Interviewing Stakeholders: The Beef Industry
As a new vegan, I wanted to more fully understand the cattle industry. Living in Texas, cattle are central to the local culture, and yet I’ve known very little regarding the industry my entire life. Only knowing of the end beef products of the steaks and barbecues I grew up with, I wanted to become more environmentally aware and really understand the world I was wandering into due to wanting to become an activist.
Going into this, I wanted to know the views of the diametrically opposed cattle ranchers compared to vegan activists. I needed to be able to make sense of the groups beyond the abstract. It can be easy to gloss over and make caricatures out of the issues of animal agriculture and the vegan movement. I knew I wanted to avoid over-generalizations and stereotypes, so it was time for me to seek out the people I would need to learn from.
I’ve gone out to different animal rights organizations I am familiar with and contacted friends and distant family to search for people that I know have stakes in the beef and dairy industries. I wanted to learn as much as I could from everyone I spoke to, and conducted hour-long interviews with each. Having such long interviews, I could really dig deep to see the activities and thoughts of each person.
For the sake of anonymity, the names will be changed for all those interviewed. While the procedures, issues, and views laid out here should in no way be taken as wholly representative of either sides, they can act as a good illustration to sensitize one’s self to.
The first rancher I talked to still works to this day, John, and ranching is his livelihood. As a small-time rancher, he runs a small place in rural Kansas, having learned how to do so from his father on the same land starting at the young age of 8. In modern day, John has noted how most ranches are family owned and how difficult it can be for new ranchers to have success. He views the beef industry as a vital part of society, seeing meat as a necessity for healthy living due to the amino acid composition of meat. Interestingly enough too, his views of using animals are also religious, seeing animals as being placed here by the Christian God for us to use. He seems to believe that those who choose not to eat meat have been duped, are unfortunately “flat-ass stupid,” and will have to learn the hard way of how necessary meat is. He even went on to state that those who try to stray from eating meat are going against God’s plan and will be punished through the fact they don’t get the right nutrition without consuming meat. While I won’t get into his religious and nutritious views beyond this, it is insightful to see the relationship some cattle ranchers have with their work reaches a spiritual level.
The second rancher, Dale, also had gotten started in ranching from his family, with the family once leasing 4 ranches. He had quit ranching after they had to let their main ranch go after the original owners decided to sell off the land for other purposes. For him, the ranch he managed was a large job, with 23 miles of fence to manage and track across the space. Only able to fully inspect a mile of fence in one day, it was a large job to keep track of with many intricate details.
From both ranchers, I have seen how intense the work can be and just how many variables are at play that can go wrong. With birthing calves, some can get stuck during the process and may be stuck and suffocate. As noted by Dale in that situation, “you want to save every one of them, but you can’t.” This seems to be a problem of how large the calves are born. John also commented on this, saying “a small alive calf is better than a big dead one.” Seeing this, it would seem ranchers have to make a choice of smaller cows but less initial death or risk the deaths of a few baby cows for greater profits, since the larger cows can grow to have more flesh on them and thus make them more profitable come time to sell them at an auction house.
Alongside initial deaths at birth, other issues such as pink-eye can plague cattle, which has to be dealt with otherwise a “cow’s eye can can completely rupture.” Both ranchers were focused on raising cattle for beef, though both also approved of the use of cattle for dairy.
These individuals were raised to believe in the necessity of these actions and ranching became a part of who they identify as. “I’ll always be a cow man,” remarked Dale. The work is what they know, and it’s what they have done for much of their life. On the other side, there are the animal rights activists against this line of work. What do they think of these cattlemen, and do they hold animosity towards ranchers?
Surprisingly enough, both of the activists, Ross and Chris, that I had the pleasure of speaking with showed no hatred towards the cattlemen. If anything, they showed sympathy and wanted to break negative stereotypes.
Both recognized how many of these people are born into these industries and are “just as conditioned as the rest of us” to see animal agriculture as moral. Considering the common stereotype of militant vegans that gets passed around online, this is an interesting juxtaposition. The activists didn’t want ranchers to just lose their jobs and go broke, but instead hoped that they’d be able to find more ethical work.
However, while they did not feel anger towards the cattlemen, they did of course see the beef and dairy industries as immoral due to the conditions, slaughter, and harmful exploitation of the animals. Alongside this, in contrast to John’s claims of the necessity of meat, Ross emphasized as well the negative health consequences of beef and dairy for health. Amongst other pieces, Ross shared with me the warning from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine against the consumption of dairy due to the high level of saturated fat contributing to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and various cancers (2021). While Ross’s central concern with dairy was ethical, he viewed the exploitation of cattle for food as a double-edged sword that also harms us as consumers. Each activist was also extremely focused on promoting individual change through street and online activism, believing it a necessary component for larger group change to help shift the world to more ethical ways of living.
Gathering all I have heard from each of the parties, I feel I have only partially answered my question of becoming environmental. I still want to gather more knowledge from other people relevant to the beef industry, such as meat packers and slaughterhouse workers. I also would like to hear from those in the dairy industry specifically. However, I still have learned a massive amount and have found a great starting point. I understand how cattlemen have a deep connection to the work they do and how it ties back into their families. I also found more information on the process of ranching and had made me more cognizant of the intricate details of raising animals for human use. As a new vegan myself, I am happy that I am now more able to understand the humans who happen to be at the opposing end of what I am working towards. Instead of vague hand-waves of ideas of what cattle ranchers are like, I have gotten to know a few more fully and understand the work they do in detail that will help me advocate for the rights of said animals and more in nuanced and rhetorically effective ways.
While also learning from ranchers, I’ve gotten to know and become much more familiar with animal rights activists I can learn from. By forcing myself to look further into the work and communities of vegan activism, I have started to become aware of and participate more in the communities around me. Alongside this, I’ve come to see that the stereotypes of the militantly hateful vegans aren’t fully reflective of reality, seeing as there was no sense of anger or hatred from those I interviewed, but rather just the sense of working towards making the world a more peaceful place. Through this fieldwork, I have become more environmental and will continue to further my research and start becoming more of an activist myself.
Citations
The Cowboy Church. (n.d.). The Cowboy Church. http://www.horseshoelakefarm.com/sermons.html
Hart, Sheila. (2017, August 15). Cube of Truth: effective vegan outreach. Vegan Australia. https://www.veganaustralia.org.au/cube_of_truth_effective_vegan_outreach
Jordan Cattle Auction. (2020). Home. https://jordancattle.com/
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. (2021). Health Concerns About Dairy: Avoid the Dangers of Dairy With a Plant-Based Diet. https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/health-concerns-about-dairy
Wide Open Country Staff. (2021). 15 Places in the U.S. Where Cowboy Culture is Alive and Well. Wide Open Country. https://www.wideopencountry.com/11-places-us-cowboy-culture-alive-well/
