And If there are techniques that I can do to get as close to that as possible, I want to do them. But as much as beef producers want answers, they also are cautious about using their cattle for research. So we've got to have a framework out there that encourages people to engage in research, to use their operations as natural laboratories for examining these problems and encouraging them to make discoveries, advance knowledge and contribute to solutions rather than saying we coerce you to engage in this research, and by the way if you're unlikely enough for us to have found something, we will put you out of business in our service to the public. And we have to wrestle with those issues. Every cattle producer does things a little differently.
Feedlots use different mixtures of feed, different ways of giving the cattle water.
If more producers cooperate, researchers have more information to work with. We have a lot of the tools now that we can use to address this problem effectively and now's the time to do it. Benson says it may help them discover things that producers can do to reduce the risk of contamination in their herds. In my opinion that would be the best case scenario if we can find some feeding level practices at the feedlot level that will allow us to control that level of 0157 in the cattle that we're introducing to slaughter. Andy Benson says that if research is stepped up, they could probably find some practical steps for producers to take within the next couple of years.