In the beef industry’s ongoing public relations battle against taking responsibility for its role in the climate crisis, it has invoked a variety of strategies.
Initially, it denied the link between cattle farming and global warming, but that didn’t work well, as scientific evidence to the contrary piled up. Then, it cleverly tried to rebrand cattle not as the problem but, in fact, the secret sustainability silver bullet. “It’s not the cow, it’s the how” became the new narrative. Grass-fed, holistically grazed, regenerative cattle – said to sequester carbon and enrich soil all while providing burgers to the masses – positioned the industry as the heroes, not the villains, of the story. By some accounts, the tale of the climate-friendly cow has been a public relations and sales success. And now, the industry is doubling down on that messaging.
Through a new online education program called Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA), the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (an industry lobby group) hopes to teach beef advocates how to spread the message that consumers don’t need to feel guilty about eating beef.
According to the program’s website, the MBA (not to be confused with a Masters of Business Administration or any actual master’s degree program for that matter) is a free, self-guided course that “provides farmers, ranchers, service providers, consumers, and all members of the beef community the tools and resources to become a beef advocate and answer tough questions about beef and raising cattle.”
It claims more than 20,000 people have participated in the industry-funded program, which promises to leave advocates “equipped with the communication skills and information to be confident in sharing beef stories on social media and in our communities to help others better understand how cattle are raised and how beef belongs as part of healthy, sustainable diets.”
Journalist Joe Fassler, who enrolled in the program and wrote all about it for The Guardian, found that the program shared deceptive infographics and “multiple misleading – but scientific-sounding – narratives about beef industry sustainability” with students and graduates to spread online. And, after taking the course, he concluded that “the beef industry is engaged in an all-out public relations war to pre-empt environmental criticisms of its products – and that those PR efforts are increasing.”
The industry’s reputation for exacerbating global warming and ecological degradation has become a massive public relations nightmare and a serious financial liability.
- Jason Hannan, editor of the book Meatsplaining
The MBA program appears to be another step in the industry’s efforts to counter consumer concerns about the environmental impacts of their food decisions. By claiming beef can be “sustainable” and “regenerative,” the industry seeks to give a permission structure to those who might be on the fence about whether beef should still be what’s for dinner if they care about solving the climate crisis. A growing amount of evidence is telling them otherwise.
A landmark study from 2018 in the peer-reviewed journal Science found that, for every kilogram of beef consumed, an average of 99.5 kilograms of CO2 is added to the environment. “It was the most climate-damaging food studied, and the competition wasn’t even close,” writes Fassler. He also points to research out of Oxford University’s Our World In Data project that showed just how bad beef consumption is for the climate. It found that beef emits four times as much CO2 as cheese, eight times more than pork and a whopping 21 times more than eggs. It’s a PR challenge indeed.
“The industry’s reputation for exacerbating global warming and ecological degradation has become a massive public relations nightmare and a serious financial liability,” says Jason Hannan, associate professor at the University of Winnipeg and editor of the book Meatsplaining, in an interview. In response, he says, the beef industry has “followed in the footsteps of the fossil fuel industry, recruiting its very own merchants of doubt and aggressively seeking to orchestrate the mass denial of reality.” That reality, he adds, is “far from its manufactured image of an all-natural, grass-fed, and charmingly folksy innocence.”
The mass misinformation program ... is a direct replica of the fossil fuels and tobacco industry playbook.
- Jennifer Stojkovic, a food industry expert
Jennifer Stojkovic, a food industry expert and author of the book The Future of Food is Female, tells Corporate Knights that she believes the beef industry is allocating “so much funding and resources into the creation of this [MBA] program” because the future of the industry “is in great peril due to insurmountable challenges from the drought, livestock feed costs and other factors.” She says that she was not surprised to learn about the “mass misinformation program, as this is a direct replica of the fossil fuels and tobacco industry playbook.”
As previously reported by Corporate Knights, Big Meat has been known to take a play or two from Big Oil’s playbook. In 2021, for example, researchers from New York University looked at how 10 U.S. meat and dairy giants influenced regulators and the public. The study found that all 10 companies engaged in research that minimizes the link between animal agriculture and climate change. Three firms – Tyson Foods, Cargill and Smithfield Foods – went even further, supporting “countermovement organizations” or similar groups that play down the link between agriculture and climate change.
Ultimately, the stakes have been raised for those who raise steaks, and the PR battle has been waged, now with the added tool of formal (mis)education.
