Animal Rights actitivists at it again
BEEF Cow-Calf Weekly contributor Troy Marshall, who is also a Colorado cattle producer recently wrote about what he views as challenges to the beef industry. Of course, we can all agree that the future success of beef lies in maintaining and growing beef demand. But Marshall says a threat that the industry needs to keep a close eye on is animal welfare, animal rights and environmental issues.
Particularly groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) and the like are now using the environmental movement against animal agriculture. For instance, they recently capitalized on a United Nations report that claims livestock production produces more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation.
As always, PETA in particular has been adept at garnering free publicity as it targets the new de facto leader of the environmental movement — Al Gore — to get this message across. It’s just one more example where we, the beef producers in this country, need to do a better job of explaining what we do and why we do it to the public. So when these types of messages that are unkind to agriculture surface, people can sort fact from fiction.
Related Topics: Small Producer Challenges
September 12th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
New non-farm neighbors in my rapidly developing community have also been a challenge. At first, I wanted to shut them out, but their kids can’t resist the animals. After a few visits, I realized the kids are open-minded and found their parents were also eager to learn about WHY I raised cattle and sheep together, seeded my pastures in fall and spring and dehorn, tag and castrate babies. This is a small effort but has had tremendous pay-offs in cooperation from the neighbors. They all work in town and talk to lots of folks. The demand for my freezer meat and pastured eggs has never been higher. It’s my integrity and stewardship these consumers are attracted to. I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Changes in attitude and actions happen slowly, but maybe we all need to be aware we no longer farm in isolation. Everything we do needs to be about land stewardship and sound animal husbandry.
September 12th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Susan, congratulations on your efforts. You are cultivating important agricultural ties for those young people and their parents. As we all know most of our populations have migrated to urban centers, which means America is becoming several generations removed from the farm. But, they need to understand and appreciate agriculture, so that in the voting booth they can make sound decisions on agricultural issues. I recently visited with a women who is working with the dairy industry on a large-scale effort to help dairy producers become spokespeople for their industry. As she put it, if we don’t speak up for ourselves, no one will. I think the beef industry needs to get more proactive on telling the positive stories about raising beef on farms and ranches as well.
September 13th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Last spring I had the opportunity to hear a speaker share some ideas on things producers can do to help be proactive in building positive relationships toward agriculture in their communities and with urban neighbors. Some of the ideas included:
1. Establish a farm mission or vision statement and then post it where visitors to your operation can read it. This says a lot about who you are, what you do, and what you stand for.
2. Develop a brochure about your farm or business. This can be a useful handout to provide others information about your farm when you are at events. And, if you host classroom tours, itâs a good resource to give the teacher to provide students background information before the class arrives.
3. Host on-farm events to build neighbor/community relations. This may be tours for local school kids or something like a winter supper for your neighbors or a summer picnic for local businesses and their employees as a way to bring people to your farm to teach them about what you do.
Or, if you prefer to take agriculture to them, put together a basket of beef and cheese sticks â along with industry brochures or recipes â and take them to a local business during your stateâs beef or dairy month. Or take such items to serve as snacks at your church or school.
4. Include a mention about your industry in Christmas cards to friends and relatives â maybe itâs a unique fact or maybe you direct them to a beef website with recipes.
5.You can also promote your industry through gifts that you give â be it for graduation, birthdays or weddings. Beef cookbooks, steak knives and beef certificates are a way to think out of the box and promote your product every chance you get.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:45 am
It’s not just farms that are being targeted by activists, a Minneapolis radio station reports that a plan to ban circus animals in Minneapolis had a lot of people fired up at a public hearing this week.
Animal rights advocates and Shriners packed the Minneapolis city council chambers to allow their side to be heard on the issue. Those fighting for circus reform say wild animals are treated inhumanely.
“We have laws in our society to protect those who can’t protect themselves. We’ve got lots of laws on the books that protect animals already. This would just be one more,” said Christine Caughlin with the group Circus Reform Yes.
Circus operators with the Shrine and other circuses say it’s just the opposite.
“They’re really physically and mentally and socially acclimated to travel. And it’s not detrimental to them, it’s like saying I have a dog in my apartment versus I have a hunting dog that I go out. They have different styles of lifestyles. It’s not to say one is better than the other,” said Dennis Schmitt with the Ringling Brothers Circus.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I had the chance to attend the Women in Ag conference in Spearfish, SD over the weekend and was visiting with another mom who is passionate about agriculture. Her oldest just started preschool this fall and for “show and tell” he took an ear of corn to start educating his classmates about agriculture. I thought that was a great idea. It’s simple, but it is something we can all easily begin to do - tell others about what we do on our farms and ranches everyday and why it is important.
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
According to a recent article on the Telegraph (U.K.) eating beef produces more pollution than driving. It is stated that producing 2.2 lbs of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as a car traveling 50 mph for 155 miles. The article ends with a quote stating:
“Everybody is trying to come up with different ways to reduce carbon footprints, but one of the easiest things you can do is to stop eating meat.”
Cars are very necessary for transportation, and we know that they produce greenhouse gases, but we don’t stop driving altogether. We continue to produce more and more fuel efficient cars instead. The same can be said for beef production.
Beef production per cow has increased about 185 pounds since the mid-1960s to 585 pounds per cow in 2005. According to the data in the telegraph, for every cow that goes to slaugheter today vs. 30 years ago, increased efficiency in beef production is equivelant to removing from the highway 84 cars traveling 50 miles per hour for 155 miles. ( 185/ 2.2= 84)
Improvements in nutrition, genetics, and management will only improve the ‘environmental footprint’ of beef production. Beef production has never been greener.
This is the type of message producers need to take to the public. We need more people with a voice like ‘kindras’ above willing to do it.
http://ageconomist.blogspot.com/
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