Understanding the Combatants in the War on Food Producers
Dec. 3rd, 2004 by adminBy Dan Murphy on December 3, 2004
For Meatingplace.com
Excerpt - for complete text, please visit Meatingplace.com
(Editor’s note: The following speech was delivered by Meatingplace.com columnist Dan Murphy at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation earlier this week. More than 1,200 independent farmers and agricultural industry representatives attended the event.)
DES MOINES, Iowa — Thank you for the invitation to be with you today, as the politicians love to say, “in the great state of Iowa.”
But I’m afraid my message is a sobering one, because make no mistake: There is a war on, my friends. A war that involves the occupation of both physical territory — your farmland — as well as the battlefield of public opinion.
On one side is a functional alliance of activists, agitators and the leaders of what I call the “anti-industry” industry. On the other side are the rest of us.
The activists have numerous volunteers, contributors and supporters, front-line troops, so to speak. They’re well-equipped, well-funded and totally committed. We have only ourselves and our often conflicting opinions on how best to function as taxpayers, citizens and members of the community.
These combatants and their extremist agenda are the key factor driving this war on our entire food system. Let’s take a closer look at the people aiming to put America’s farmers, livestock producers and ranchers out of business. They fall into three main categories:
The Activists. These are the born crusaders. The dreamers. The ones who are always fighting for some cause — or against the businesses that feed, clothe and provide virtually everything we require in modern society. I call this the “No Compromise” category, and it’s typified by people such as:
Ralph Nader, the ex-consumer campaigner-turned perennial Green Party presidential candidate
Jeremy Rifkin, the “Beyond Beef” vegetarian extremist now advising the European Union on the U.S. beef hormone ban
Neal Barnard, of the Physician’s Committee on Responsible Medicine, a PETA front group that is neither responsible nor comprised of physicians
The Agitators. They’re angry. Upset. Frustrated on some deep level at the way the Western world operates. Uninterested in reform or incremental change, they focus their anger on violent tactics and inflammatory rhetoric designed to create fear and loathing. Which they channel into fund-raising. I call this the “Need to Demonize” category, and it’s typified by the shrill voices of people like:
Ingrid Newkirk, PETA founder famous for her “Animals are people, too” comment and whose philosophy brooks no contact — much less consumption — of animals
Kelly Brownell, a Yale University psychologist widely quoted in Time magazine’s recent obesity cover story as an “authority” whose solutions included the ridiculous “Twinkie Tax”
Howard Lyman, the ex-rancher turned vegetarian now shilling for a string of activist groups, Lyman made waves on “Oprah” by claiming “mad cow would make AIDS look like the common cold”
The Advocates. They’re well-educated. Establishment types. Smart, credible, and media savvy. Specialists in fund-raising, they run in “mainstream” circles. I call this the “Love to Moralize” category, typified by folks such as:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the former drug-abusing lawyer-turned-eco-activist, who heads a campaign to “shut down the hog industry”
Michael Jacobsen, the Center for Science in the Public Interest director, best known for attacking the nutritional value of virtually every food product ever manufactured
Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, the biggest (and richest) activist group around, a perfect situation for a guy with one of the biggest egos in Washington, D.C.
Despite their different approaches, all three of the extremist groups profiled above are allied in their overall battle plan. They plan to occupy the intellectual and moral high ground by taking possession of the issues — their stance on the issues.
For all these folks, the battle isn’t about substantive change, it’s about gaining attention and credibility for themselves and their causes, because that’s what drives their fund-raising.
The perfect example of that is mad cow. More than 18 months after two cows tested positive for BSE, there has been no discernible changes in consumer eating habits, domestic beef sales and certainly retail prices.
Of course, producers and packers have lost billions, but that was due primarily to the closure of export markets for U.S. beef and variety meats. Domestically, the vast majority of Americans continue to express their confidence in beef safety by continuing to buy and eat beef.
But you’d think the activists had just won World War III the way they have been shouting about the dangers of BSE and pouting about the lack of public panic over the alleged “epidemic” they still claim is coming.
The solution to effectively dealing with these anti-industry types and their relentless campaigning against our food production system is three-fold: mobilize, organize and prioritize. Be like the activists themselves: Pick a target and take it down.
I don’t want to overdo the military metaphor, but this is a war, and you folks, as the people actually producing our food supply, need to respond to this threat with the intensity of a military mission.
Beyond the activist campaigns, the second most important challenge farmers face are environmental concerns, especially land use issues. Right here in Iowa there is a concerted campaign to slap a moratorium on siting any new CAFOs, or confinement livestock facilities. Here and elsewhere across the farm belt there are similar battles heating up over odor emissions, noise control and non-point source pollution.
This has serious ramifications. Did you know that in King County (Seattle), where I live, there is a proposal set to take effect that would require that 65 percent of the acreage of all rural properties be maintained in “natural vegetation?” How successful does anyone here think they’d continue to be if 65 percent of their farmland had to remain in “natural vegetation?”
Activists didn’t create the battles that are emerging over land use, but they are certainly taking advantage of them to capitalize on their ultimate goal: forcing livestock producers out of business.
Their strategy focuses on achieving what I call “hollow victories.” For example, Farm Sanctuary and the Humane Society recently engineered passage of a referendum banning gestation stalls for sows in Florida.
Who cares? Florida doesn’t have a single large-scale pork production facility in the entire state. Why does it even matter?
Well, each time the activists win these seemingly meaningless fights, the line of public acceptance is pushed back a bit more, and the bar on what are “acceptable” conditions for producers is raised a little higher. That makes it easier next time some activist campaign aims to regulate a piece of production agriculture out of business.
But you don’t need me to tell you that. Even in the lifetimes of the people gathered right here today, we might be faced with wholesale outsourcing of U.S. food production being positioned as a legitimate public policy choice.
