Commentary: Advise and dissent

Whenever the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) does anything related to the industry, producers ought to evaluate their actions with a heapin’ helping of skepticism.

That caveat applies to the activist group’s most recent initiative, the formation of an advisory group in Colorado ostensibly aimed at “promoting more humane practices on farms and ranches and to promote food producers who share that goal,” to quote the HSUS news release.

The Colorado Agriculture Council of The Humane Society of the United States, as the group is named (way to create an aura of independence by including your own name, HSUS), is supposed to pursue market opportunities for farmers and ranchers whose agricultural practices adhere to animal welfare standards, as well as “facilitate a dialogue with individual farmers, ranchers and the organizations that represent them.”

The members of the Colorado agriculture council include Mike Callicrate, livestock producer and owner of Ranch Foods Direct retail center in Colorado Springs; Matt Kautz, a Colorado poultry and egg producer; Carrie Balkcom, director of American Grassfed Association; and Brad Buchanan, a Colorado cattleman.

“As a Colorado cattle rancher, I believe family farmers and ranchers have much common ground with the [Humane Society of the United States] when it comes to the treatment of farm animals,” said Tom Parks, DVM, a veterinarian who chairs the new council. “It’s a positive step to work together to address the future of animal agriculture and find solutions to animal welfare challenges.”

Of course, there’s been a whole lot of “dialogue” going on between livestock producers and HSUS, given the group’s relentless media attacks against standard industry practices, its continual use of phony employees to capture potentially damaging video footage at production sites, feedlots and packing plants and well-funded state-by-state referenda aimed at forcing restrictions on egg, poultry and pork producers.

Whether the new agriculture council can serve act as a sounding board on policy is thus highly suspect.

What it can do is promote alternative production methods and producers who offer niche products to consumers. On its face, there is nothing wrong with that. Diversity in any sector of food production is critically important to larger issues, such as keeping land in production and providing entry opportunities for the next generation of producers, ranchers and growers.

Theirs is often a self-defeating debate conducted between practitioners of alternative agriculture, whether organic farmers, grassfed beef ranchers or pork producers who market “natural pork” from animals raised without antibiotics, and conventional producers. Each side makes the case for its products based on negative attacks on those who do things differently, a tactic that hurts everyone involved.

Organic dairy products shouldn’t be marketed by talking about how dangerous or unhealthy conventional products might be. Natural beef’s positioning shouldn’t encompass how environmentally damaging conventional beef production allegedly is. A bigger picture analysis would recognize that the industry benefits from more participants and a greater diversity of choices in the marketplace.

Would producers miffed that grassfed beef is marketed by knocking the products typically found in supermarkets prefer that consumers turn away from meat-eating altogether? Far better to provide products for that percentage of people willing to pay for the benefits they want than have them evolve into vegetarians.

More importantly, if marketing alternative beef, pork or chicken allows hundred—maybe thousands—of producers to either stay in business or have the chance to enter the business, that’s positive for everyone.

That said, I find it hard to believe that HSUS is only concerned with helping the small-scale family farmers and ranchers stay viable. That this group won’t end up as cover for continued agitation on animal welfare regulations seems to carry awfully long odds.

If the dialogue HSUS says its wants to foster helps voters understand both sides of such issues as mandating cage-free egg production, or the elimination of gestation stalls, that would be highly beneficial.

Given HSUS’s track record, that’s seems highly unlikely.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Murphy, a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator.

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