Enough to make one Red...with Beef

Beef boosters groom meat mavens on campus - Yahoo! Finance: "The national beef industry has enlisted college students across the country in its public relations fight for America's hearts, minds and stomachs.

The Masters of Beef Advocacy program also recruits farmers, ranchers, high-end chefs and school dietitians to spread the gospel of red meat consumption. But the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which started the outreach effort two years ago, has placed a strong emphasis on the Twitter generation. At least 20 percent of the nearly 2,200 program graduates are age 21 or younger.

The online program -- called MBA in a nod to the more commonly known graduate business degree -- is available in 47 states and particularly popular at public land-grant universities with strong agricultural schools, such as the University of Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas State and Western Kentucky.

At Western Kentucky University, animal sciences professor Nevil Speer offers the Masters of Beef Advocacy curriculum as an extra-credit assignment for the mostly freshmen and sophomores in his introductory-level classes. The units cover beef safety, production techniques, animal care, environmental stewardship, nutrition and the national program that provides marketing and research money.

"It's not a coercive type of thing," Speer said. "It's an external and an objective voice about the food system ... It's not set up as propaganda."

Nathan Runkle disagrees. The executive director of Chicago-based Mercy for Animals, which promotes a vegetarian diet, said that "a more accurate title for this offensive program would be the Master of BS."

"Centers for higher learning should not become dumping grounds for propaganda programs that push increased profits for an industry that subjects animals to extreme cruelty and exploitation," he said. "Cruelty and violence has no place in the classroom.""