Truth, Lies, and Videotape Steve Baccus

May 2010

Steve Baccus serves as president of Kansas Farm Bureau

The recent meeting by the Animal Agriculture Alliance was no doubt the best meeting on animal activism that I have been to; after the first half day of meetings I had taken 4 ½ pages of notes and was wishing we had sent an additional individual to help glean all that was said. The entire conference was videotaped and additionally we’ll have access to the presentations by CD. There was one presentation by Wesley J. Smith that I really wish all could see when it’s available. Smith is the author of a book titled “A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy.” This effort delves into the inner workings of the animal rights movement and is fascinating information.

Also on the first day of our meeting they announced that HSUS has had a meeting with Domino’s Pizza. No news yet as to how that meeting went.

Back to the subject - In our effort to build coalitions are we ignoring minority and religious groups.  We need to reach out and share with them our commitment to animal welfare and the environment. Like the average consumer, these groups just don’t know what we do. One of our greatest challenges is to get the correct information about what we do and how we do it out to a very diverse population.

HSUS is challenging the Ohio Care Board, and will pursue a California style ban.  Ohio FB spent $4.5 million on the last campaign and is budgeting $10 million for this next one. HSUS plan is to continue coming after these groups and work to deplete their equity. Future targets are Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska. In Oklahoma the preliminary planning is already underway but the timing of implementation is uncertain. In California they have initiated legislation to apply Proposition 2 to any imported food. Some states are beginning to be proactive but at the same time there have been 67 bills introduced in over half the states pertaining to farm animal care methods. 

One comment made was “Whoever defines the issue wins. To sit back and wait, you will lose.” In other words, states and coalitions need to get in front of the issue and be proactive about communicating what we do and how and why we do it. To wait until the animal rights groups make their first move in your state is starting with one foot already in the grave. We need to define what we do and define it in a positive light.

The end game of the animal rights groups is federal legislation. After they have gotten several states to pass legislation like that done in Florida, Arizona, California, etc. then they’ll push to harmonize all this disparate legislation under a federal banner that then will cover states not currently impacted. Read that as “Kansas, etc.”

Sadly, the industry response to these efforts has been slow. We need values based messages that are clear and convincing. We need to be organized well in advance and we need to stay unified; that’s absolutely critical!  This is a common threat and without that unity we’ll lose. We need to involve businesses and non-traditional partners as mentioned earlier including more involvement by the land grant universities. There are many people in the legislature who are NOT in tune with this issue or with many issues impacting Ag and are thusly susceptible to the messages spread by HSUS and others.

The Humane Party, a new political party, has just been announced and plans to run candidates in 2010 and a presidential candidate in 2016. This movement will NOT stop with animals but will transition to environmental areas as well as many other areas. Additionally, HSUS is now marketing their own brand of pet food, Humane Choice, which is totally vegan, no animal protein and is produced in Uruguay.

The animal rights movement is an ideology. It does NOT pertain to the care of animals. Their intent is NO domesticated animals at all!   Peter Singer started the animal liberation movement. He does not believe humans have any moral elevation over animals.  Treating one species different than another one is discrimination.  For example he says cattle ranching is akin to slavery.  They do not believe we have good intentions. THEY THINK WE ARE EVIL!  Animal rights people believe animals and humans are equal and thus their goal is the end of all animal husbandry.  You will not pacify any animal rights group; their belief is that the animal’s number one right is the right not to be eaten!  The animal rights movement wants animals to be able to sue humans for the way they are used or treated.  Cass Sunstein, who many of you have heard me speak about, Director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, has written that animals should have that right.  The movement only needs one judge to finally allow a case to proceed and it will open a huge new host of problems.  Bear in mind, this is already being done in Europe. 

Referencing the HSUS budget, .45% of their budget goes to dog and cat shelters (that’s POINT four five percent, less than one half of one percent of their total budget!); $24 million goes into their fundraising efforts; $38 million goes to salaries (30+ lawyers on staff); $2.5 million goes to their pension plan (5 times what goes to shelters!). And yet 83% of Americans have a favorable opinion of HSUS and 71% believe they are an umbrella group for local animal shelters.  HSUS has a moderate public image that they use to fund their more radical side.  They do fund private nuisance litigation as well as environmental research and extreme environmental groups.

We have to be talking about the incredible use of processed animals; about how every portion of that animal is utilized and where and how it is utilized.  We have to talk about the impact of this movement, if successful, on the poor.  Reducing meat consumption will increase its cost and raise the cost of living for the poor.  The movement is elitist but they don’t want to talk about that aspect.  Their plan is to make raising animals more expensive thus driving up the cost of animal protein and depressing sales.  The comment was made that the next big foreclosure crisis will be on the farm and the result of the increasing cost of raising animals.

We have to push back and tell our own story. We have to have an offense (tell our story in a positive light) and a defense (correct the misinformation they spread).  We have to diminish their moral authority; follow the dollars, revise their history lesson they don’t like to talk about; HSUS was founded by a real, live, card-carrying communist. You won’t find that on their web site!

We have to reposition our opposition. They want to push vegetarianism onto the American public. They want to take away your choice to eat meat.  They want to take away your cheeseburgers, rodeos and pets. And never lose track of the fact that PETA is nothing more than the radical right wing of the more “moderate” HSUS.

We have to reframe the issue; animal rights vs animal welfare; animals vs jobs; elite vs poor.  Factory farming vs (HSUS) factory fundraising.

Don’t ever forget that millions of rats, mice, snakes and other animals are killed every year with vegetable farming. PETA kills animals!

Either you believe in farming or you don’t.

Either you’re willing to stand up and defend it or you’re not. 

The Global Animal Partnership is a Trojan horse of the animal rights movement; be wary of it.

We had a fairly technical discussion about antibiotic use in animal production and following are some of the observations that were shared by Randall Singer, Ph.D, DVM, University of Minnesota. The use of antibiotics seems to reduce processing errors and reduce pathogens on carcasses and reduce food borne illnesses.  Studies have shown that when certain antibiotics are removed that animals became sicker.  Their use is a tool to keep animals healthy, not as a substitute for poor management. This discussion needs to be driven by science not legislation.

We had a presentation on Terrorism against the Food Industry. Most bioterrorism attempts either fail or are very ineffective. Greater threat is within the industry; i.e. a disgruntled employee. To kill a bunch of cows looks cowardly and doesn’t give them the thrill or satisfaction like destroying an airliner, and doesn’t achieve any political goal.

We had a discussion about the fact that most major law schools have animal and environmental programs. We need to determine if they’re offering the other side of the story and if they represent farmers/ranchers or just the environmentalist.

We had a presentation by the Ontario Farm Animal Council that encouraged groups to work with industry partners and to talk about who cares for farm animals?  Farmers do….24/7!  They talked a lot about policing ourselves and going after the bad actors. Some sale barns and processing facilities are now fining people who deliver sick or lame animals to the plant.  If there is an issue in our industry we need to know about it, not be surprised by it.  HSUS creates problems, enflames problems and then makes dollars off the problems.

Cargill gave a presentation on the installation of video cameras at their facilities that are reviewed constantly, 24/7 by an offsite third party vendor who immediately notifies Cargill of any discrepancies or mistreatment.  Cargill anticipates enhanced regulations that will go all the way back to the farm level.  They say we need to stop inter-species (swine, beef, poultry etc) fighting and defend what is scientifically proven but understand and appreciate societal concerns.

Vita Plus Corporation gave a presentation on Michael Pollen’s visit to the Wisconsin campus and the Ag response to it.  This is the university that purchased 7,000 copies of his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and gave them to all the incoming freshmen. The Ag groups met with the Chancellor and convinced her to change his visit from a presentation to a panel discussion. One item that came out of that situation was the understanding that selling science is a tough sale in an emotional and political debate. 

Finally we ended with a couple of presentations on social media. We all know how important it is but these presentations went beyond that. Social media is the reason false animal Ag perceptions become reality.  Eighty nine percent of journalists turn to blogs for story research.  Is that scary or what??  We need to find and follow digital heroes such as Troy Hadrick of Yellow Tail fame.  Social media centers on people who have a big following.  Our consumers read and follow these people and we need to as well so we’re in tune with what our customers are hearing.  Find our consumers and food retailers with social networking sites and interact with them. We need to put lots of links on our websites that link to good, factual, clear, concise information about our industry.

One final observation that you and I know but haven’t thought much about, the Congressional Ag Committees are made up of people who come from where the producers are rather than from where the eaters are.  Our lives would be considerably different if that was turned around. Be aware that this is being discussed.

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