Raising Animals or Making Beef?

From a purely biological view, cattle are animals. They are part of the bovine family that includes antelope, sheep, goats, and bison. Culturally, defining cattle is not so simple. For most of us, it is difficult to observe cattle in pastures and feedlots without also conjuring images of steak and ground beef. Whether such an image repels or induces hunger pangs, most of us identify cattle with their food utility and not their animal biology. Why? While there are many answers to this question, some of it is found in the culture of the cattle feeding industry.

Last year, in pursuit of an answer, I spoke with former Colorado State University (CSU) animal science professor John Matsushima. His name looms large in Northern Colorado cattle feeding circles. As a teenager during the 1930s, he regularly competed at stock shows against peers, such as Kenny Monfort, who would become industry pioneers two decades later. After graduating with animal science degrees from CSU and the University of Minnesota, and a brief stint teaching at the University of Nebraska, cattle feeders successfully lured Matsushima back to CSU in 1961. There, he conducted experiments for the next thirty years on how to synchronize the cattle feeding industry with consumer demands for lean cuts of beef, proportioned for the serving sizes at the typical dinner table.

I asked Matsushima questions aimed at highlighting some of his major accomplishments. At 97 years old, Matsushima remained alert and expressive. Despite an impressive scientific resume, Matsushima was most interested in sharing his efforts to change the culture of cattle feeding. One way he accomplished this was through starting the “Fed Beef Contest” at the National Western Stock Show, held annually in Denver. The National Western was one of several gatherings that brought together representatives from the entire feeding industry. One could also find youth showcasing their animals and the general public seeking a good time.

John Matsushima poses with sides of beef in 2006

Matsushima, and other feedlot operators opined that stock-shows placed too much emphasis on livestock appearance. Instead, they argued, events should award feeders based on how quickly they could turn feed into beef that achieved the USDA Choice Grade most desired by retailers and consumers. In 1963, Matsushima worked with stock-show organizer Willard Simms to add the “Fed Beef Contest,” which judged animals based solely on two categories – cutability (% yield of beef that could be eaten), and whether the meat of the animal attained the choice grade. The Fed Beef Contest eliminated confirmation (appearance) as a factor, making it possible to judge winners only after they were slaughtered.

The new contest accelerated the shift toward viewing cattle not as biology, but as beef. Unlike other animals contests, such as those promoted by organizations such as 4-H, the emphasis was not any human connection with the raising of an animal, or even on its overall appearance. Since the Fed Beef Contest occurred post-slaughter, viewers could only imagine what specific steers and heifers looked like. Instead of seeing the animal and envisioning the meat, they viewed the beef and could only guess at the animal’s former appearance.

No one approved of the Fed Beef Contest more than Northern Colorado cattle feeder W.D. Farr. A long-time friend of John Matsushima, and one of several feeders who convinced CSU to hire him, Farr invested much of his life in the 1950s and 1960s trying to change the culture of cattle feeding. By the mid-1950s, Farr owned several Northern Colorado farms and a commercial feedlot which could handle 8,000 cattle at a time. Paying meticulous attention to the consumer market for beef, Farr bought and sold cattle throughout the year, employed a full-time nutritionist to calibrate mixtures of feeds and supplements, and utilized computers and hydraulic technology to mix feeds and deliver them. Farr’s feedlots were among the first to employ hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers and feed supplements.[1]

W.D. Farr poses next to a feedlot pen, undated

While Farr’s operations were not the largest in the region, his innovation and charisma attracted his feedlot peers. During the 1950s and 1960s Farr became a sought after speaker at feeder conferences and gatherings, and entertained fellow feeders at his operations in Greeley. Farr’s message was simple, straightforward, and rarely waivered. He told cattle feeders that they should replace any sentimental notion that they were farmers or engaged in husbandry.  Rather, in the words of a 1957 speech, they were engaged in a “manufacturing operation geared to convert feed into food in the most efficient manner…with emphasis on the kind of beef that the consumer wants.”[2] In order to do this, Farr stated, feeders should purchase cattle throughout the year and maintain as many different feeding pens as possible so that they could have cattle ready for sale at all times of the year to take advantage of changing markets.

He told his audience to pay no attention to popular contests that judged the size and attractiveness of cattle. To Farr, those distracted feeders from more important metrics such as how much feed it took to make a pound of beef (feed-conversion ratio) and obtaining cheap feeds. Dismissing lingering concerns about the need for cattle to graze on grass for significant periods before they entered the feedlot, he told his listeners to buy young, lightweight cattle and to place them in pens quickly to take advantage of periods when animals grew at the fastest rate. Finally, when it came to scientific advances in the field, Farr played the twin roles of prophet and promoter, at once reminding them of the value of hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers, and feed additives, while alerting them to pay attention to new frontiers in the field. Farr envisioned a future where “every calf would produce tender beef…have the maximum amount of high-priced cuts (and) produce twice the daily weight gain we now get.” For Farr, feedlots, and the animals residing within, were factories calibrated to employ science, consumer behavior, and marketing savvy to manufacture a profitable product: beef.[3]

As people like John Matsushima and W.D. Farr demonstrate, the biology and culture of modern meat cannot be disentangled. While Matsushima contributed to the science of feeding cattle and Farr embraced the methods and agro-industrial products that resulted, both men recognized that perception mattered. As modern meat became a thoroughly industrialized process, feeders and consumers came to view animals less as products of nature and increasingly as factories calibrated to manufacture meat.

[1] Farr, “Cattle Feeding a Dynamic Industry,” January 1969, Speech at Michigan State University, 2 February 1966, and “Ceneca International Symposium,” Paris, March 1967, CAC Water Resource Archives, Box 1, Farr Cattle Talks, 1951-1986 and Speeches – WD Farr.

[2] Farr “Speech at Iowa Feeders Day”; Farr, “Future Developments in Cattle Feeding,” 24 April 1959, CAC Water Resource Archive, Box 1, Farr Cattle Talks, 1951-1986.

[3] Farr, “Future Developments in Cattle Feeding”; Farr, “Economics of Cattle Feeding; Where We Have Been and Where We are Going,”Address Delivered at Washington State University,” 11 December 1961, CAC Water Resource Archive, Box 1, Farr Cattle Talks, 1951-1986; Farr, “Cattle Feeding  a Dynamic Industry,” January 1969, CAC Water Resource Archive, Box 1, Farr Cattle Talks, 1951-1986.