Randy Day, Former CEO of Perdue Farms
AGNR will host its 5th Annual Cornerstone Event on Tuesday, October 24 at The Stamp Student Union, University of Maryland in College Park. This year’s event will celebrate and build partnerships around the college’s strategic initiative: Advance Innovative, Profitable and Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems.
We look forward to welcoming keynote speaker Randy Day, former CEO of Perdue Farms, the 103-year-old, family-owned company and fourth-largest producer of chicken products in the United States.
Randy caught up with us to preview his talk. He shared that his focus will be on some of the significant realities facing agriculture as well as many of the controversial issues that the students of AGNR, as future leaders in agriculture, will have to address.
Q: What emerging technologies do you foresee in the poultry industry that could help answer the rising need for protein to feed a growing global population?
Randy: Within the poultry industry, I already see continued progress in improving crop yields and feed conversion that will contribute to addressing the rising need for protein to feed our growing global population, as well as an elevated focus on animal care issues (e.g., on farm hatch), and environmental issues (e.g., greenhouse gas mitigation).
Q: In your 40 years at Perdue, public attitudes about both eating and farming chicken have shifted. What would you say is the biggest change in the industry over that time?
Randy: Today, customers and consumers are increasingly interested in where their food comes from, how the animals are raised, what they are fed and much more. At Perdue Farms, animal care is an important component of our company value of Stewardship. In 2013, an undercover video came out that unfortunately showed an employee that worked with one of our farmers mistreating the chickens. Rather than being defensive we thanked the group that released the video for making us aware of what was happening and immediately took action. We cautiously arranged a couple of meetings with animal advocates and found there was tremendous agreement between what they wanted and what we were doing and planned to do. In 2015, Perdue Farms hosted its first ever Animal Care Summit and we just hosted our 8th annual summit earlier this month. Every year, we invite these animal advocate groups to speak with Perdue Farms’ leadership and customers as part of our commitment to continuous improvement in animal care.
Q: In the early 70’s, under Frank Perdue, Perdue was the first company to brand chicken as a consumer product. Similar efforts have not taken hold in the beef and pork industry, do you have any thoughts on why that is, or whether that’s something we should expect might happen in the future?
Randy: I can’t say that I see it happening in beef and pork, but I would readily say it could happen. If a determined entrepreneur were to successfully define their unique selling points that resonated with consumers and, like Frank, relentlessly pursued their successful execution, it could happen.
Q: What advice would you give the next generation of professionals entering the workforce hoping to make a difference in food security, climate change, and overall environmental sustainability?
Randy: It would be unfair to not acknowledge the challenges facing the food and agriculture industries, including the reality of producing enough food for our rapidly growing population. The reality is that climate change, the cost of implementing sustainable practices in those industries, access to funding and much more is an impediment to young professionals entering the workforce, especially next generation farmers. However, there is a great amount of opportunity in these industries. In the 1920s, 30% of Americans farmed but today, that number has dropped to only one to two percent. Coupled with the fact that the population is expected to rise by over two billion by 2050, there is a great need to ensuring food production meets the global demand. My advice to young professionals is to lean on support networks in your industry and learn from experts in those outside of food and agriculture. Making an impactful change in environmental sustainability in no small task and cannot be done alone but as part of the future of food and agriculture, these young professionals have an opportunity to make a difference. Most importantly, go after these opportunities as a fact based, objective scientist.
