WICHITA, Kan. -- Reacting to the scandal surrounding the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska, meat industry consultant Temple Grandin on March 16 at the National Farmers Union convention said meat animals should be bred for "optimal rather than maximum" production.
In January, a New York Times story alleged abuse of cattle, pigs and lambs in a program to increase birth rates.
Asked by Agweek to comment on the USMARC situation, Grandin noted she has not visited the center since the late 1980s and thinks "some of the stuff they dredged up is ancient history."
But Grandin, a Colorado State University professor of animal science, added she has learned sometimes there are employees who don't want to change the ways they handle animals, and such employees should be let go.
She added she thinks the meat industries are trying to get too much productivity out of animals.
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"There's a point where you're pushing biology too hard," she said, noting that she thinks there can be "biological overload" in some of these breeding techniques in which the industry is trying to breed for certain characteristics.
"Maybe we'd better back off a tiny bit on productivity" and breed some resistance to disease back in the animals, she said.
Grandin noted that in her speech she had talked about being an "associative thinker" and that she looks "across species" as she considers these issues.
Grandin, who is autistic and is famed for her ability to relate to animals and figure out ways to handle them more humanely, especially in slaughterhouses, emphasized in a speech to the National Farmers Union that society needs all kinds of people.
"I am a photo realistic visual thinker," she said. "I can't do algebra.
"Everybody is not the same," she added.
Too many kids are labeled autistic, dyslexic or suffering from Asperger's or another condition, she said.
"I am worried that our educational system will screen them out. We need them as problem solvers," she said.
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Grandin said there is too much emphasis on the children's "deficits" rather than on developing their strong points.
"I am a professor first and the autism comes second," said Grandin.
Of the current interest in local foods, Grandin said, she thinks some of the interest is in the fear of what might happen if food does not arrive in big stores such as Walmart.
"Big is fragile," she said, noting that during the recent labor problems on the ports on the West Coast, "beef was rotting."
