WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 28, 1999) - Three issues can mean life or death for a beef production operation or even an entire sector of agriculture, according to Chuck Schroeder, chief executive officer of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The products of genome research have the potential to limit the risks these issues pose and to aid beef producers as they continue to improve beef products as well as operating practices.
Speaking before a USDA Agriculture Research Service workshop on agricultural genomics, Schroeder identified the three areas as food safety, the environment and marketplace economics.
Knowledge and products that can grow from genomics research hold essential potential in at least five areas: productivity, production efficiency, improved and predictable quality traits, product safety and environmental protection and improvement, according to Schroeder.
"It is timely for us to stop and consider one of the most complex and, in some dimensions, high-risk opportunities facing agriculture and our partners in public and private sectors," Schroeder said. "The products of genomics research have already become controversial in international trade as well as domestic debates… But the issues we need to address are even more fundamental than politics and attitudes.
"We face a phenomenal mix of challenges - next month we will have 6 billion people on this planet asking to be fed; there are declining acres available for production; there is a demand for food safety that often disregards reasonable risk assessment; and, there are increasingly higher standards for environmental protection and quality."
Meeting the food quality and safety demands of the marketplace, as well as fundamental human needs for adequate nutrition, while satisfying the sensibilities of a politically active public, requires aggressive generation and exploitation of knowledge in plant, animal and microbial genomics. Beef producers are both excited about this exploding field of science and technology, and anxious about being caught powerless on the wrong side of intellectual property rights and public impressions.
Schroeder emphasized the importance of using limited resources efficiently as investments are made in agriculture ventures including plant and animal genomics.
"Reasonable coordination of research and strategic collaboration can allow us to collectively address areas of basic research covering broad common interests…" said Schroeder.
He also emphasized the importance of broadening the understanding of this technology and its potential for the public good. "The public, particularly policy makers, must have a higher level of understanding and trust in this technology and its practitioners than they do today if we are to avoid costly, even fatal hurdles down the road. This is not a task that should or could be handled by a single firm, agency or institution."
The cattle industry has invested $2 million in gene mapping research projects since 1991.
-- NCBA --