Straight From the Horse's Mouth

Duane A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator, Webster County August 28, 2009 Edition It has been a while since I have reported on some of the negativity that has been thrown up against agriculture, but that doesn’t mean that the groups and people who seem to exhibit disdain for the very thing that feeds our nation hasn’t let up. It is quite the contrary. There has been a steady stream of things hitting agriculture square in the mouth including: a continuing controversy with antibiotics, with a blatant push to eliminate or control antibiotic use in livestock. Add to that the constant harassment to the livestock industry by PETA, HSUS and other animal rights extremists. To give an example this past week, I saw a sign by PETA that showed an obese woman with the title “Save the Whales – Lose the Blubber – Go Vegetarian” which is of course an attempt to paint meat as the culprit of obesity. If that isn’t enough, how about their recent attack on McDonalds? These whackos have a new tactic: Passing out "Unhappy Meals," which include a rubber chicken stained with fake blood, a small paper cutout showing Ronald McDonald wielding a bloody knife and a T-shirt bearing the logo "McCruelty.” They are handing these out to little kids. I let you make up your mind on this! I think however that one of the most wide-spread, and dangerous affronts on agriculture was unleashed by a widely distributed and read “so-called” news magazine this past week. If you are not aware, TIME magazine used as it cover story a piece called “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food.” The story is a wide-ranging frontal assault on all aspects of modern food production, and the story is written in a manner that the very few words included to give agriculture a token voice are quickly trampled by an onslaught of anti-modern-agriculture rhetoric. His attempt at journalism was obviously slanted, utilized biased science, and lacked truthful, well researched information. If he was attempting to mislead the public through misinformation and scare tactics, he was successful. The first paragraph pretty much sets the tone for the whole piece. “Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won’t bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He’s fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and down into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon—circa 2009.”In this first paragraph alone, the reporter (I am using that term loosely) manages to fit in nearly every stereotype that isn’t accurate about modern agriculture. This is more like hearsay than reporting. No matter what type of production system is used, there will be advantages and drawbacks. To read this, you would think there is a perfect model that can be easily followed. If a reporter wants to be taken seriously, they should fairly and accurately report both sides of an issue and let the reader decide for themselves what their opinion will be. That is not the case in this article. If you wish to read the article you can contact me and I will get a copy to you, or you can find it on the internet at: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html. If you want to make a difference, and perhaps vent on this to the company, letters regarding this opinion article (which TIME unfortunately cloaked as a news magazine cover story) may be sent using this link: http://bit.ly/19LOXL. We need to point out that the ingenuity, productivity and dedication of American livestock producers and meat and poultry processors provide American consumers with an astonishingly wide array of product choices, with numerous flavor options and nutritional profiles, at extremely reasonable price ranges. And despite this abundance, Americans spend less than any other developed nation in the world on meat and poultry products — about 1.7 percent of our incomes per year today down from over 4 percent in 1970. We utilize science and modern technology every day to provide you with an affordable, safe and wholesome product. Our only motive is to keep the environment clean and healthy, enhance wildlife habitat, encourage conservation, provide for future generations and feed people.In a world of 7 billion people and expanding, where malnutrition, hunger or outright famine are commonplace, it’s dumbfounding to me that TIME magazine would take one of the great American success stories – the efficient agricultural production of an abundant variety of healthy, safe and affordable foods for consumers in the U.S. and throughout the world – and turn it into an unrecognizable story of exploitation, manipulation and greed. Do people like this ever consider that it takes a variety of systems to raise food to meet the needs of a population that is expected to reach 9-10 billion by the year 2050? Just as Americans need to eat a balanced diet, they also need balanced information. Unfortunately, they won’t find it in TIME magazine. The preceding information comes from the research and personal observations of the writer which may or may not reflect the views of UNL or UNL Extension. For more further information on these or other topics contact D. A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator for Webster County in Red Cloud, (402) 746-3417 or email to: dlienemann2@unl.edu