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Big Meat vs Michael Pollan
A beef industry group crusades to stop the Pollan-ation of America's college students.
November/December issue of Mother Jones
Carrin Flores is a cattle rancher's fantasy come true: An attractive 26-year-old with stylish eyeglasses and glossy lipstick, she's unabashed about her love of cows. "They are so cute. Their cute little tongues. Oh, and their eyelashes," she says. "But I also friggin' love to eat them." She cooks beef four nights a week and can list dozens of ways she likes it: T-bone, tri-tip, boneless rump roast...Flores, a graduate student in veterinary medicine at Washington State University-Pullman, plans to work in the beef industry when she finishes. But she's already a graduate of the Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA), an industry-funded program that trains college students to fight back against critics of big agribusiness, like Michael Pollan.
"Pollan," Flores tells me over beers at Dupus Boomer's, a campus bar, "is really our enemy right now." More than 35,000 college students were assigned one of his books last year; The Omnivore's Dilemma is one of the most widely read titles on US campuses. Flores and her fellow big beef advocates hope to counter that. "In the future," she says, "we're the ones who are going to tell you about your beef."
Since its launch in March 2009, the MBA has trained nearly 3,000 students and farmers to spread the "positive beef message," offering online lessons on how to combat PETA and organizing a Twitter and Facebook "Food Fight" against its "campus critics." Daren Williams, the communications director for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, helped start the MBA with $240,000 from the Beef Checkoff program, the beef industry's PR wing. He says the MBA's "focus has really become young people on the big land-grant campuses," from which more than one-fifth of future farmers and industry leaders will emerge.
holy moly: the PR girlies for the agribusiness lobby
Posted: December 14 2010
I've met some of these girlies, agri-bitties who worry that the humane society will destroy american agriculture.
At farm bureau training you could easily spot them, size six, power suit, 'funky glasses', heels.
SPIN DOCTOR LAMOs
Illustration: Jason Schneider
Big Meat vs Michael Pollan
A beef industry group crusades to stop the Pollan-ation of America's college students.
November/December issue of Mother Jones
Carrin Flores is a cattle rancher's fantasy come true: An attractive 26-year-old with stylish eyeglasses and glossy lipstick, she's unabashed about her love of cows. "They are so cute. Their cute little tongues. Oh, and their eyelashes," she says. "But I also friggin' love to eat them." She cooks beef four nights a week and can list dozens of ways she likes it: T-bone, tri-tip, boneless rump roast...Flores, a graduate student in veterinary medicine at Washington State University-Pullman, plans to work in the beef industry when she finishes. But she's already a graduate of the Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA), an industry-funded program that trains college students to fight back against critics of big agribusiness, like Michael Pollan.
"Pollan," Flores tells me over beers at Dupus Boomer's, a campus bar, "is really our enemy right now." More than 35,000 college students were assigned one of his books last year; The Omnivore's Dilemma is one of the most widely read titles on US campuses. Flores and her fellow big beef advocates hope to counter that. "In the future," she says, "we're the ones who are going to tell you about your beef."
Since its launch in March 2009, the MBA has trained nearly 3,000 students and farmers to spread the "positive beef message," offering online lessons on how to combat PETA and organizing a Twitter and Facebook "Food Fight" against its "campus critics." Daren Williams, the communications director for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, helped start the MBA with $240,000 from the Beef Checkoff program, the beef industry's PR wing. He says the MBA's "focus has really become young people on the big land-grant campuses," from which more than one-fifth of future farmers and industry leaders will emerge.
red hook, new york