The last few weeks I have been part of some great scientific conferences with some new food safety research. Included in this research was a lot of consumer-related work. I am happy that we are researching processes that can help both processors and consumers produce safe food whether it is at home or in a restaurant, or even ready-to-eat meals consumers can pick up at the grocery store.

With all this great research, the one question remains … how is this information being relayed to consumers? Working at a land grant institution for 25 years, I know the importance of extension agents and extension programs. They are vital to agriculture! These are great ways to pass information along to consumers for their health and well-being as well as their livelihood (farming/ranching, etc).

However, these programs don’t reach all consumers, especially the next generation of consumers (K-12 students). This time is the learning phase where we can change habits for the better — meat quality and food safety included.

I sometimes feel like we as scientists, and we as the poultry industry, live in a bubble. We think we are communicating to the masses about food safety and meat quality (really about anything in the poultry industry), but we are communicating to our own internal group instead. We do a great job of communicating to ourselves, but are we really communicating what we do and how we do it effectively? Are we effectively communicating the new research that can help consumers make informed and risk-based decisions or are we just communicating to our inner circle?

I have four kids and I know the K-12 school system is overwhelmed and overloaded trying to prepare students for state testing (at least in Texas). I wish that there was more preparation for life skills which includes agriculture, meat and poultry quality, and food safety. When we preach “cook to an internal temperature of 165°F”, I have found that this means nothing to people who don’t know how to use a thermometer (or even own one), know where to take temperatures, and know the why we suggest this practice. We cannot just preach it; we have to teach it for it to happen. Basic agricultural food production knowledge, including skills such as cooking, cleaning, meat quality and food safety, are non-existent.

I know we all do a great job of preaching this statement and we all do a great job of putting this information on our website, but K-12 students don’t visit our website unless a teacher makes it part of a homework assignment or project. How can we make ourselves heard in K-12? We must preach it and teach it.

I know I have stood on this education platform before, but it is such an important way to reach out to our current and future customers. There are some teachers teaching incorrect information. There are teachers teaching that meat is unhealthy, that organic is better/healthier, and that meat should be cooked until it doesn’t “bleed” red or pink anymore. We cannot rely on these educators teaching incorrect and harmful information and still be successful as an industry.

My challenge is to go local. Let’s embed ourselves into our local communities and schools and develop fun around agriculture and learning for K-12. There are so many resources available to make this a success. It is not enough to preach it. We have to teach it for understanding and behavior change.

Preach it and teach it!

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