New Tools Answer Consumers’ Questions About Their Food 

The agricultural industry has a growing challenge — and a budding opportunity to solve it. According to a recent study from the University of Minnesota, only 24% of U.S. adults have a high degree of trust in the information they get about how their food is produced. And for Generation Z, that figure falls to 17%. 

As younger generations begin developing lifelong shopping habits, they are showing an ever-greater interest in how agricultural products make it to their tables. Modern buyers pay particularly close attention to environmental sustainability and animal welfare. 

But farming hasn’t entirely overcome its challenges with transparency, primarily due to the long-time unavailability of tools to track and trace foods. Consumers typically have little more to go on than their vendors’ word — even butchers, fishmongers, and greengrocers often lack reliable origin information.  

Add to that two generations of a steady rotation of new dietary fads and nutritional recommendations, and many consumers ended up confused about what they were putting on their plates. 

But we are now entering a new era of transparency in food.  

New veterinary medical and technological tools can now promote healthier animals, more sustainable farming, and a higher degree of traceability — to the benefit of farmers and consumers alike. 

For U.S. agriculture to continue thriving, it needs to build public confidence and gain more consumer trust. According to a recent omnibus survey, nearly two in three consumers believe more transparency is needed in the animal protein industry, especially when it comes to meat and seafood products. In choosing to purchase specific products, the same share of consumers regard sustainability and animal welfare as important factors. Younger adults aged 18 to 34 feel even more strongly about these issues. 

Fortunately, gathering data and information on these important topics is becoming easier than ever before. 

Let’s start with tracing food back from the dinner plate to its origins. Technologies like DNA TraceBack are fostering real transparency within the food system, using DNA-based technology to cut through the complexity of supply chains and provide traceability from farm to table. Platforms like these provide verifiable information for producers, processors, and retailers — and answer the questions consumers have about their food. 

Meanwhile, advancements in medicines, technologies, and treatments have greatly improved animal health and welfare in recent years. Healthier animals, in turn, yield more protein using fewer resources — improving the environmental sustainability of the production process. Farmers are now able to make more informed animal health and welfare decisions.  

For instance, some technologies use sensors to record images and sound while measuring an animal’s heart rate and physical vitality. Increasingly sophisticated software tools are being applied to analyze the data. In industry parlance, using these tools is known as “precision livestock farming,” and it helps farmers provide animals with appropriate nutrition and veterinary care. 

In addition to helping improve animal health and welfare, monitoring technologies enable farmers to reduce or even entirely avoid disease outbreaks. Currently, about a fifth of the world’s animal protein is lost to disease every year — enough meat to feed 1.6 billion people. And globally, for every two cattle vaccinated to prevent disease, one fewer person goes hungry. 

Stopping these outbreaks before they start is another way farmers raise livestock with fewer resources and less waste. The more water, feed, land, and other resources used to raise a herd of cattle or a flock of poultry, the greater the strain on the environment.  

Precision livestock farming also gives agriculturalists the kind of information that consumers want. For example, a farmer can know exact quantities of resources going into raising a flock of chickens, and how those numbers compare to previous flocks. Useful data like water use per chicken, feed intake per chicken, or even specific environmental conditions within poultry houses are all now quantifiable. 

When it comes to cattle, this technology can monitor milk production and composition, along with the quality of meat. Letting consumers trace how animals were raised will make it easier to align dietary choices with values and preferences. 

As global meat consumption continues to rise, farmers are working continuously to be more efficient and do more with less. Consumers, meanwhile, have the option to choose brands that demonstrate a commitment to high standards of animal health, welfare, and sustainable farming. 

Combined, these kinds of practices will benefit our planet for generations to come.