local fertilizer and ag chemical dealership, right? There’s a lot of interconnected cogs to the wheel that go around.

Erika Stewart: 28:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Clinton Monchuk: 29:01

I want to thank you Erika for being on the program today and talking a little bit about the Verified Beef Production Plus program that’s implemented throughout Canada and how that is really an assurance program not only for farmers and ranchers here in this country, but it gives consumers a little bit more of a background and comfort knowing how their cattle are being raised and grown for food in this country. We want to thank you and we want to encourage all the listeners to look at your numerous videos that are on Canadian Food Focus. I know I’ve taken the opportunity to watch actually all of them and I absolutely love watching not only your family grow, but seeing the different positives and negatives that are happening on your ranch. Thank you very much for taking the time to be a part of this program.

Erika Stewart: 29:50

Well, thank you very much Clinton. Thanks for having me today. I really enjoyed our visit today.

Clinton Monchuk: 29:58

I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to our Ask A Farmer podcast. We at Canadian Food Focus value the input from our listeners and ask that you share this podcast with your friends and family. Remember, this is a two-way street, so we seek your input for future segments that are of interest to you about food and farming. To do this, please click on the ‘Ask Us’ icon at the top of our website, canadianfoodfocus.org . While you’re there, feel free to follow our numerous social media links and sign up for our newsletter. This segment was produced and edited by Angela Larson, research and writing by Dorothy Long and Penny Eaton. Music by Andy Ellis. I’m your host Clinton Monchuk, and from all of us here at Canadian Food Focus, we wish you good health and great eats.