Straight From the Horse's Mouth

Duane A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator, Webster County December 4, 2009 Edition I hope that everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. I have always enjoyed this particular time of the year, although it now seems that perhaps winter is really here. It certainly feels like it. It does seem surreal however that there are still crops out in a lot of fields, with not a lot of hope for dry down of the grain. Perhaps we can rely a little on the freeze dry method. There was one thing about Thanksgiving that bothered me and will lead into this week’s discussion. As I was getting ready to consume my annual tryptophan fix, I became aware of something that one of my favorite groups was trying to pull off that really got my blood boiling again. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal, PETA did it to me again. You may remember that last year, during the Super Bowl, PETA came out with an ad that was deemed too racy to air on TV with it’s “Vegetables are sexy promotion”. And then just in time for Thanksgiving this past week, PETA did it again. This time, instead of using sex to sell its vegan, animal rights message, it decided to use verbal "shock and awe”, via a commercial that was set to run on most TV stations. This video, inappropriately called “Grace”, produced by PETA, starts off innocently with a cute, young girl sitting at the dinner table with her family. She is asked to give a Thanksgiving blessing for the big bountiful meal set before her and her family. She obediently complies, giving thanks for the poop, chemicals and other unsavory things under the turkey's skin. She goes on with a diatribe about turkey farms with a long-winded, and very graphic dissertation about the “cruelty” of turkey farming where....“They pack them into dark tiny little sheds for their whole lives, then burn their feathers off while they're still alive, and describes how the turkey gets killed by people who think it's fun to stomp on their little turkey heads." I am sure that PETA designed the ad to make Thanksgiving Dinner just a little more uncomfortable for those with tender consciences. They went to even further because the ad is backed up with an on-line list of ten reasons not to eat turkeys. I give them credit for trying to cover all the bases, however they are way off base when it comes to the real truth. Table talk HSUS and PETA also are non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which are regarded as credible and as having public clout, Clark said, and NGOs are increasingly driving public policy-making at the local, state and national levels. They "have taken seats at the table", while agriculture has not, he said. Moreover, agriculture and conventional food production are experiencing "a dramatic drop in public trust" due to the "debilitating effects" of animal and environmental abuse videos and food recalls, he said, and the people at the table are subjecting producers to more scrutiny "than has been seen in decades". There are "a myriad of issues that can prompt headlines that we didn't have 10 years ago", Clark said. Accordingly, agriculture needs to try new tactics, such as alliances with NGOs that have common interests and proactive communication strategies that say what agriculture does, how it does that and why it does that, Clark said. Producers can't ignore issues by taking the be-quiet-and-it-will-go-away approach, he said. Producers need to call out and speak out, he said - calling out producers who have committed violations related to animal welfare, environmental stewardship and food safety and speaking out about how agriculture produces an abundant and affordable food supply. The industry needs to be engaged in the development and use of best management practices and needs to lead investigations of breakdowns in those practices, he said. "It is not an option to not speak out," he said, because others will - activists, media pundits, policy-makers, regulators and plaintiff attorneys. "They will gladly be quoted." Tent talk Producers need to get messages to the public, Clark said, suggesting that while an industry's animal welfare or environmental guidelines may be well known and understood by producers in that industry or by rural media, they are not top-of-mind for consumers. Producers need to use the right media to reach the right audiences, he said. "I'm not aware of industry X's guidelines because they aren't being twittered, they aren't coming up on Google, they aren't reported by the Washington Post," he said. When a person does a Google search for "hen house", for instance, a web site needs to pop up with a chicken cam or video showing what's going on in the house and why it's going on, Clark said. Information needs to be instantaneous, and grassroots industries like agriculture need to be merged with the digital world, with podcasts, webinars and town hall meetings, he said. They also need to be merged with NGOs such as labour unions, which have a stake in jobs in agriculture and food processing, and church groups or parent-teacher associations, which have a stake in the economies of rural communities, Clark said. A lot of pressure on producers is coming from retailers, which are also being pressured by activists with agendas and by consumers with concerns and questions, he said, so producers need to tie up with NGOs that have credibility with retailers and grocery shoppers. "You need a bigger tent where you can have greater collaboration," he said. Collaboration and communication must pool resources across agriculture and food production and be ongoing, Clark said, and strategies must be directed toward explanation, opinion shaping, anticipation and prevention, which are more cost and resource effective than responding to crisis. "Where public confidence and trust become expensive (to keep or restore) is when something already has broken loose," he said. Clark referred to recent opinion poll that showed that the public no longer differentiates in its perceptions of agriculture: The public "doesn't think of beef producers or chicken producers but of food producers", he said. "It's not this segment and that segment or this product and that product; it's agribusiness, (or) it's food manufacturing. That's how the public sees things today." This is why the "parallel response" must not be the beef industry's response or the chicken industry's response but all of agriculture's response, Clark said, and it must be consistent, proactive, responsive and transparent. "We have not demonstrated our desire or expertise to do that," he said. However, agriculture and food production can do this with communication techniques and partners that provide "a public face" and let people "peak inside" to see what producers do, how and why, Clark said, and the more this is done, the "more light and less heat" there will be. As I understand it, PETA submitted the ad to NBC so that it could run during coverage of the annual Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving Day, and then tried to peddle it to all of the other news media venues. I will have to credit NBC for turning it down and most of the other media outlets for doing the same thing. Unfortunately PETA is really pushing this thing on the web and it is available readily on “YouTube”. You can, if you want to, see what I am talking about by going to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptFAq3l-ew or simply go to YouTube and search for “PETA Grace”. I am reluctant to even mention the site as that is like promoting it, but I feel producers and consumers need to see what groups like this are trying to do to promote their Vegan and anti-animal agriculture agenda. I for one think that this is highly inappropriate, but not unexpected, for PETA to attempt to hijack a family tradition in order to push its radical message. As if this wasn’t enough the same group is pulling out the nudity card again with their “Animal Angel” campaign. They've got an almost naked woman - Playboy's Joanna Krupa - holding a cross and floating in mid air as if she were an angel. All to call attention to the fact people shouldn't buy animals. I personally don’t get it, but it is a proven fact that nudity attracts attention and sex sells. They definitely are going after attention, and what they are selling ---I am afraid too many people are buying. They have to be dropping millions of dollars on these campaigns. Don’t the people that give freely to these organizations ever think that maybe their money is going to this kind of thing rather than caring for the puppies and kitties that they think that this extreme animal rights groups like PETA and HSUS claim to protect and house. I have my doubts that any of this is really about puppies and kitties, I would venture a guess that it is more about destroying animal agriculture and promoting their Vegan agenda. I have been urging those of us in the ag production sector to become more involved and not wait till it is too late. We need to get our message out their too. As you can see agriculture and food producers face broad opposition from activist groups, and response must be proactive and rapid. To get our message out today, we as producers need to have an entirely new sense of urgency and need to use an entirely new set of alliances and tools. This requires first a desire to actually respond, and then to form alliances with interests similar to ours, and even those that are not traditional to agriculture. We must develop the capabilities to communicate, plus create an outreach that transmits our messages consistently, continuously and rapidly. One only has to watch young people, and yes even some old people, to acknowledge that the communication landscape has changed dramatically. We must be aware that a "story" can leap from a cell phone photo or video right to YouTube in seconds, and food producers need "a parallel response". We need to communicate our side and use a positive message to do so. Producers must speak out to show they provide abundant, affordable food supply. We as producers need this response because activism is occurring on a broader frequency that's more opposed to agriculture and conventional food production than ever before. Furthermore, as is evidenced by the PETA activities of this past week, activists are taking their agendas directly to the media and public, which agriculture seems to have a tendency to avoid. Activists are in the conflict industry, creating conflict to raise money to create more conflict, to raise more money. You get the picture!! 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 or go to the website at: http://www.webster.unl.edu/home .