Taking Back an Industry (Ranching)

Salina.com ^ | February 8, 2009 | Erin Matthews

[jazusamo]

When an animal rights group sneaks a hidden camera into a livestock operation, it won't capture images of Stacy McLintock bringing nine calves into her kitchen to rub their legs and warm them during a winter storm.

But that's exactly what she did this past winter.

"They're our big kids," McLintock said Saturday of the calves born to her 100-head herd near Holton. "They're a lot of work but a lot of fun."

McLintock was among the audience of cattle producers listening to Dr. Daniel U. Thomson, Jones professor of production medicine at Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, speak about the industry's growing image problem at the Kansas Cattlemen's Association Convention at the Salina Holiday Inn and Convention Center.

McLintock, who had a booth in the hallway with items from her Bar S Tack western wear store, came to the convention without her husband. Just like all the other producers in the audience, she had to leave someone back home to take care of the herd. Currently, it is calving season, so the McLintocks have been taking turns getting up every two hours all night to check their pregnant heifers.

The care and feeding that ranchers provide day in and day out is much more representative of the industry than isolated cases of animal abuse, Thomson said.

"Nobody in our industry wants to see an animal abused," he said. "That's one of the things that's represented by the media that's nonrepresentative of the whole."

Images that are abusive -- and some that just appear so -- are successfully being used by "educated but ignorant" animal rights groups to paint an unrepresentative portrait of the cattle industry, he said. As fewer and fewer people live and work in rural areas, the public has less understanding of what it takes to "grow a hamburger," he said.

Cattle production can be and is being done humanely, Thomson said.

"I will put our industry up against anybody in the world," Thomson said. "We want what's best for our cattle. We don't have anything we're not proud of in our industry."

Education can be used to disarm critics by opening operations up for consumers to observe because "they need to know how well their food is being raised," he said. Agriculture remains among the top five most trusted professions in the United States, he said, adding "we still work with a handshake."

"We need to challenge activists about their knowledge of the industry," he said. "I don't think you could fill a thimble with what they know."

Children used to start their day with the friendly image of a farmer by watching Mr. Greenjeans on Captain Kangaroo, he said. Now young people are forming their beliefs about agricultural animal practices based on YouTube films produced by the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, he said.

The videos often portray abuse that would be condemned by any reputable cattle producer and play on the human-animal bond in an attempt to abolish animal agriculture, he said.

An audience member asked if there was anything to be gained through a dialog with animal rights groups, but Thomson was skeptical.

"I don't think there's any way to reason with them," he said. "They will sit there and nod their head, and when you turn around, they'll shoot you in the back."

Cattlemen are likely to be outspent by the more than 20 animal rights groups that raise about $300 million in donations annually and have budgets big enough to hire celebrity endorsements, he said.

"Nobody cares about cattle more than the people who get up every day and feed them," Thomson said. "We're all for the ethical treatment of animals. We're for the animals. We're raising animals. The animals are our life."

Cattlemen must work together on a marketing strategy to fight misconceptions and develop a generally accepted list of best management practices before laws written by people who know nothing about livestock production are forced upon the industry, he said. More ranchers need to step outside their comfort zone and run for elected office to have a say in laws as they are written, he said.

"Our industry and agriculture in total, we serve humanity," he said. "Every morning when we get up and do chores, we feed the world."

An increasing number of veterinary students going into large animal husbandry will be needed to regulate the industry, he said, adding that at K-State, 45 percent of last year's graduating class of veterinary students indicated they were pursuing large and small animal or food animal practices. Thomson said he does not advocate self-regulation or government regulation.

"What if we told the highway patrol we were going to give them the day off and we're just going to self-regulate our speed?" he said. "People understand that doesn't work."

Brandy Carter, executive director and chief executive officer of the Junction City-based Kansas Cattlemen's Association, said agriculture is a vital part of the community, economy and the nation.

"Only 2 percent of the population is involved in agriculture," she said. "There are only a few of us left. We have to keep it growing, or this country will be relying on foreign food like we do fuel if we don't keep the industry alive."

[Colvin]

“I have no problem whatsoever with big farms or “corporate farming”.”

You probably didn't live in a rural town and get to watch it die a slow death, while large farms with huge tax subsidies and congressmen in their pockets took over.

The idea that our food supply is in the hand of a few people who only care about the money it brings in, rather then the land and their communities should concern you.

There was a reason for the orchestrated farm crisis of the 70’s, and it wasn't that family farms were doing a bad job, it was because some people saw an oportunity to make a lot of money on food, and roled over rural people who didn't have the money to buy congressmen.

[Colvin]

I heard someone taking a hunter to task for “Commiting Murder” once. I asked them if I commited murder when I took out the tracktor and cultivated a field, killing cute little mice, moles and voles in the process. There really was not an answer to that question.

Thank you for being out working hard to help feed America on a nice day.

[SunkenCiv]

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