When the Animal Ag Alliance was first established in 1987, our primary focus was on animal welfare and communicating about the animal agriculture community’s commitment to ensuring high standards of animal care. While that work still remains integral to our mission today, we’re spending just as much time (if not more, depending on the day or week) on sustainable nutrition.

As with most issues, the interest in this topic is driven by a combination of genuine consumer concern (people want to care for the planet and do their part to protect the environment) and activist organizations adding fuel to the fire. This latter group latches on to the topic of environmental sustainability (and exaggerating meat’s impact) as another way of furthering their efforts to end animal agriculture.

With Earth Day coming up on Thursday, we’re seeing an uptick in media coverage on the topic of sustainability as well as messaging from activist organizations claiming that the best thing you can do to celebrate the occasion is leaving meat off of your plate. While this narrative might be frustrating to hear, I think we need to take all of the current interest in protecting the environment as an opportunity to showcase how the animal agriculture community shares that value and is continuously working to innovate and find new ways to be increasingly sustainable on top of decades of existing progress in this area.

Some good news we can highlight this week and beyond:

The U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Poultry and Eggs just unveiled the first-ever full poultry and egg supply chain sustainability reporting framework, which will equip the entire value chain to better communicate with its stakeholders about the overall sustainability of US poultry and create a clearer picture of how these products are produced.
A recent research paper confirmed that U.S. beef production is the most sustainable in the world. In fact, U.S. cattle producers reduced the carbon footprint of the industry by 40% between the 1960s and 2018, while producing 66% more beef. [https://www.tsln.com/news/study-confirms-us-beef-industry-is-the-most-sustainable-in-the-world/]
According to a recent survey, consumers share our view that agriculture is a part of the solution to climate change rather than the problem.

In order to do our part, the Alliance will be releasing an updated version of our Sustainability Impact Report on Thursday. This report highlights how the animal agriculture industry shares the same values as today’s consumer with its never-ending commitment to animal care, environmental stewardship, responsible antibiotic use, food safety and nutrition. We hope you’ll join us and lend your voice to this critical conversation.

Earth Day offers opportunities to correct the narrative on sustainability

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