Stewardship: A Philosophy of Life, Culture and Business - Dr. Gerald Stokka, North Dakota State University, from the 2014 Iowa Cattle Industry Convention, December 8 - 10, 2014, Des Moines IA, USA More presentations at http://www.trufflemedia.com/agmedia/conference/2014-iowa-cattle-industry-convention

2. Stewardship: A Philosophy of Life,
Culture and Business

3. Introduction
Philosophy
Stewardship
• Truth
• Economics
• Health
Solutions & Final Comments

4. Design or
Chance
Purpose or
Indifference

5. Philosophy
The belief that all life is equal, because our planetary
relations are sacred, leads to the inevitable conclusion that it
is unethical to value one life over any other. Thus, the life of
one ant and the life of my child should be granted equal
consideration.
• Michael W. Fox DVM, former officer for HSUS
• Sacred – entitled to respect or reverence

6. Philosophy
One may create any world one wishes with words, the
critical question is whether one would be willing to live
in that world.
• Adrian Morrison, An Odyssey with Animals 2009

7. Philosophy
Genesis 9:2,3 The fear and dread of you will fall upon
all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air,
upon every creature that moves along the ground, and
upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your
hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food
for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now
give you everything.
Religion in Ag, Feedstuffs Magazine, June 2, 2014.
• Dominion(authority) with Stewardship over the sheep and
oxen, beasts of the field, birds of the air, fish of the sea.

8. Rangelands and herbivory co-evolved as part of a
natural system. Grazing is a fundamental biologic
process and is the basis of the food chain. Grass
evolved to be eaten. It is a renewable resource,
grows from sunlight and water and needs to be
harvested just like a lawn needs to be mowed.
Ranchers are resident caretakers of brush, grass
and grazers.
Did God make a mistake in making these grazing
animals?
J. Wayne Burkhardt, PhD. Professor, Range
Management University of Nevada, Reno
Range Magazine Nov 2003

9. Stewardship Definition
Stewardship:Stewardship:
Careful and responsible management of somethingCareful and responsible management of something
entrusted to one's care (noun, Webster)entrusted to one's care (noun, Webster)

10. Stewardship: Consumer Desires
and Food Production”

11. What Consumers Want vs. What Production Demands
Food – Basic human right
• Cost as % of income
• Low income families affected the most by increased regulation and
labels.
– 1934 – 24%
– 2012 – 10%
• Food Choices – desired by affluent societies
– Whole Foods
– Sam’s Club
• Sustainability – Stewardship of Renewable resources
– While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk
positions , and pay more for food produced by the so-called
"organic" methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people
of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot. -Norman Borlaug, Father of
the real "Green Revolution“
– “Agriculture is a business. Farming without a financial motive is
gardening.” Russ Parsons, Food editor, LA Times.

12. What’s Changed
Demographics
• Baby Boomers, Gen X (1961-1981), Gen Y (Millenials, early
80’s – early 2000’s), Gen Z.
• 317 million people, 82% live in cities and suburbs
• Fertility rate – 1.8 children/couple, 2.1 is necessary to maintain
population, immigration is responsible for population growth.
• Fastest growing group, Latino/Hispanic
• 27% under 20 years of age, 12.8% age 65 and older

13. Stewardship: Of Truth and Food

14. Stewardship of Truth
As I take the students through the life of a calf, why it is
raised, why we eat beef, and how to offer basic care to a
food animal; I field a variety of questions. While I find each
one of the students’ questions interesting, there was one
yesterday that gave me pause.
A 5th grade boy asked:
How can you get the meat off of the calf without killing
it?
I answered,
You can’t. The animal gives it’s life in order to provide
us with nutritious food.
• Anne Burkholder; Feedyard Foodie

15. Stewardship of Truth
My answer was met with a new level of understanding and
a quiet nod. I do not think that this young man will ever
look at a hamburger the same way again.
As the students completed the last station and filed off to
the nearby field to enjoy a hamburger lunch, I continued to
think about this question — baffled that a 10 year old boy
would think that meat would be harvested off of a calf
without the calf dying.
How has our society become so far removed from
food production?
and perhaps more importantly…
How are we going to fix this?
http://feedyardfoodie.wordpress.com/2014
/09/11/cozads-ag-exposure-day/

16. What’s Changing:Dietary Guidelines
Time to end the war against saturated fat?
• The British Medical Journal and heart disease: British cardiologist Aseem
Malhotra BMJ:
• Virtually all the truths about preventing heart attacks that
physicians and patients have held dear for more than a
generation are wrong and need to be abandoned.
• He cites recent research that suggests that the "obsession"
with lowering a patients' total cholesterol with statins, and a
public health message that has made all sources of saturated
fat forbidden to the health-conscious, have failed to reduce
heart disease.
How Americans Got Red Meat Wrong, The Atlantic, June 2, 2014
“Good Calories, Bad Calories” Gary Taubes
“Why We Get Fat and What to do about it” Gary Taubes
“The Big Fat Surprise” Nina Teicholz

17. What’s Changing: Dietary Guidelines
SWEDEN SHIFTS NATIONAL DIETARY GUIDANCE ON
EATING – STEERS TOWARD LOW-CARB, LOW-
GLYCEMIC FOOD RECOMMENDATIONS
• Sweden has become the first western nation to recommend a
lower-carbohydrate higher-fat, diet approach to eating – as part
of an effort to reduce the national prevalence of obesity,
diabetes, and to improve markers of heart health.
• This bold move stems from a literature review of 16,000 studies
on diet and obesity, published by Swedish government
advisors at the Council on Health Technology Assessment.

18. What’s Not Changing
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, released on
January 31, 2011, emphasize three major goals for
Americans:
Balance calories with physical activity to manage weight
Consume more of certain foods and nutrients such as
fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy
products, and seafood
Consume fewer foods with sodium (salt), saturated fats,
trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, and refined grains

19. What Should Not Change
Now Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River
to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt;
they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of
his life.
Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors(kor = 10
bushel) of fine flour and sixty kors of meal.
Ten fat oxen, twenty pasture-fed oxen, a hundred sheep
besides deer, gazelles,roebucks and fattened fowl.
• I Kings 4:21-23

20. Stewardship & Health

21. Stewardship of Animal AgricultureStewardship of Animal Agriculture
Doing our part by caring for animalsDoing our part by caring for animals
through responsible resource managementthrough responsible resource management
and the prudent use of technologyand the prudent use of technology

22. Turn Back the Clock
At the Land Institute there is a sixteen-by-sixteen-foot
shack that I had brought from thirty miles south. My
friend Leland lived in that shack on $500 a year for
twenty-nine years. That fact makes me awfully
impatient with those who say that they just can’t get
along on $80,000 a year. Leland has more cultural
capacity than I do. He reads a lot of books. He had a
little car, a Karmann Ghia that he rode around in. And
he had a way of thinking about his place in the world;
he was kind of a gregarious hermit, in a way. It seems
to me that we’re talking about – well, it’s like that
Beatles song. “You say you want a revolution… You’d
better free your mind instead.” How can we bring that
about? This represents all kinds of open questions to
which I have no answers.
• Wes Jackson, Land Institute, advocate for sustainable agriculture,

23. Answers?

24. Solutions & Thoughts
Re-engage in the disciplines of philosophy, animal
husbandry and animal science (technology).
• Engage with passion and articulate the purpose for which
you have been chosen.
• Emphasize the creativity and artistic gifts of our culture, our
philosophy.
Truth
• "I've always thought that the most powerful weapon in the
world was the bomb and that's why I gave it to my people,
but I've come to the conclusion that the most powerful
weapon in the world is not the bomb but it's the truth"
-Andrei Sakharov, atheist, but believed in a non-scientific
“guiding principle” that governed the universe and human life

25. Stewardship:
A Philosophy of Life & Culture
Mission statement:
“I have a stewardship responsibility to manage and care for available
resources; land, livestock, my personal life, while leaving behind a better
place for the next generation.”
– Stokka 2012 ))

26. What is a Livestock Steward?
Demonstrates Commitment
• Family
• Community
• Nation
• Industry
Compassionate to those less fortunate
Respectful to diverse ideas and opinions
Leader – Is sought out by others, purposeful
Problem solver – does not blame others, but looks for
solutions, gives others credit
Grateful for the blessing of livestock
Prepares for the future, lives in the present, respects the
past

27. Summary
Philosophy
• Understand and articulate what you believe and why
Stewardship
• Truth
• Land, Livestock, People
• Write your personal Stewardship mission statement
Solutions
• Disciplines of science, husbandry and philosophy.

28. Stewardship

29. Beef Business
“In this business of cattle raising, we exert our will, We take
a calf off a poor cow and graft it onto a good one. We hobble
a reticent cow until she lets her calf suck. We midwife these
calves into existence, we care for them, sometimes we even
risk our lives for them, and they are ultimately slated for
slaughter. In this fact lies the essential irony of our work. No
one forgets that a live calf is money in the bank. And yet a
reverence remains. John Bell and Hungry and the calf in the
cab of the pickup are not merely units of production; our
connection to them is more than economic. Day in and day
out we confront the messiness of this business of living; if we
live with slaughter, we also live with nurture, with seasons
and cycles, with birth and with death.”
• Riding the White Horse Home, Teresa Jordan, 1993 Vintage Books, pg
108

30. Truth vs Opinion
Proverbs 18:2
–A fool finds no pleasure in
understanding but delights in airing
his own opinions.