Cattle Rancher Has Beef with Museum Exhibit

A South Dakota cattle rancher is on a quest to change a museum exhibit that depicts beef in a negative light.

Troy Hadrick saw the traveling exhibit "Water" at The Field Museum in Chicago last week and didn't like what part of the exhibit, "BEEF: The Thirstiest Crop," said about his moneymaker.

Among the many claims were things like it takes 1800 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef, it talks about grain feeding our cows, and that industrial beef waste easily spills and pollutes ground and surface water.

After talking to someone from The Field Museum, he learned that "Water" was produced by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. So he's alerted his fellow animal "farmers" and has launched a letter-writing campaign to get the museum to alter its facts about cow flesh.

But he may want to reconsider. The statistics in "Water" appear to be on the conservative side.

A 1997 study, "Water Resources: Agriculture, the Environment and Society," published in the journal BioScience found the amount of water needed was significantly higher.

Our taste for meat is costly in terms of water, [David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences] noted. Producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein. [...] [G]rowing the grain to feed cattle requires 12,000 gallons of water for every pound of beef[.]

Pimentel and others edited a 2001 book, "Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation and Health," that stated the same conclusion. At that time he had written more than 500 scientific articles and 20 books.

Of course, I'm sure the scientists who put together "Water" know what they're talking about. It's unlikely they are secretly animal-rights activists bent on spreading veganism through their exhibit.

(Photo credit: Iowa Beef Industry Council.)