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FOOD producers who produce dairy, meat and poultry are facing a significant threat from animal activists opposed not only to certain production practices but to farm and food animal production, and although producers "are not losing, we are barely keeping up," according to Steve Kopperud.
Furthermore, he said if livestock and poultry producers continue on their current path, "we will lose, and it won't be a quiet death. A lot of you in this room won't be growing hogs."
This was the matter-of-fact, sober message Kopperud brought to pork producers at the National Pork Forum earlier this month -- a message that could have been brought to any meeting of producers or to any meeting of the segments of the food system.
Kopperud, senior vice president at Policy Directions Inc. in Washington, D.C., a food producer advocacy firm, noted that producers were challenged by animal activists in the 1980s and '90s but succeeded in putting aside attacks then because animal activism was a fractured, leaderless movement of some 150 groups.
Today, it has coalesced into a movement with direction and very well-funded strategies, he said, pointing specifically to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and while PETA "does outrageous stuff," HSUS "is the real threat."
He said, "HSUS represents itself as a benign protector of cats and dogs that comes in behind PETA and says, 'We're not the crazies. We're the moderates.'"
| Producers sold on 'Main Street'
PORK producers are selling themselves and their businesses through "Operation Main Street," a checkoff-funded program in which producers are given intensive training in public speaking to make presentations to local businesses and civic groups.
The program is just two years old, but 500 producers already have taken the training, with the 1,000th speech delivered in January, according to an announcement by the National Pork Promotion & Research Board, which manages the checkoff.
Main Street speakers address chambers of commerce and groups like Lions and Rotary clubs about modern pork production, including animal husbandry and environmental stewardship, pork safety and how production affects local and state economies, the Pork Board said.
"It makes a positive difference," said Liza Alton, a Main Street speaker and pork producer from Donnellson, Iowa, who has made numerous presentations in Iowa and Illinois.
At the same time, the National Beef Promotion & Research Board just launched a similar project -- a new web site where consumers can learn about beef producers and beef production often via audio and video in which producers talk about who they are and what they do.
The web site covers the entire beef production system from birth to the dinner table and includes an "Ask a Producer" page.
The web site, http://www.beeffrompasturetoplate.org/, "is a public outreach for the beef industry to talk with its customers," according to the Beef Board. | However, the group's actions speak differently, he said, recalling how HSUS launched an anti-food animal production campaign in the early 1990s that has accelerated under new chief executive officer and president Wayne Pacelle, who has rapidly transformed HSUS into "the National Rifle Assn. of animal rights." The comparison is important, he said, because the rifle association is generally considered the most effective political action group in Washington.
He reported that HSUS has established a "C-4" group to do unlimited lobbying. (C-4s can lobby because they are not tax exempt, which means HSUS, with a budget that exceeds $125 million, now has a lobbying arm while not losing its own tax-exempt status.)
Kopperud said the animal rights agenda is clear: "no animal use for any purpose whatsoever. This must be understood. There is no middle ground."
Not only is the agenda clear, but it's aggressive and deliberate, he added, recalling that an animal activist recently told him, "I won't get the steak off your table in 10 years, but give me 15 years, and I will."
Selling producers
Kopperud suggested that producers are on a losing path because they have shied away from making sure consumers understand what's at stake in terms of an abundant and affordable dairy, meat and poultry supply.
Accordingly, producers are losing the perception war, he said, letting the animal activists position modern production as factory farming.
"We are far too focused on selling products, but if we don't start selling producers, we won't have products to sell," he said.
Producers need to make sure consumers know about how they care for their animals, how they care for the environment and how they produce safe food.
"It's the human factor -- men and women on the ground raising their animals and talking to consumers -- that will win the issue," Kopperud said. "If you're shy, you had better get over it."
Producers also need to begin putting together a coordinated, food industry-wide approach to the attacks on their farms, production practices and reputations, Kopperud said, bringing suppliers, packer/processors and restaurant and supermarket customers along with them to respond to the activist agenda. "No force can stop a coalesced food industry," he said.
He emphasized that his reference to producers means all producers -- beef, dairy, pork and poultry -- "going in there as one," rather than each production sector trying to be its own voice.
A unified food industry "can be very powerful," he said, "but if we are fragmented, we will get picked off one at a time."
Kopperud said this kind of unification can get producers out of the reactive mode and into proactive strategies. "We tend to wait for the barn to be on fire and say, 'What do we do now?' We need to be getting our message to" consumers, policymakers and other important groups, he said. |
