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Sustainability Spotlight COVID-19 shines a brighter light on sustainability By Jessie Topp-Becker, Managing Editor

the needs of all stakeholders. Being involved in these discussions is possibly more crucial now than ever before. It’s obvious that COVID-19 has impacted the U.S. cattle and beef market, so Close also gave a high-level overview of the market environment in the United States. U.S. Cattle and Beef Market “The simple fact is that we’re going to be working on trying to feed 9.5 bil- lion people just 30 years from now, so we very much need to take advantage of the upcycling and the resources of that ruminant animal to keep enough available protein for a growing world,” Close said. At the end of 2019, Rabo AgriFi- nance expected to see a contraction in the total number of cows in 2020, but more likely by 2021. At that time, their view was that it would be a short and shallow corrective cycle. However, as they’ve evaluated the complexities of the pandemic’s impacts, Close said he expects the results of COVID-19 will be a deeper, more corrective cycle than initially anticipated. “We’re still looking to hold our base- line on beef count numbers, basically at 30.5 to 31 million,” he said. “So we’re not in any way thinking this is so severe that we will go back to a sub-30 million beef cow number that we saw there in 2014, but we do think it’s going to be deeper and take longer than what we were talking just a few months ago.” Close also said he thinks the United States is in a very strong position to benefit from the trade deals that were reached in 2019. “As we see demand for protein and demand for beef going forward, we are pristinely positioned to be the global supplier of high-quality protein,” Close said of not only the United States, but North America as a whole. As a final point about the U.S. beef and cattle market, Close remarked, “It is a mature market, and the only way that we’re going to see development and growth in our industry is with fur- ther development of exports.” To conclude his presentation, Close provided an overview of Brazil, Austra- lia, New Zealand, China and the Euro- pean Union, exploring where they are on a production basis and with exports, as well as what countries are doing in terms of sustainability. Editor’s note: To hear Close’s com- plete presentation or to hear any of the BIF presentations, visit www.beefim- provement.org/symposium .

S ustainability has been a buzzword in the agriculture industry for nearly a decade. And while the word often evokes mixed reactions, the fact is that the topic of sustainability isn’t going away. In recent months, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of sustainability in agriculture, specifically the beef industry, has become an even greater area of interest. “If sustainability was not important enough before, it most certainly is now with all the attention that has been brought to the marketplace through the whole COVID-19 episode,” said Don Close, Rabo AgriFinance animal protein analyst, who addressed attendees during the virtual 2020 Beef Improvement Fed- eration (BIF) Research Symposium. Things like plant closings, employee living conditions, euthanizing animals and delayed processing are just a few topics Close said have brought the industry a new level of attention. “With all of this attention, we’re going to have a whole new cast of inspectors, inquiries and a level of attention that the industry certainly is not used to, or certainly hasn’t been used to in a long time,” he said. This is in addition to greater scrutiny from animal rights groups, as well as consumers who want to know where their food comes from. “Suddenly the requirements to explain, to document production agri- culture, and especially animal agricul- ture, is going to be a whole new facet of our industry,” Close said. “What we’ve seen across the board is a destruction, or certainly a really deep test of erosion and trust, and that erosion starts with consumers and works its way to both retailers and the HRI [hotels, restau- rants, institutions] space.” The coronavirus crisis has brought issues of trust to the forefront. “We’ve certainly had a level of trust disrupted with packers and proces- sors – where we were, who was open, where we were storing the meat – and

restaurants closed,” Close said. “And that works all the way back

down to the cattle feeder, the stocker operators and the cow-calf space.” In light of all that has happened as a result of COVID-19, working relation- ships, confidence and trust will have to be reestablished among all parties. Close said organizations like the U.S. and Global Roundtables for Sustainable Beef will play critical roles in helping reestab- lish those relationships and build trust. When the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef was launched in 2012, many producers had the percep- tion that the organization was going to impose new rules and regulations, and that the organization was heavily focused on the environment. “I think that was really a misunder- standing, a misrepresentation,” Close said. The truth is, sustainability has always been comprised of three pillars: envi- ronmentally sound, socially responsible and economically viable. “I think the real piece of this that has come out over time is that the No. 1 point for any sustainability program is economic viability,” Close said. “If oper- ations are not economically sound and returning a profit, there is no reason to go forward. And that’s become way better understood over time.” While some producers have worried the roundtables seek to impose regula- tions, Close said three of the main goals of the roundtable are to: 1) serve as a clearinghouse of information; 2) pro- vide equal representation to all stake- holders in the beef value chain; and 3) serve as a source for benchmarking and continuous improvement. Close encouraged producers to sit in on roundtable meetings to gain a better understanding of the roundtables’ roles, and see how they strive to develop policy and talking points that meet

“Suddenly the requirements to explain, to document production agriculture, and especially animal agriculture, is going to be a whole new facet of our industry,”

– Don Close

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