STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Duane A. Lienemann,

 UNL Extension Educator,

Webster County
March 1, 2012 Edition
I don’t normally watch TV shows like the Grammy Awards, but I did watch a part of the prime time show this past week that unfortunately played an animated spot for Chipotle Mexican Grill. If you didn’t see it, it showed a farm family that starts out with a happy pig running around in the open grass field. As Willie Nelson sings Coldplay's "The Scientist” using the words “Science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart,” the farm slowly evolves into an evil “Factory Farm.” The animals move indoors, into large buildings with an apparatus that mixes giant pills and a translucent green liquid (representing hormones and antibiotics) into bloating pig-like caricatures, which are later stomped mechanically into “pig packages” that are then shipped via trucks down the road. Later, the farmer is shown having an epiphany and tears down the buildings and fences and lets his animals roam free. Happiness is found in a simpler life, one without modern farming or science. Life is somehow better when pigs suffer from extreme temperatures and climate, predators and disease. By dining at Chipotle, you can improve the world, all for the price of a burrito or taco. Good Lord – I have heartburn!
I know that a lot of uninformed people considered it a great video. All you have to do is read comments at the YouTube site to figure that out. The "Back to the Start" video is "a simplistic and inaccurate depiction of how we raise hogs today. The trouble is that it is pure fiction. The happy farm in the Chipotle ad is not just unrealistic it is unsustainable and definitely not “pig-friendly.” Letting pigs run free in a field actually exposes them to disease, predation, harsh weather and violence against each other. The true fact is that farmers, ranchers and consumers are the real victims in this story. Chipotle, like any company, is advertising a fantasy. Children talking like grown-ups, only good-looking and thin people drinking beer, dogs bribing humans with Doritos, and Chipotle has a cartoon farm. Chipotle did not try to represent science or agriculture truthfully; instead, it made a commercial. Even with that in mind, it quite frankly made my blood boil.
Chipotle has every right to promote its restaurants and its food ... but that's not what this film is about. I am of the opinion that the real meaning of this commercial is to make consumers believe that the way farming practices are run today are "wrong, irresponsible and lacking integrity and respect.” It is a blatant attack on the modern family farm, compliments of HSUS pressure. The video is very simplistic and would tend to mislead members of the public that are not familiar with animal agriculture. It leads consumers to think that raising food animals the way we did 50 years ago is better. I might ask these consumers - how many of them would go to a dentist who used 50-year-old dental practices or technology?
Animals are not inflated by unrestricted use of antibiotics or hormones. The negative portrayal of antimicrobials in the advertisement misrepresents how antibiotics, vaccines and other medications are used in pig production. Anyone involved in production agriculture knows that these products are used in a strategic manner to address health issues on most farms and represent a tool and not a crutch. The push to ban antimicrobial use in animal production is likely to create a welfare issue where we may have sick animals that cannot be medicated effectively because of restrictions on the use of antimicrobials. The ad could mislead consumers into thinking treatments such as antibiotics are not healthy. Would you rather eat meat from a pig that was healthy during its lifetime or one that was sick? That's not to say all pigs not given antibiotics are going to get sick, but it comes down to the care given to animals. Good management practices indicate the need for the judicious use of animal health products.
The Chipotle piece rejects the reality that indoor housing and medications are crucial in modern swine production. I do not consider outdoor systems to be more pig-friendly. There is no doubt that pigs are exposed to new diseases when they forage outside. They also bite and injure each other to assert dominance in large groups. I can guarantee that the notion of raising pigs on pasture does not demonstrate good stewardship of the land. The fact of the matter is that pigs are very destructive to the terrestrial environment. Evidence of this reality is the concern around the country about feral pigs and their destruction of the habitats of other animals. Ask the people around Harlan County Dam about that.
Chipotle’s portrayal of animal waste as green sludge flowing into a lake is also inaccurate. Environmental laws in most states prohibit uncontrolled discharge of waste material into open bodies of water and govern how this material is used to improve soil fertility. Farmers have gone to great lengths to control waste products and even the smell associated with it.
To produce enough pork to feed the world, not just the people who support Chipotle, producers need modern medicine, waste management and animal housing. The world can afford for a few wealthy people to get pork and other animal products produced in outdoor extensive systems. But we cannot sustainably produce nearly enough for all of the world’s people that way. Such systems require too much land and feed to be sustainable if applied across the industry.
Living and working in agriculture all my life, I know most farmers, of all sizes, care about their land and livestock, this add seemed to portray that's not so. Unlike what I saw from Chipotle, I appreciate all forms of agriculture and each farmer’s ability to find a way to supply an array of choices from individuals to choose from. Caring for the animals, land and the environment is something that all farmers, that I know, have a deep passion for - or they wouldn’t be doing it. I think that maybe a good hamburger from the local restaurant sounds a lot better to me. Chipotle can have their idealistic pork!
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