By Dr. Sara Place
When people think about sustainability, they often have different interpretations from others. That is what makes grasping the concept of a sustainable beef operations so difficult sometimes, according to Dr. Sara Place of Oklahoma State University’s Animal Science Department. Specializing in the area of sustainable beef practices, Dr. Place tells Radio Oklahoma Network’s Ron Hays that she likes to define sustainability as a multifaceted way of thinking.
“The way I always like to define sustainability, if you are an individual beef producer,” Place said, “is that you’re going to be paying attention to long-term business viability, stewardship of the natural resources you’re taking care of, and thinking about the responsibility to your family, to the bigger community and of course to the animals.”
Dr. Place says that like any business that wants to accomplish anything, your first consideration has to be the economics; you have to stay in business to do anything, including being sustainable. Stewardship of your resources, she says, could entail how you manage your forage program or what steps you take to create wildlife habitat on your property.
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