Transitional Workplaces: Alt-Meat and Beef Producer Health and Safety in the Kansas Flint Hills

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bendixsen, Casper G. ; Durbin, Trevor J. ; Klataske, Ryan T.
• Description:
  On May 5, 2022, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly signed the "Fake Meat Labeling Bill" (SB 261). The new law requires consumer labeling to indicate that alternative meat products are not conventionally produced meat. The bill received unanimous bipartisan support, was the focus of lobbying efforts by the Kansas Livestock Association, and is widely viewed as a response to perceived threats of the alternative meat (or alt-meat) industry to the Kansas economy and rural ways of life. The products covered in the bill can vary widely, beginning with well-established plant-based alternatives, such as those sold under the MorningStar Farms brand. It also includes more recent developments in the plant-based space such as offerings by companies like Impossible Foods, which use newer technologies to create plant-based proteins that more closely resemble conventional meat. In addition, a growing contingent of start-ups are now attempting to bring cultured meat to market. Cultured meat is made of animal cells grown in cell cultures within bioreactors and is not yet sold to consumers in the United States. While alt-meat of all kinds has seemed to trigger anxiety among Kansas lawmakers and livestock producers, scholars have not yet considered how any alt-meat sector might shape the future of Kansas beef production and the well-being of those dependent on it. This commentary explicitly focuses on the potential impacts of cultured beef as an alternative meat product that would most directly compete with conventionally raised beef. This commentary is necessarily limited, therefore, to considerations of how a growing cultured beef sector might impact small to mid-sized producers in the Flint Hills of Kansas and excludes not only other kind of alt-meat but also other kinds of workplaces, such as feedyards and slaughterhouses. We draw on our original dataset of 30 semi-structured interviews, primarily with Kansas beef-producers on small to mid-sized operations and other ethnographic data to ask how increased consumption of cultured beef might impact the well-being of conventional beef producers on family farms in the Flint Hills region of Kansas. Although it provided insights to help us think about potential impacts of alt-beef, these data were gathered in the context of an ethnographic project designed with a different purpose, to assess what parents think about the benefits and risks of raising children around beef cattle. Participants recruited were those who raised beef cattle and had children between the ages of 10 and 18 years. Interviews focused on participant perceptions of benefits and risks of raising children around beef cattle. Because interviews were open-ended, data were gathered about future aspirations for both family and the family farm. Interviews took place in participants' homes, on their family farms or ranchland, at workplaces, in public spaces, and online via videoconferencing due to the constraints of COVID-19. Each interview typically lasted around 45-60 minutes and sometimes involved additional conversation and/or tours of farms and livestock. Direct observation, a common ethnographic method, was used during site visits and observations were recorded as fieldnotes. We argue that to better understand the future impacts of cultured beef on conventional beef production as a workplace, we must think through specific geographic, cultural, and socio-ecological contexts rather than only within national-scale scenarios. In doing so, we offer four possible transitional workplaces that may become more significant in a cultured beef future. This approach brings together perspectives from cultural anthropology and the social-ecological model to argue for a more inclusive definition of "workplace" and its future transitions. Doing so, we believe, opens new and broader possibilities for what can count as agricultural health and safety, potentially adding to the vitality and resiliency of the field. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Family Food-Processing Industry Livestock Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Agricultural Industry Families Food Processing Industry Livestock Industry Plants Regulations
• ISSN:
  1059-924X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Kansas ; OSHA Region 7
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  9 pdf pages
• Volume:
  28
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067460
• Citation:
  J Agromedicine 2023 Jan; 28(1):61-68
• Contact Point Address:
  Trevor J. Durbin, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA
• Email:
  tdurbin@ksu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2023
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Performing Organization:
  Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20080930
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Agromedicine
• End Date:
  20250929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:01f683fde73c6a4d3d5634b61f2dcbefaa409db15b9392fccf3b85fe6fe054ea8027e10e4a09a1d5d1aba1bbeb978cfdd83f060917ca5c7eda32d22644293399
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/230637/cdc_230637_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.55 MB ]