Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam - The #Scicomm Challenge Facing Animal Agriculture

Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Education
“Scientific Communication about
Animal Agriculture”
Alison Van Eenennaam, Ph.D.
Cooperative Extension Specialist
Animal Biotechnology and Genomics
Department of Animal Science
University of California, Davis, USA
Email: alvaneenennaam@ucdavis.edu
Twitter: @BioBeef Blog: http://biobeef.faculty.ucdavis.edu
http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/animalbiotech
Van Eenennaam 9/20/2016
http://blogs.egu.eu/network/palaeoblog/files/2012/10/science.jpg

GMOS MAKE
LIVESTOCK
SICK
PINK
SLIME
MEAT IS
ALWAYS BAD
FOR YOU
CONVENTIONAL
AGRICULTURE
DESTROYS THE
ENVIONMENT
FARMERS
MISTREAT
ANIMALS
GRASSFED IS
BETTER
EATING
MEAT
CAUSES
GLOBAL
WARMING
ANTIBIOTIC
USE IN
ANIMAL AG
IS ALWAYS BAD
SCIENTISTS
ARE BAD;
ACTIVISTS
ARE GOOD

Google image search for “Ideal Farm”
Audio from “No Scrub Bulls” (Civil eats)
http://www.wallstickeroutlet.com/Images/oopsy-daisy-ideal-farm-wall-art-2.jpg
http://civileats.com/2015/02/19/no-scrubs-breeding-a-better-bull-audio
Animal Genomics and Biotechnology EducationVan Eenennaam 9/20/2016

Animal Genomics and Biotechnology EducationCanada 4/25/2016
98% US farms family owned and
there are no “buildings” on the range

Illustration by Maki Naro Animal Genomics and Biotechnology EducationVan Eenennaam 9/20/2016

Opinion: Scientists’ Intuitive Failures
Much of what researchers believe about the public and
effective communication is wrong.
“given the norms of our profession…it is ironic
that many of these debates about how to best
communicate science with lay populations are
driven by intuitive assumptions on the part of
scientists rather than the growing body of social
science research on the topic that has
developed over the past two decades”
Matthew C Nisbet and Dietram A Scheufele
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32384/title/Opinion--Scientists--Intuitive-Failures/

Part of the problem is that
communication styles need to differ
depending upon the audience

Communication aspect Academic
Main information channel Audio and visual
Structure Information is fine
Mode of response Cerebral
Need humor? Not necessarily
Like sincerity? Suspicious of it
Sex appeal? Potential disaster
Know your stuff? Yes
Effective elements Information
Effective organs Head
Preferred voice Robotic
How Academic audiences respond
to various aspects of
communication
Olson, R. 2009. Don’t be such a scientist. Talking substance in an age of style. Island Press.

Communication aspect Academic General Public
Main information channel Audio and visual Visual
Structure Information is fine Need a story
Mode of response Cerebral Visceral
Need humor? Not necessarily Pretty much
Like sincerity? Suspicious of it Always
Sex appeal? Potential disaster The ultimate
Know your stuff? Yes No (don’t trust you!)
Effective elements Information Humor, sincerity, sex
Effective organs Head Heart, gut, gonads
Preferred voice Robotic Human
How Academic versus “General Public”
audiences respond to various aspects
of communication
Olson, R. 2009. Don’t be such a scientist. Talking substance in an age of style. Island Press.

Animal Biotechnology and Genomics Education
This is a picture
of D _ A.
B
N
C
L
0% 0%0%0%
1. B
2. N
3. C
4. L
?

Given this information……

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
Which do you think is my dog?
1
2
3
4
0% 0%0%0%
1 2
3 4

What is Sustainability?
balancing environmental, social,
and economic goals

Which sustainability goal is
most important to you?
Social
Econom
ic
Environm
ent
0%0%0%
1. Social
2. Economic
3. Environment

1. Improved product quality and safety.
2. Improved animal welfare and natural behavior.
3. Decreased impact on the environment
and efficient use of natural resources.
Illustrations from Stern,S., Sonesson,U., Gunnarsson,S., Oborn,I.,
Kumm,K.I., & Nybrant,T. Sustainable development of food production:
A case study on scenarios for pig production. Ambio 34, 402-407 (2005).
WHICH SYSTEM IS SUSTAINABLE?

Which system do you think
is the most sustainable?
Food
Safety
Anim
alW
elfare
Decreased
footprint
0%0%0%
1. Improved product quality
and food safety; low cost
intermediate environmental
footprint
2. Improved animal welfare
and natural behavior;
highest cost and
environmental footprint
3. Decreased impact on the
environment and efficient
use of natural resources;
low cost and lowest
environmental footprint

There are almost always goal
conflicts between environmental,
social, and economic goals
Each scenario fulfilled different aspects of
sustainability, but there were goal conflicts
because no scenario fulfilled all sustainability goals
The authors also wrote that the evaluation and ranking of
sustainability goals is mainly a political question. Leaving
sustainability goal evaluation to the political process
potentially exposes the process to subjective interpretation
and political pressure from special interest groups
Stern,S., Sonesson,U., Gunnarsson,S., Oborn,I., Kumm,K.I., & Nybrant,T. Sustainable development of food
production: A case study on scenarios for pig production. Ambio 34, 402-407 (2005).

As a result of these goal conflicts we have all
sorts of marketers profiting off this to suggest
THEIRS is the ONLY truly sustainable system!

Sustainable label definition:
Sustainable agriculture is a way of raising food that is
healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm
the environment, is humane for workers, respects
animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and
supports and enhances rural communities.

Google image search for “Ideal Farm”
http://www.wallstickeroutlet.com/Images/oopsy-daisy-ideal-farm-wall-art-2.jpg

Of the total annual pest losses in crops,
weeds account for 37%, insects 29%,
diseases 22% and other pests 12%.

Weeds use water, nutrients
and decrease yield per acre

Sonoma 8/3/2016
Toxicity of pesticides (red line)
used in agriculture dropped
dramatically over past 50 years
Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge, Richard Nehring, Craig Osteen, Seth Wechsler, Andrew Martin, and Alex Vialou. 2014a. Pesticide Use in U.S.
Agriculture: 21 Selected Crops, 1960-2008, EIB-124, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, May 2014.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1424185/eib124.pdf
Average quality characteristics of pesticides applied to four
major crops, 1968-2008

What choice would you make
to control agricultural weeds?
D
o
nothing
and...
A
pply
herbicid...
Plough
them
un...
B
urn
them
w
ith...
U
se
m
anuallab...
C
rop
rotations...
U
se
integrated...
0% 0% 0%0%0%0%0%
Van Eenennaam 9/20/2016 Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Education
1. Do nothing and lose crop
2. Apply herbicide to kill weeds
3. Plough them under (tillage)
4. Burn them with propane
5. Use manual labor & hoe
6. Crop rotations
7. Use integrated pest
management that involves
use of variety of approaches
which could include all of
the above

Pinkeye is caused by
bacteria carried by face flies

What happens to animal welfare
when raised antibiotic-free?

What choice would you make
to care for cows with pink eye?
D
o
nothing
A
ntibiotic
the...Puta
patch
ov...N
otenough
inf...
0% 0%0%0%
1. Do nothing
2. Antibiotic therapy
3. Put a patch over the eye
4. Not enough information
(i.e. need to know the
therapy that the peer-
reviewed literature has
shown to be the most
efficacious)

Plant and animal breeders have
perhaps the most compelling
sustainability story of all time
https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/corn-hybrid-yields.jpeg
Chart from Matt DiLeo/USDA

1944: 25.6 million animals; total annual milk production of 53.1 billion kg.
1997: 9.2 million animals; total annual milk production of 84.2 billion kg.
About half of this 369% increase in production efficiency is
attributable to genetic improvement enabled by AI
VandeHaar, M.J. and St-Pierre, N. (2006). Major Advances in Nutrition: Relevance to the Sustainability
of the Dairy Industry. Journal of Dairy Science 89, 1280-1291.
A
I

2014 total
production
2014 Amount
needed at
1950s rate
Additional
needed
Soybeans 3,927,090,000 BU
(235,562,540,000 lb)
(106,849,370,802 kg)
82,591,000
Acres
(33,423,392 ha)
180,971,889
Acres
(73,236,725 ha)
~ 98 million
Acres
(~40 million ha)
Corn 14,215,532,000 BU
(796,069,979,000 lb)
(361,091,268,460 kg)
83,136,000
Acres
(33,643,946 ha)
372,134,346
Acres
(150,597,427 ha)
~ 289 million
Acres
(~120 million ha)
Dairy cattle 206,046,000,000 lbs
milk
(93,460,893,469 kg)
9,257,166 head 38,774,181 head ~ 30 million head
Broilers 51,373,100,000 lbs
meat
(23,302,446,000 kg)
8,544,100,000
head
16,679,545,455
head
~ 8 billion head
+ an additional
81.5 billion lbs
feed due to less
efficient FCR

Genetic improvement (permanent,
cumulative) as a solution to animal
disease rather than chemicals

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3434
Holtkamp et al. 2015. Gene-
edited pigs are protected from
porcine reproductive and
respiratory syndrome virus
(PRRSV). Nature Biotechnology

Gene Edited Polled Calves
Tan et al. 2013. Efficient nonmeiotic allele introgression in livestock using custom endonucleases.
PNAS 110: 16526-31.
Naturally-occurring bovine allele at polled locus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qks_LMmodw

Breeding Method:
Selective Breeding
Genomic Selection
Mutagenesis (ENU)
Gene Knockout (ES)
Genetic engineering
Sterile insect technique
Cloning
Gene Editing
Research PetsPharma
products
Biomedical
Products
Pest Control Agriculture
Millions of
Mice/Laboratory
Rodents/Zebrafish
GloFish
MicropigsRabbit -
Ruconest
Goat – ATryn,
spider silk
Pigs -
Xenotransplantation
Cattle – polyclonal
human antibodies
AquAdvantage Salmon –
fast growth
Polled Holsteins
Disease resistance
Improved product quality
Decrease environmental
footprint
Single gender offspring
Species
Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Education
TseTse fly –
sleeping sickness
Mosquitoes –
zika/malaria
resistance
Moths –
agricultural pest
control

Which of these breeding methods
is not a “sustainable” method?
Selective
Bree...
G
enom
ic
Select...
M
utagenesis
Us...
G
ene
Knockouts
G
enetic
Engine...
Sterile
Insect...Cloning
G
ene
Editing
M
ore
than
one
...
None
ofthe
ab...
0% 0% 0% 0% 0%0%0%0%0%0%
1. Selective Breeding
2. Genomic Selection
3. Mutagenesis Using Chemicals
4. Gene Knockouts
5. Genetic Engineering (GMOs)
6. Sterile Insect Technique
7. Cloning
8. Gene Editing
9. More than one of the above
10. None of the above

Agricultural breeding programs align with many
sustainability goals including improved animal
well-being, increased efficiency of production and
reduced environmental footprint of agriculture
• Naturally polled Holsteins
• Disease resistant animals
• Sex selection for ♀ in
dairy and egg industries

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/29/public-and-scientists-views-on-science-and-society/pi_2015-01-29_science-and-society-00-01/
Image from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/150129-public-opinion-aaas-health-education-science/

The problem is the public, not
scientists or policymakers
“Scientists have long believed that when the public
disagreed with them on matters of policy, public
ignorance was to blame….. But research shows that
science literacy has only a limited connection to public
attitudes. Instead, trust, emotion, social identity, and
how an issue is framed matter more, putting much of
the burden of effective communication on scientists and
their institutions.”
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32384/title/Opinion--Scientists--Intuitive-Failures/
Matthew C Nisbet and Dietram A Scheufele

LOGOS
Logic/reason/proof
Appeal to logic
ETHOS
Credibility/trust
Appeal to ethics
PATHOS
Emotions/values
Appeal to emotion
Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle -
the available means of persuasion
Background
Supporting
details
Results
Shared
values
and
bottom line
So what?
Supporting
details

LOGOS
Logic/reason/proof
ETHOS
Credibility/trust
PATHOS
Emotions/values
Main techniques
Stories/Anectodal information
Inspirational quotes
Vivid language
Scare tactics
They (insert enemy here)
worked against everything
we’ve worked so hard to
build, and they don’t care
about (insert shared value
here). Make no mistake,
they’re the enemy, and they
won’t stop until we’re all
destroyed.
This is very effective

Animal Biotechnology and Genomics EducationVan Eenennaam 9/20/2016
Narratives that are based on emotion or fear
are difficult to address using logic or reason
Jenny McCarthy – Vaccinations Vani Hari – Chemicals in food

Weeds use water, nutrients
and decrease yield per acre
Intelligence Squared debate on GM food
New York City, December 2014

Genetically modify food?

Animal Genomics and Biotechnology EducationVan Eenennaam 9/20/2016 New York City, December 4, 2014

http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1161-genetically-modify-food

YouTube: http://youtu.be/lhh0t-y86Xk
What do the facts say?

Alison Van Eenennaam, Ph.D.
Cooperative Extension Specialist
Animal Biotechnology and Genomics
Department of Animal Science
University of California, Davis, USA
alvaneenennaam@ucdavis.edu
Twittter: @BioBeef
http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/animalbiotech
Thanks for inviting me

Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam - The #Scicomm Challenge Facing Animal Agriculture

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Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam - The #Scicomm Challenge Facing Animal Agriculture