Stacey Domolewski and
Justine
DeNure, animal science students in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources, had the opportunity to attend the North
American Forum on Sustainable Animal Agriculture in September. The forum had
many interesting and informative speakers that spoke about all five pillars of
agricultural sustainability (human health, animal welfare, food safety,
environment and economics) from the prospectives of producers to end retailers.
“For myself I took
away the fact that I as an animal science student have an amazing opportunity
to advocate for animal agricultural practices that are sustainable. We were
shown a variety of studies that showed that farmers and scientists or experts
in their field are the most trusted individuals. I also really came to realize that to open
conversation with people concerned about agricultural issues just shoving facts
at them will not be enough, that as a soon to be graduate I have these facts
but must be able to engage with consumers on a personal basis of shared values
before they accept these fact.
As with many of my
fellow soon to be agricultural graduates of the university I have a farm
background but now am also equipped with a myriad of industry facts and
knowledge due to my university education. This forum has shown me that we
really have an opportunity to show the public what agriculture is really all
about as we are in that group of most trusted individuals.
Another fact that I
took home from this forum was that although consumers may demand more
sustainable products, the fact of the matter is that they are not willing to
pay for them and that they ultimately are more concerned with food costs than
farm economics.
On the second day of
the forum was a very informative panel of speakers representing the supply chain
and how to manage issues throughout the supply chain. It was brought to our
attention that there is a need to continue to improve the supply chain
especially in the area of producing a more consistent product at the retail end
and to do this we need communication and collaboration at all areas of the
supply chain.
Through this
experience I can definitely say that I have learned a lot and have been given a
lot to think about, along with the chance to participate in helping to develop
a proactive approach to advocating for the sustainability of animal
agriculture. I am very excited to have
had this opportunity and to see what new ideas and programs arise from it.”
-
Stacey Domolewski
“I
personally found this to be a very interesting forum and a great experience. A
couple of points that stood out to me were the idea of public trust and how we
need to continually improve in order to be sustainable.
Firstly, I learned that in order to gain public trust we
need to show the public through actions how we are being proactive, and we can
not just use our words to tell them the problem and solutions to sustainable
animal agriculture. Another way to earn the public’s trust I think is to
educate and inform them more about farming practices and to be more transparent
to allow the public to see what really goes on in the animal agriculture
environment. Being from an urban background I would have loved to have had the
opportunity to go to a farm and see how a dairy or poultry operation is run for
example.
Secondly, I really loved how people realized that animal
agriculture needs to continually improve in order to be sustainable. Just like
every other industry, we need to be innovative and open to change because
without changing our practices we will not be sustainable and will not be able
to feed the world in 30 years. I liked the idea that was brought up on how
farmers need to be the champions and invest within themselves to improve animal
agriculture.
Lastly, I would like to thank Dean Mary Buhr and the College
of Agriculture and Bioresources for this great opportunity and experience. I
have learned so much and met some intelligent people.”
-Justine DeNure
