What We’re Reading | Canada’s cattle ranchers rebrand as grassland protectors to counter beef’s bad rap

By Paula Duhatschek, CBC Calgary

Inside an agricultural exhibition building at the Calgary Stampede, kids practise rotating cattle through different areas of pasture, earning “carbon points” as they go if they can avoid under- or overgrazing the land.

They’re playing Guardians of the Grasslands, a computer game that was produced with funding from a government grant program, the charitable arm of the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA) and Ducks Unlimited Canada, which conserves and restores wetlands. The game is based on a short documentary of the same name that was produced by the CCA, the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited.

Both the game and the documentary are part of the industry’s broader goal to push back against beef’s bad rap and to instead promote the idea that cattle grazing can be good for the environment — a way of preserving native grasslands (which can, in turn, act as a carbon sink).

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What We’re Streaming | Calgary Eyeopener Podcast

By the Calgary Eyeopener, CBC Radio One

On today’s show: Is beef getting a bad rap? The industry thinks so and it’s hoping to change that.

Listen here