With consumers more and more concerned about what’s in the food they eat and drink and how the animals that produce much of that food are treated, agribusinesses are finding they need to be more transparent with the public. During the the recent Bayer CropScience 10th annual Ag Issues Forum in Phoenix, Dr. Jennifer Walker, DVM, Director, Dairy Stewardship, Dean Foods, spoke about how transparency equals accountability on a panel titled, “The Transparency Effect: How Consumer Demands Affect the Ag Supply Chain.”
“The struggle is to figure out what accountability looks like – how do we measure that on the farm,” she told Chuck during an interview after the panel. “From an animal welfare perspective, it’s not necessarily how you house something, not the size of the pen, but really focusing on the cow. Transparency is being accountable and then being able to verify – what can I share with you and prove to you that we are doing what we say we are doing.”
Walker said Dean Foods deals with both sides of the equation – the farmers and co-ops on one end and the consumers on the other – to make sure they are doing what is necessary to meet those customer demands while allowing producers to do what they do best. She pointed to a successful example of that in Dean Foods’ TruMoo Chocolate Milk that meets stricter school lunch standards and keeps healthy milk that children want to drink in front of them.
Another point during the panel session was the possible conflict between large producers and the niche market producers. Walker said the niche markets are not the enemy of the mainstream producers; there’s room for everyone. And no one benefits when one sector of agriculture bashes another.
“As an industry, we all need to try our best to work with each other and promote our strengths. Trying to talk poorly about any part of ag never serves agriculture well, ever. It eventually hurts yourself,” she said.
Listen to Chuck’s interview with Dr. Walker here: Dr. Jennifer Walker, DVM, Director, Dairy Stewardship, Dean Foods