Jolley: Five Minutes With Troy Hadrick & The Attack On American Agriculture

I am somewhat heartened that you northern lot are having the same trouble as we are down under. We are constantly under threat from the "tree huggers" and "animal liberationists" and of course the media love it. Our population is getting more urbanised and with it the lack of knowledge of where or how our food is produced. Together with the fact that the average price from the supermarket is around A$15/kg and the producer gets A$1.65/kg (and falling) we are losing good young farmers to other "more profitable" industries. Food rules the world, believe me, and farmers are being manipulated off their farms by ruthless governments, who plead to the joe public that THEY are doing whats best. Governments bow to big business. Just look at how they are tackling the so called global warming fiasco. Another Tax on the food producer. Sure, we are not going to get taxed directly, but in through the back door..... big time. Big business may well take over the "family farm" eventually, I just hope I am not here to see it. You'll see the demise of good clean agriculture then.

Diana,

Responding to your note, 'About 5% of the American populace is involved in farming, leaving 95% who merely enjoy the fruits of agrarian labor without actually getting their hands dirty,” is offensive and elitist. So, consumers are only sucking at the teat of agriculture and don't deserve any say in how their food is produced? Excuse me?"

That's not what I said. If you buy a product, you should have some say in how it's produced.

My point is this: There are too many people who know nothing about agriculture and what it takes to bring food from the fields to the dinner table that are hazarding uninformed opinions about the process. What they are suggesting could create havoc with the production and delivery of food.

I buy a car every 4 or 5 years. I demand that it be well-built and reliable but I don't tell the factory how to build it.

I do not know that public opinion clearly accepts the videos as evidence of anything. Yes, some courts see them as real and they should know better. This is something that can be fixed when a judge has the courage to do what is right instead of catering to the AR interests or to a prejudged idea that somehow "we just have to be humane at all costs." There is a difference between fighting a war against cruel treatment of animals, which will cost agriculture billions, and doing positive things that promote humane treatment.

I think that the industry loses respect by indulging in "mea culpas." Metaphorically speaking it's pulling its hair out in shame over every small violation. I myself like the idea of keeping abusive practices "in check" but in real life cattle move as if they have minds of their own. They are heavy. They are awkward to handle, and sometimes a shove or an electric shock prevents a major injury. The animal rights conflict industry (thank you for mentioning that) is a hostile witness that has been caught lying before.

I am OK with the industry trying to make itself popular while presenting reality to people. The reality is that we're humane enough even when the animal is sometimes uncomfortable, stressed, inconvenienced, or even feels some pain and injury. That's my reality. People shouldn't feel guilty about that. Some hurting is necessary and maybe even beneficial.

There is also the question of who am I going to trust. I trust the industry to be humane before I trust the so-called humane authorities. I would have liked more experience working directly with animals in industry but I think that most big companies are in general far more trustworthy in any given matter than anything that has an animal rights basis and this is inherent in the animal rights philosophy, which is anti-human. Industry is one of the greater expressions of human creativity and ambition and the better it treats its workers and customers the more money it makes.

I am sympathetic with the anger in this article regarding perceived attacks upon animal agriculture, however the first sentence “About 5% of the American populace is involved in farming, leaving 95% who merely enjoy the fruits of agrarian labor without actually getting their hands dirty,” is offensive and elitist. So, consumers are only sucking at the teat of agriculture and don't deserve any say in how their food is produced? Excuse me? We're in this together, folks. The people who build your pickup trucks and tractors, teach your children, plow your roads, keep your telephone working, and doctor your injuries get their hands dirty, greasy, bloody or calloused in their own life endeavors that benefit you. They make money and then buy your products. As consumers, they have every right to demand safe, wholesome meat from, if it matters to them, humanely raised livestock. You are right, consumers want cheap, plentiful food. They also want cheap, plentiful gas, clothes, and cars and everything else. I am tired of the same old canard that egregious factory farming practices are necessary to satisfy American's appetite for cheap food. There is always a price to pay. Legitimate food safety and environmental concerns are not necessarily attacks on agriculture.
A line is being drawn in the sand and to agriculture's peril it is not being drawn by agriculture. You can have 30 second elevator talks but I suggest supplementing those with large scale pro-active consumer education (I don't mean meat marketing) and research into improved agrarian and processing practices so that consumers can feel good about their choices while farmers and ranchers can make a proper living.

GD and Tom,
A clear trend? I hope you don't mean a trend toward animal abuse by agriculture. Undercover videos, though, look like a clear trend by animal rights activists.

And those videos, whether staged or real, do serious damage. In several cases, the courts have accepted them as real. In every case, public opinion overwhelmingly accepts them.

GD, I do not accept a PETA or an HSUS video as valid evidence of anything. When you read up and find out that both organizations have had a reputation for staging videos for more than twenty years, then you will understand that they are unreliable sources. Their agendas and their means make them untrustworthy. So do their criminal records. J.P. Goodwin of the HSUS was hired after spending time in jail for Animal Liberation Front activities. Alex Pacheco was one of the founding members of PETA and he has admitted to staging videos and has been arrested for possession of tools for committing arsons. People from all these groups have been involved in releasing animals from legal facilities and other kinds of property destruction.

Adversaries of a legal industry that is vitally supportive of our nation should not be allowed to gather evidence against it. If anything the USDA already grabs too much money when it finds problems and the fact that it earns money when it finds problems is corrupting. We already have an integrity problem. If we also allow known criminals to "investigate" and make a profit from their "investigations" then that is just too much.

Any industry in the real world will have faults. Most of the "sins" that industry commits is because this is the real world and not some fantasy that can't even be simulated well in software. I've been saying for quite some time that you who don't like the way that I keep my animals or who don't want me to eat meat can do what you want in the privacy of your own home but don't force your views into my home. The AR and vegan movements have become so out of control destructive against humanity that I would think that Ellen Degeneres would be ashamed to be part of it. This is at least the third time in my lifetime that they have had to be beaten back.

The thing is, we are only just know beginning to learn about why our practices aren't safe for us. You can't chalk it up as false or scare tactics because its new and excusing the ignorance of others suggests, untruthfully, that there aren't concerned experts well versed in the field that object to these practices as well.

I should also remind the writer that the poor practices exposed do represent a clear trend and while this does not suggest that the industry is entirely bad, that there are certainly issues that need to be addressed.

A clear and simple fact is that well kept happy livestock are better for us. The over use of Anti Biotic in feed and the under management in the health of the livestock has been found to have increasing health risks.

I agree with one thing though, we must approach the problem logically and with a clear head. but blowing steam about the opposition because it doesn't grove with you agenda is just as unproductive as your supposed "Fear Mongers"

-GD-

I'm afraid we're past the point of the 30 second elevator speech.If you run a clean and humane operation you have to willing to let the public see it.If your operation is a little iffy or you've got some questionable people handling the animals this is a head's up to get squared away.