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Founded in 1909, UFA Co-operative Limited is an Alberta-based agricultural co-operative with more than 125,000 member-owners. UFA’s network comprises more than 121 bulk fuel and Cardlock Petroleum locations, 35 Farm & Ranch Supply stores and a support office in Calgary, AB. Independent Petroleum Agents and over 1,200 UFA employees provide products, services and agricultural solutions to farmers, ranchers, members and commercial customers in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
Takes a certain kind of ambition to do what farmers do. Between the hours and the hard labor, to the public scrutiny and bureaucratic maze running, it's not an easy task. While the agricultural industry feeds millions, quietly tilling and producing behind the scenes, many forget that our food comes from the hands of real people with real stories.
Join us as we share stories from those with boots on the ground and unearth unique perspectives on agriculture's biggest conversations. It's time to grab your shovel and get to work. I'm Don Schaffer and this is Digging In with UFA.
Let's talk about beef. When it comes to beef production, there are many perspectives, theories, and assumptions about what it means to go from the farm to the table. From concerns about antibiotic use to cattle emissions and a wide range of other public issues, beef production often gets a bad rap. There's so much to discuss that it can't all be contained in one episode. So today, we begin to dig in on the truth about beef.
Our first guest is a familiar voice on this podcast. Someone who brings ranching to life by sharing real world experiences with a healthy dose of humor. His passion for educating others and showing the true realities of ranch life makes every conversation unforgettable. To many, his quick dick, McDick. This guest has single-handedly been able to shift public perception through his comedy and an earnest curiosity for the betterment of his community. This is Dixon DeLoren.
My name is Dixon DeLorme, otherwise known as Quick Dick McDick on social media. I come from a small town of Topmo, Saskatchewan. Grew up on a PFRA ranch, did 19 years in oil and gas and I'm back home in agriculture here since 2019. And yeah, I've accidentally created a social media character that is found on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, all the places there is Quick Dick McDick. And we do all kinds of things, right from educational farming videos to political satire to...
stories about a jack-all, kind of anything that I find amusing we put on the internet and try and make people laugh a little bit. So that's kind of who I am.
For those that may not know, PFRA stands for the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration. Established in 1935, this federal program aimed to help improve soil erosion and drought conditions for ranching families across multiple provinces during the Great Depression. I was born into ranching actually, but the grain farming side of things I never really had much to do with. mean, it was just basically strictly cattle and forage and hay crops and stuff that we were raised on. And my dad worked for the PFRA for over 30 years.
and he was actually like my memories of most of life start right here in Taupnall. He was the pasture manager, the foam lake community pasture. So looking after just over a thousand head of cattle throughout the course of the summer and I didn't realize when I was a kid but like I lived the best life that was available. I got to go ride and rope and be a cowboy basically every day on one of the largest most unsupervised playgrounds that exist in Saskatchewan and it was just yeah it was a great way to...
great way to grow up. And then after I'd come back from the oil and gas sector, I'd always kept my land. I'd been in cattle with my dad remotely up until about 2003. He wanted getting injured and some stuff and we wound up selling off the cattle, but keeping the land. was right post BSE too, so probably like the worst time to get rid of your herd. But we kept the land and I came back in 2019 and just kind of like I wasn't supposed to stay home and being home, I was waiting for a work visa to keep working in the oil and gas sector to go to Australia. And I just kind of re- fell in love with being home and being in agriculture.
and decided that I was just going to stay here and get back into it. And that's kind of led me down to a little bit of the grain side of things here now too, is working with Mark Rogers on the Barra Ranch there. We do a little bit of horse trading there on the farms and we get a good thing going on and it's just kind of, yeah, got me back in the spectrum a little bit and learning more obviously about the technological and scientific side of grain farming.
Developing a following takes resonance. have to be able to make people feel something. In the business of connecting to broader audiences, it's uncommon to have a voice that balances comfort, provocation, and wit, though many chase it, do ever catch it. So where did this quick dick character come from, and how has it evolved with the changing times?
It started as just a Snapchat account and like literally I was just on a drive with my dad one day in the field and we were just going to cut firewood. We were in like an old Saskatchewan farm truck with holes in the floor and tools all over the place and like this was normal everyday things that I remember as a kid doing. Like we weren't doing anything different but all of a sudden coming back home with this like I was looking at my life from the outside looking in all of a sudden when I came back home and I was like wait a minute what we're doing here right now is absolutely hilarious.
And I just kind pulled my phone out and started making Snapchat stories on it. And that kind of, in a long way around, just kind of metamorphosized into what it is now of being like full-on productions and like a stand-up comedy tour. yeah, it's kind of crazy how it all worked, but it just, all I've ever done is I just look at things that I think are funny or silly or that don't make sense. And I throw my perspective on it and try and add a little bit of humor to it. And people seem to click on it and watch, I guess.
When you talk to people outside of social media, I don't run into people or come across people that don't trust farming whatsoever. I think there's a few people out there that have concerns about some of the things that exist within agriculture. Like I'm sure we're probably going to talk about today, use of hormones, antibiotics, lots of different things. think there's a small group of people out there that I think are very concerned about this stuff. And I mean, it's a matter of where you're getting your information from. But I think on the broader spectrum,
I don't feel like there's a distrust in agriculture. I think there's advocacy groups, maybe some different styles of media that maybe want to push that what we're doing is not right. From who I interact with mostly, I just, I don't get that sentiment from people.
When talking more about shifting public perception and educating folks on what they think farming and ranching looks like, are some of the biggest misconceptions about agriculture and cattle ranching? That beef is killing the climate. There's a very rich man in the U.S. who was one of the spearheads of a lot of the narrative that exists of beef production is one of the leading causes of climate change.
And now all of a sudden, like we've seen a rollback and almost a reversal in the change in policy on what he's talking about in public. That's important. Now he's talking about poverty and vaccine versus beef being the problem. Now, why is that? Is it because there's been enough pushback or maybe enough people come out and say, hey, what we're doing is actually not bad for the environment. We're trying to symbiotically exist in our environment and that cattle are good. Or is it the fact that he's just starting to lose steam and he needed something else to pivot to? I don't exactly know why all of a sudden there's a big change in narrative, but
It's a perfectly clear example of hypocrisy when you see a massive pivot in something like that with a real lack of information as to why there was a pivot. It's just all of a sudden we're not talking about it and we're not the enemy anymore and we're gonna talk about something else. I don't get it. Like a policy like a carbon tax would be the exact same thing. Like just all of a sudden it's just switched off and nobody's questioning it anymore but like for how many years we were told that the world is in fact going to burn and we will all die if we don't pay this tax and now all of a sudden it's just the
consumer part of it's gone and it's gonna be okay. Well, I'm glad it's gone and never should have been there, but why all of a sudden? It's just like everybody just follows the squirrel. okay, what are we talking about here now today? Well, don't worry about those hundreds of millions of dollars that we cost everybody. It's fine, we'll just pivot.
Our next guest is a voice for the people. From an unexpected life on a cattle farm, she champions for the wellbeing of not just your family and the future of their business, but for the community at large. It takes a special type of and gumption to lead and enact change in a community. A grit built from long days and tough nights. This is Adrian Ivey.
Alright, I am not nearly as glamorous or as exciting as my friend Dixon, but I'll try. I'm Adrienne Ivy and I farm and ranch near iTunes, Saskatchewan, which funny enough is not that far from Tufnell, Saskatchewan. Two very small towns, kind of in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Saskatchewan. I grew up
on a grain farm. I was a grain farmer's daughter and I always knew that I wanted to be involved in agriculture, but I did not think that I was going to farm myself. But I went to university and as the story often goes, I met a boy. And that led me directly to iTunes, which to be frankly, I had never heard of before I met my husband. And so not only did I meet a boy,
Not only did I meet a farmer, but I met a cattleman. And if you know what it's like to have a grain farmer dad, that definitely raised an eyebrow or two. When I was in university and I was choosing my major and I was always more interested in the animal science side of things. And when I went home at Christmas one in my first year and I told my dad that I really wanted to major in animal science and he said,
Animal science? What are you gonna do? Work in a feedlot the rest of your life? And so now I own a feedlot. So there you go, Dad.
We farm in Ratch near iTunes. We have always been predominantly beef. Now we've downsized the beef a little bit, so we're a little bit even between the grain farm and the beef side of things. I love talking about our farm because it is very diverse. I like to say that we raise beef protein. We also grow peas that are plant based protein. We grow canola, genetically modified canola. We use glyphosate.
I know shocking, but also we have land that is certified organic land and we grow certified organic crops as well. So we have a lot of touch points in all of the hot topic areas. Some things that the public sees as great and some things that the public sees as scary. I also like to talk about because of our larger numbers, people would consider us a factory farm when in reality it's my husband and I and our kids chasing.
cattle out in the back pasture and sometimes cursing at each other and trying to come back to the house and have our business meetings at the kitchen table and not be at each other when you work and live with your spouse. So it's been a long windy road for me that led to the middle of nowhere, but I love what we do and could not imagine raising my kids in a better environment than here on the ranch.
Balancing family life with the demanding nonstop work of cattle ranching is no small feat, and finding extra time seems almost impossible. As a strong and sought after public speaker and a respected agricultural advocate, what drives Adrienne to keep speaking up for agricultural families? Well, I think it all kind of hit me hard when my kids were young and they were in the early stages of learning a whole lot of things at school and even
in a small rural farming town like Ituna, they would come home with stories of documentaries that were shown or things that were being talked about that were just so far from the truth. And that was also at the magical age where Facebook was pretty new at, which I'm totally dating myself now. I am old. Let's get that out of the way.
Dixon, I'm sure you have all sorts of jokes about how old I must be if I started doing this when Facebook was young. Do I seem that like the kind of guy that would make jokes? Yes, yes, you do. But with that, you know, obviously also misinformation was growing as exponentially as social media was, which was scary. And so it was something that I like to talk to people and it's something that I could talk about and just.
help navigate people through some of all that misinformation that's out there. I was like in a Walmart or somewhere super random and some woman had to take her toddler into the bathroom and she had a newborn that was sleeping in the groceries cart and you could see her looking around frantically and like as any mom that has had more than one kid knows sometimes it's hard to be there for both her kids at any one given time. And she looked at me, instantly saw that I
was very much in mom mode myself and was like, my God, could you do something for me? Could you just stand here with my cart and my baby while I take my toddler who is about to poop their pants? And of course I did because I'm a mom and that's just what moms do. But as I was standing there with this complete stranger's baby, I realized that I've been doing a lot of speaking and writing about trust in agriculture. And I realized that
all this time that I'm trying to get people to trust me as a farmer. But the reality is that I'm a mom first, and that is my touch point with people. I'm a mom and I'm a cook and I'm a foodie. And that is my most authentic self and my most my easiest path to get people to connect with me and to form a community around those kinds of things. Today, we're here to talk about beef to get to the bottom of cattle ranching and beef production.
and what it looks like from those with boots on the ground, doing the work day in and day out. So to begin are the biggest misconceptions about beef as a whole. I think the whole environmental piece is definitely the biggest misconception about beef and what that really looks like. We hear a lot in the media, all those clickbait headlines about cow farts, which in reality, it's burps that are the problem, but that's besides the point.
And then I think the factory farming that goes along with that, that's number two under the misconceptions, that feedlots get a bad name. The idea of ranching is a little more glamorous and nostalgic. It can tug at the heartstrings, but feedlot, cattle feeding.
it's just a little bit less of a pretty story to tell or, you know, it doesn't have the pretty wrapping on it, even though it is a very essential part of beef production and actually can have a environmental footprint at times when it's being done well, like anything else. So those are the big things for me that I wish that more people would be open to hearing the truth about. Yeah.
Absolutely. mean, like, obviously, I think I think another one that we should touch on would obviously be animal welfare is one of the bigger things that you see, like specifically from mostly animal activists groups most of the time. But there seems to be a narrative that exists in people that you actually have conversations with when you do find people that think you are doing something bad. It doesn't take me very long to be able to explain to them and exemplify to them that we actually care for our animals better than we do for a lot of humans that exist in society, believe it or not.
When cattle ranchers, farmers are labeled as mistreating animals, people don't understand that we have bigger problems in society than what we're doing to responsibly grow food. We have houselessness, have drug addiction, we have rampant crime that exists within human society ourselves. And we as cattle ranchers actually, we take care of our animals better than most cities take care of their own house population. Actually, we do take better care of them. They're never hungry, they're never sick.
and they're always well looked after and maintained and checked on. It's just what we do. It's not only our livelihood and our finances that are on the line, but it's the lives of our livestock, right? And it's our job to protect them and to keep them alive. And I fully believe that we do a better job in the ranching community than most.
city councils do of looking after their population. And when you start talking to people in that context of it, they're like, okay, wow, we never really looked at it that way before. Like we're not out here beating our animals. you see on, so you might see one clip of a meat packing facility in Brazil that has one employee that's beating a cow. And everybody thinks that that's what we're doing here in Tufnell, Saskatchewan. Well, it's just, couldn't be anything farther from the truth. That's one of the bigger reasons why I try every time I go out and check cows, I try and share a clip of my cows just.
coming in for chop. They're happy to see me. They're not running away from me. They're in a very comfortable, safe environment where not only are they growing and they're raising their calves, but they're helping us by sequestering carbon on natural grasslands that we can't farm. It's the best thing that could possibly happen. And if you can actually have a conversation with people who don't have their phone next them that are gonna keep pulling up different articles that tell three different things by some climate institute that was funded by an NGO that's their actual.
cause of life is to try and shut us down, you can actually talk sense to people when they're not being fed a whole bunch of garbage information from somewhere else, right? Social media in general, even if we talk outside of the context of farming and ranching and beef production is, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, here we are on a podcast that's going to be on social media. There's so much unchecked stuff that exists on social media, and I think it could put a lot of people in a bad mindset and in a bad place. I had a conversation, I was coming back from Eastern Canada and I was on a flight.
and I was sitting next to a guy, was in the middle and I was talking to one guy on my left hand side. There was a guy on the right hand side who was actually a flight attendant that was transferring to do another flight somewhere. And we all kind of got talking and he was from, you know, Metro Vancouver. And the guy next to me had grew up on a ranch and then he moved to the city and we were just talking about beef production and what was happening. And I got into a little bit of soil carbon sequestration and what we were doing for fall grazing program to reduce our use of herbicides. And this guy next to me,
eating a bag of turkey jerky, which it was vegan turkey jerky or whatever it was, like imitation turkey jerky. I don't care what you eat. It's fine. Eat whatever you want. But he looked at me and he's got these big crocodile tears in his eyes. And he says to me, you mean cows are good for the environment? I said, yeah, man. He's like, all I've ever been told my whole life is that they're terrible. And I literally didn't want to sit next to you. You were wearing your cowboy hat. And I literally didn't want to sit next to you because I thought you were killing the environment. He listened to me talk to this guy for 30 minutes and he's just like, wow. He's like, well, what can I do to support you? said, just
go order a burger. When you go order a beef burger from your restaurant, buy Canadian beef when you go to the store, it's just that easy. And if you hear somebody that says cows are bad, then you can tell them, hey, this is a weird guy sat to next on a plane, here's his channel and he talks all about it, right? But like it's one conversation at a time is how you try and make this right, you know? Our perception of something is not necessarily reality, though it may be our temporary reality.
it doesn't earnestly echo the nuance of the person or idea or concept in question. How do we have the conversations to give those folks with assumptions the space to learn the realities outside their perception? How do we create transparency that builds bridges and creates the space for these conversations to happen? I think it also goes back to the idea that people aren't distrustful of farmers.
If that man was distrustful of farmers, he would have sat there, listened to Dixon's conversation and thought, he is a liar. He is full of you know what. But instead he listened and he was like, that makes sense to me. And I think that the broader conversation isn't that people distrust farmers, it's that people are distrustful of the food system right now. And I think that's a really important distinction because
That just helps us have better conversations with people. And maybe in the grand scheme of things, not take things quite so personally as farmers, because I know that's something that's a trap that I myself have fallen into. As farmers, often get so defensive about what we do. And instead of having conversations, we're just trying to, you know, drive home bullet points of all the reasons why we're doing the right things. Instead of having the conversations of what we do, why we do it.
how it works, how it sometimes doesn't work, but that we learn from that and then go on and try different things. I think sometimes it is, like I said, taking a step back and trying to have these conversations without coming from a place of defensiveness. And I think it's also acknowledging that agriculture is pretty freaking awesome. Beef production is pretty freaking awesome, but it's also not perfect. There are a lot of things that we can and will eventually do better.
We're all learning as we go and wanting to do better for so many reasons, not only for the sake of the environment, but also for the sake of the food that we're raising to feed our families. also because as better business people, we're also going to be more successful. Like it's a multifaceted reasons that we are always seeking to learn more and do better. But I think with that, have to acknowledge Dixon had talked about every once in a while, there's a viral video that goes out there of some bat.
in agriculture that all of a sudden paints everybody with this bad brush. But I think it's important for us to acknowledge that there are bad actors in every industry. And let me assure you that there is nobody that detests those bad actors more than us as farmers. We do not want to be painted with that brush. I do not want anyone to think that some of those viral videos, that that's what we do on our farm.
But unfortunately it happens and that's why it's very important that there are rules, regulations, laws that prevent those kinds of situations from happening and that we hold those people accountable when they unfortunately do happen in agriculture or in any other industry. Yeah, it's a really good point and just to touch on what Adun was saying there about constantly learning. That's what good agriculture does. You will never in the agriculture industry be where you're going to stay at for the rest of your farming career.
Every year you improve something better, you do something better to cost less, to use less fuel, to use less fertilizer, to get a few more pounds on your calves. Specifically, if we're talking about beef and animals, I can use an example. Every year we try and improve our handling system a little bit because it's a part of having livestock that you have to do. You have to be able to bring them through, handle them, vaccinate them. This is the way that we keep our herds healthy and keep them doing what they need to do.
We want to make that experience as low stress for them as possible. And just for an example, in the last two years, we've completely changed our handling system around. Where we used to have cattle come in and they would start doing circles and they wouldn't go exactly where we wanted them all the time. It causes stress on them, causes stress on us. Over the last two years, they only have one place they can see when they come in there. And our vet has even said to us, she's like, you guys improve this every year and it shows how much you care about your animals because we want their time in there to be as low stress as possible.
and to get them out and to just keep being cattle like they do. And there's a few bad actors that will just go and yell and jump around every day and not improve anything. But they're very few and far between. Everybody wants what's best for their animals. And I think there's a lot more examples out there that exist of people that are doing it than that are not. We often speak about the hours and the labor and the heart you have to have in this industry as if there aren't enough hours in the day. We still manage to create these spaces for discourse and discovery.
Beef is such a huge part of agriculture and how people view farming at large. What does it mean to be able to show people the truth about cattle farming and beef production? I can say that the work that I do in advocacy, whether it's speaking at an event, the writing that I do, it helps me be a better farmer. A lot of what I do now, it all started when I left corporate agriculture and stayed home on the farm full time.
And it allowed me to create connections and touch points outside of our own little farm in the middle of nowhere that is me and my husband and the couple of guys that farm with us that can be very isolating. And so for me, it's an outlet that allows me to have created friendships across North America with people, connections that are very near and dear to my heart. It makes me a better, more content farmer for sure.
as well as the ability to change some of the narrative that's out there or influence how people see farmers and agriculture and beef production. But for me, it's woven into a part of my life that it doesn't feel like work. I feel like I've struck a good balance of it not overtaking the work that I need to be doing here on the farm on a daily basis. But it's also just, it's fun and a great creative outlet for me.
The fun part of it definitely is a thing for me too. The character in my channel itself like kind of grew during COVID when no one was allowed to go anywhere or do anything and including me. You know, our lives really didn't change much on the farm. It's just I wasn't going and doing comedy shows and all these other things at the time. I had all the time in the world to produce videos and stuff, which I actually, I still enjoy doing. Like Adrienne can attest to this because she's actually sitting next to...
to our agronomist that we use when I was trying to, wanted to make sure that everything I had done was actually factually correct and I was saying my words right and I'd sent some clips to my agronomist who Adrian was sitting with at the time. And you know, I hope that everybody understands that I do put a lot of work and time into making sure that what I am putting out there is actually factually correct. So yeah, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time to edit video and you do ask yourself sometimes when it's two o'clock in the morning and you're sitting at the kitchen table right where I am here editing video.
And for kids out there that are listening or people like Adrian, anybody else that they feel like maybe they don't get enough views or maybe they don't get enough clicks on stuff that they post and they look at me, they're like, you got 18 million views on your YouTube channel. It's who you connect with, not how many people watch it. And I think that's something that people really need to not lose track of and to keep promoting their industry and show the good sides of what we do. Because that's how you change it is one, two, three people at a time.
think that's such good advice, Dixon, for anybody that is trying to advocate for agriculture, that it is not about the views. The views are kind of like clickbait. They're a sexy number and they're what get people excited. But yeah, it is literally about the one-on-one connections. And I have for quite a few years now, not chosen to not go out of my way to try to increase followers or numbers like that. But...
What gives me the most pride is when people send me clips or a headline from social media and say, this real? Is this what happens? Or conversely, if they're like, I have this kind of beef in my freezer, what would you do with that? What recipe would do you? Both of those things make me so happy and that's why I take the time to do what I do. Beef consumption cuts to the core of many of these discussions. When presented to the public,
Sometimes it's presented as healthy, other times mildly dangerous. Some folks have ethical concerns and some just don't like the taste. When it comes to the beef industry of today, what does beef consumption look like in this modern world? All I will say is that beef is one of the most nutrient dense proteins that exists on the planet. And it's a very essential tool of what we use on the corporate side of our farm as well. Beef is mostly grown and derived off of land that we cannot farm.
marginal land. It's just a product of sequestering carbon that gives you everything that you need to survive. I have no problem with pork. I have no problem with chicken. I have no problem with any kinds of protein that anybody eats. But even for people that are concerned about the amount of animals that meet their demise to feed us as population, per pound, one beef cow can feed a lot more people than one chicken life kind of thing. And I just think it's
It's just one of the best proteins that exists out there and I'm biased because we farm it, but that being said, there's no better protein than beef in my opinion. I totally agree and I truly feel to my core that the narrative of the nutritional value of beef has absolutely, the tides have turned. And honestly, just the conversations around the importance of protein in general.
has changed so much and it is so amazing to see people, whether it's a mom like me or athletes, high-level athletes, everybody from all walks of life really putting a focus on the protein in their lives and really truly seeing beef for the nutritional powerhouse that it is. I have a teenager that plays high-level hockey and he has been able to be a part of many different nutrition programs and work
different nutritionists and the overarching message is that beef cannot be replaced in your diet when it comes to available protein and the available nutrition that's in it. Whether it's B vitamin, zinc, everybody knows about protein and iron. I was a person who as a teenage girl was iron deficient my entire young life until
I married a beef farmer and I have never had to take an iron pill ever since, which is a testament to the powerhouse that beef is. And that is not an unusual story anymore. That's something that is so much more widely accepted now than it ever was before. So I think it's exciting times for the beef industry in the nutritional sphere. Although we may be wrapping things up here, this is not.
where our story ends. Join us in part two of the Truth About Beef, where we turn up the heat with Dixon and Adrian as they dive even deeper into the industry's most talked about product. Expect bold questions, surprising insights, what takes and what's making headlines, and as always, a little more digging.
At the end of the day, we look to our resiliency within ourselves and our communities to make our collective futures as bright as possible. All it will take is conversations like these, some vulnerability and a little digging.
Thanks the support of UFA Cooperative, we're able to share stories from those that live and breathe agriculture. Thanks to Dixon and Adrian once more for giving us a deeper insight into the lived experience of beef production and cattle ranching. For more information on today's episode, please visit ufa.com. With listeners like you, we'll continue to dig a little deeper here on Digging In with UFA. I'm Don Schaffer. Thanks for listening.
Another Everything Podcast production. Visit everythingpodcast.com, a division of Patterson Media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.