- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Eye doctor-turned-rancher brings science background to his second career
Siskiyou County rancher Jack Cowley, 91, joyfully recalled the special Christmas gift that delighted his seven children in the 1960s. Cowley, then a practicing eye doctor in Sacramento, and his late wife Barbara surprised the children with a white quarterhorse, which they named Silver.
“That's how it all started!” exclaimed Cowley, reflecting on the gift horse that would eventually lead to a 40-year collaboration with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Silver was the impetus for his family's involvement with the 4-H Youth Development Program, a part of UC ANR. Cowley also would later transition to a second career in cattle ranching, and collaborate with UC Cooperative Extension on research projects ranging from weed control to cow genetics.
“Jack has been an extremely committed supporter of UCCE,” said Grace Woodmansee, who became the UCCE livestock and natural resources advisor for Siskiyou County in 2021. “He has worked with UCCE extensively and contributed a lot of time and resources to supporting local and statewide projects.”
Lately Cowley and his son David have been working with Woodmansee and Gabriele Maier, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, on a cow deworming study.
Not only has Cowley allowed UCCE scientists to study his cattle over the years, he has been willing to personally share information with scientists and cattle producers across the country and internationally.
“It is important to foster exchange and linkages, said Dan Drake, UCCE farm advisor emeritus in Siskiyou County, who collaborated with Cowley for 30 years. “He went to so many meetings, especially with the early and uncharted areas of cattle genetics. Jack was on a first-name basis with the leaders from other states and the relationships were important in both directions. Frankly, I think many of those folks were jealous of the great cooperator we had in California.”
Breeding for better beef
After retiring from his Sacramento ophthalmology practice in the 1990s, Cowley settled in Montague in Siskiyou County, 246 miles north of the closest UC campus. There he met then-UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Steve Orloff and Drake. Orloff advised him on alfalfa production and pasture management while Drake offered counsel on animal health records, organizing breeding, animal nutrition and water issues.
Drake explained to ranchers that by selectively breeding cows based on genetics, they could improve the production and quality of beef so that it's healthier for humans.
“My medical background helped me understand animal genetics,” Cowley said. “We can modify the genetics to improve the quality of the beef to make it more heart-healthy.”
In 2009, Drake introduced Cowley to UC Cooperative Extension specialist Alison Van Eenennaam, who studies animal genetics at UC Davis.
“I was looking to set up a research trial where we would follow cattle from the ranch all the way through to the Harris Ranch processing plant in the Central Valley,” said Van Eenennaam, who worked with Cowley on a three-year project.
Using DNA samples from Cowley's cattle, they evaluated the data they received from processor Harris Ranch of the beef characteristics – such as tenderness -- to compare the different breeds.
“I really thought I knew what I was doing and my cattle graded terribly,” Cowley said.
Since beginning the genetics project, his beef quality steadily improved.
“We're now up to where all of our animals are graded anywhere from 20% to 40% Prime and the rest Choice,” said Cowley, adding that he stopped striving for higher grades because the buyer said there was a limited market for the more expensive meat.
Cowley takes pride in knowing breeding practices developed from the research he and UC Cooperative Extension conducted have been adopted globally by dairy producers and beef producers.
“The type of research we were doing there has eventually evolved to now we have these genomic tests that you can use that genetically predict the performance of animals,” Van Eenennaam said. “Nowadays people just take an ear tag and send it in and get their genetic prediction.”
Van Eenennaam credits Cowley for allowing research on his large herd. “Jack was very patient with things that take a long time. When researchers come onto your ranch, that could slow you down.”
She added, “Genetic improvement, of course, is a huge component of sustainability because the more efficient cattle are, the less feed they consume and the less time they take to finish, which ultimately lessens their environmental footprint.”
Growing up in Utah
Looking back, Cowley marvels that he has been fortunate to do what he wanted to do in life.
“I was interested in ranching when I was probably seven or eight years of age,” said Cowley, who delivered the local Deseret Newspaper on horseback as a boy. “I grew up in Utah, you know, a little town in Utah called Holladay. It was not a ranching community.”
After serving four years in the Air Force during the Korean War, he returned to Utah to find the cute girl he met in first grade had graduated from college and was still single. He married Barbara in 1956. When he was accepted at George Washington University medical school, they drove with their three-week-old baby from Utah to Washington, D.C. He got a job in the Senate office building as an elevator operator working from 5 to 11 p.m., which enabled him to study, meet influential people and finish medical school without debt.
“I actually got to meet Khrushchev,” he said, recalling his encounter with the Soviet leader..
After finishing his ophthalmology residency at UCLA, Cowley established his practice in Sacramento and later taught a few classes at UC Davis Medical School.
Becoming a cattleman
One Saturday afternoon, after Silver the horse joined the family, Cowley and his oldest daughter, Kathryn, were driving in Placerville and saw a ranch for sale. He bought the 90 acres. For two summers, Barbara and the children lived at the ranch and Cowley joined them on weekends.
“Of course, I had to have a few cows to play with,” he said with a chuckle. “Basically, I thought I could make some money off of 50 cows.”
As his herd grew, he moved it to Corning, 50 miles south of Redding, and finally to the site in Montague that could accommodate several hundred head of cattle. “That's when I really became interested in animal genetics,” Cowley said. “That was back when we had slide rules to do our calculations. It was pretty crude, but it was a start.”
In 1990, Cowley was honored as the California Beef Cattle Improvement Association's Seedstock Producer of the year and, in 2007, was named Siskiyou County's Cattleman of the Year. He has served as president of the Siskiyou County Cattlemen's Association, on the Cattlemen's Beef Board, as well as on committees for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
“Jack spent countless hours traveling to the Midwest and other beef research institutions to share knowledge, learn more and plan for needed information,” said Drake, emeritus UCCE livestock advisor. This made for better Extension work, better research and recognition of UC Cooperative Extension work nationwide.”
In 2011, when Van Eenennaam and Drake presented their research at an international genomics conference, he joined them in Australia to learn from other researchers. They also visited Australian producers to learn their practices.
“We really rely on cooperators like Jack to enable our research to have translation to farmers and ranchers,” Van Eenennaam said.
In recent years, Cowley has handed the ranch reins over to his children David, Brian, Brent and Kathryn, who live in Siskiyou County.
David, who retired from a nearly 40-year career as a software engineer, plans to continue working with UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists.
“Any time you have questions, you can call and they're more than happy to help you,” he said.
/h3>/h3>- Author: Pat Bailey
The review study also found that scientific studies have detected no differences in the nutritional makeup of the meat, milk or other food products derived from animals that ate genetically engineered feed.
The review, led by Alison Van Eenennaam, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, examined nearly 30 years of livestock-feeding studies that represent more than 100 billion animals.
Titled “Prevalence and Impacts of Genetically Engineered Feedstuffs on Livestock Populations,” the review article is now available online in open-access form through the American Society of Animal Science. It will appear in print and open-access in the October issue of the Journal of Animal Science.
Genetically engineered crops were first introduced in 1996. Today, 19 genetically engineered plant species are approved for use in the United States, including the major crops used extensively in animal feed: alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, soybean and sugar beet.
Food-producing animals such as cows, pigs, goats, chickens and other poultry species now consume 70 to 90 percent of all genetically engineered crops, according to the new UC Davis review. In the United States, alone, 9 billion food-producing animals are produced annually, with 95 percent of them consuming feed that contains genetically engineered ingredients.
“Studies have continually shown that the milk, meat and eggs derived from animals that have consumed GE feed are indistinguishable from the products derived from animals fed a non-GE diet,” Van Eenennaam said. “Therefore, proposed labeling of animal products from livestock and poultry that have eaten GE feed would require supply-chain segregation and traceability, as the products themselves would not differ in any way that could be detected.”
Now that a second generation of genetically engineered crops that have been optimized for livestock feed is on the horizon, there is a pressing need to internationally harmonize the regulatory framework for these products, she said.
“To avoid international trade disruptions, it is critical that the regulatory approval process for genetically engineered products be established in countries importing these feeds at the same time that regulatory approvals are passed in the countries that are major exporters of animal feed,” Van Eenennaam said.
Collaborating on the study was co-author Amy E. Young in the UC Davis Department of Animal Science.
The review study was supported by funds from the W.K. Kellogg endowment and the California Agricultural Experiment Station of UC Davis.
UC Davis is growing California
At UC Davis, we and our partners are nourishing our state with food, economic activity and better health, playing a key part in the state's role as the top national agricultural producer for more than 50 years. UC Davis is participating in UC's Global Food Initiative launched by UC President Janet Napolitano, harnessing the collective power of UC to help feed the world and steer it on the path to sustainability.
About UC Davis
UC Davis is a global community of individuals united to better humanity and our natural world while seeking solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Located near the California state capital, UC Davis has more than 34,000 students, and the full-time equivalent of 4,100 faculty and other academics and 17,400 staff. The campus has an annual research budget of over $750 million, a comprehensive health system and about two dozen specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and 99 undergraduate majors in four colleges and six professional schools.
Media contacts:
- Alison Van Eenennaam, Department of Animal Science, (530) 902-0875, alvaneenennaam@ucdavis.edu
- Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Pat Bailey
The paper, titled “The Potential Impacts of Mandatory Labeling for Genetically Engineered Foods in the United States,” examines the scientific, legal and economic ramifications of requiring that food containing genetically engineered ingredients be labeled as such.
It comes on the heels of the April 23 passage by the Vermont legislature of a bill that would make that state the first to mandate labeling of “GMO” or genetically engineered foods.
Lead author on the paper is Alison Van Eenennaam, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis.
“Mandating process-based food labeling is a very complex topic with nuanced marketing, economic and trade implications depending upon how the labeling laws are written and how the market responds,” Van Eenennaam said.
Co-authors on the paper are Bruce M. Chassy, a food science professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, an economics professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia; and lawyer Thomas P. Redick from Global Environmental Ethics Counsel, LLC.
Noting that such labeling would be based not on differences in the content of the crop or food product but on the way it was produced, Van Eenennaam and her co-authors conclude that there is no scientific reason for singling out the process of genetic engineering for mandatory process-based labeling.
They maintain that voluntary labeling programs, such as the Non-GMO Project, motivated by market influences rather than government regulation, currently provide interested consumers with the choice to select non-genetically engineered foods in the United States.
They suggest that state-based labeling laws may run into legal challenges related to interstate commerce, international trade, federal authority over food labeling and First Amendment protection of “commercial speech.”
In terms of economics, they project that mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods would increase U.S. food costs. Just how much food prices might rise would depend on how food manufacturers and retailers respond to mandatory labeling.
The authors project that the impact on food prices would be substantial if food processors decide to switch to non-GMO ingredients to avoid labeling requirements, as has been the case in other countries following the introduction of mandatory GE labeling. The cost increases would be less if processors instead opt to label all of their food products as containing genetically engineered ingredients.
The paper concludes with a call for more independent, objective information to be provided to consumers and legislators on the scientific issues, legal ramifications and economic consequences of mandatory labeling, especially in states that now have labeling initiatives on the ballot.
“This would help to move the national discussion on mandatory GE labeling from contentious claims and counterclaims to a more fact-based and informed dialog,” Van Eenennaam said.
The Council for Agricultural Science and Technologies (CAST) is a nonprofit organization composed of scientific societies and individual student, company, nonprofit and associate society members. CAST assembles, interprets and communicates credible science-based information using volunteer scientific experts as authors and reviewers. That information is then made freely available to legislators, regulators, policymakers, media, the private sector and the public on the organization's website at https://www.cast-science.org.
Media contact(s):
- Alison Van Eenennaam, Dept. of Animal Science, (530) 752-7942, alvaneenennaam@ucdavis.edu (Van Eenennaam is traveling but will return to campus the afternoon of Tuesday, April 29.)
- Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu