Watch Out.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has been up to no good for some time, sneaking around in the shadows of their lies and tearing our domestic food supply out from under our feet without anyone even noticing. To this date, they have targeted and successfully passed legislation in four states: Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and California. Production animal agriculture - the domestic source of our inexpensive, plentiful, safe food - in these states is now (or soon to be) a thing of the past, and the radical organization is plowing ahead with their plan to eliminate meat, milk, and eggs/poultry from the American diet.

HSUS is successful primarily because 98% of Americans are completely food illiterate; in other words, an overwhelming majority of people do not have the slightest idea what kind of a farm their food comes from or how it gets to the grocery store. This, combined with the Humane Society technique of using emotion to raise money to achieve goals creates an unfortunate situation for farmers because unknowing minds can be easily manipulated to despise food production.

When the Humane Society enters a state, they flood the media with photos and videos featuring isolated cases of disturbing animal mistreatment and make it seem like such treatment is the norm on farms. When consumers see said videos, the circumstances portrayed become reality on farms everywhere in the public's eye; i.e. dairy farming is tail docking and de-horning, hog production is gestation crates, poultry production is cramped cages, beef production is downer cows and e-coli. The public, naturally, repels against the food industry in response to the (biased and inaccurate) representation of agriculture, and just like that the HSUS has majority backing.

Once the public is on their side, HSUS promotes their desire to bring "humane treatment" to the poor animals on production farms in the state. Once again, one-sided arguments and narrow definitions come into play; HSUS simply defines humane treatment by animal housing, not herd health, herd mortality rates, herd nutrition management, etc, all of which are favorable to the animals and contradict the mistreatment HSUS is trying to portray. Wayne Pacelle, president of the HSUS, shows up in his three thousand dollar suit and tells people "See, all we want to do is give this chicken room to spread its wings, and this sow the ability to move around with her piglets," and the votes in their favor come pouring in.

The HSUS mission sounds harmless from the outside, but consider this: every kind of animal housing has developed from years and generations of studies on domestic animal morbidity and mortality rates, and the crates, tethers, and pens are the best way to minimize death rates. Believe it or not, laying hens are bloodthirsty and will gang up and kill each other if any blood is present during the egg laying process, hence small laying crates in which the bird is safe to eat, drink, and lay eggs; sows do not hesitate to crush and eat newborn piglets, hence farrowing crates that provide food and water to the sow and safe access to their mother's milk for the piglets; dairy cattle, if not de-horned, will gore each other, reducing productivity, increasing the risk of disease, and diminishing overall herd health. Remove these animal safety measures, farm animal mortality rates skyrocket, and the producer is no longer able to stay competitive thanks to the resulting huge losses. As a result, animal production in that state ceases...exactly what the HSUS wants it to do, yet they never said a word to the voting public about eliminating farm operations. Tricky, isn't it?

It is worth mentioning at this time one of my new favorite quotes: "The future of agriculture is guaranteed because the people in this world like to eat. It is the future of AMERICAN agriculture that we must fight to protect." As radical, uninformed organizations such as the HSUS continue to spread their misinformation to the citizens of this country, they are forcing our food production out of the United States to countries with far fewer food safety regulations (non-domestic food sources are a concern to 92% of the population). They will work to gain a foothold one state at a time until one day we will wake up and realize that although our demand for food has increased, our production of food has been eliminated and we are at the mercy of someone else to feed this country.

I am telling you this because in the near future, the Humane Society is coming after agriculture in our great state of Pennsylvania. They will show you pictures that seem shocking and spout statistics that make you want to cringe. They will use words like 'compassionate' and 'caring' in support of themselves and 'inhumane' and 'cruel' to downplay our producers. But, unlike in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and California, farmers in PA are ready with the truth, and we can beat them. Ohio recently held off the HSUS by simply reminding the public that farmers and food are everywhere, and farmers are doing what is best for their animals and for their customers; the reminder worked and an overwhelming majority of the population voted against the Humane Society regulations. You, too, need to spread the word to family and friends about the importance of farming and the lies of the Humane Society. With education and support Pennsylvanians will also prevent the loss of an industry.

This is getting long winded, but I will leave you one last thought: the Clarion glass plant was recently selected to be closed down, eliminating good jobs and removing $250,000 per week in salaries from our local economy - a devastating blow that trickles down to every other business in the area. Animal agriculture in Pennsylvania provides $46.4 billion dollars to the state economy...are we going to fight to keep that money in our hands, or will we allow the smooth talking, well dressed, wealthy Wayne Pacelle to coax it out from under our noses?

Newsflash: Food Is Good For You

I have been itching to construct this post for months now, but I did not quite have all my ducks in a row and was not sure I could convey my point in a manner that would make the impact it is worthy of. Until today, that is. Dad found the information I knew was out there and could not find, and I am ready to go. What I am going to attempt to do is bring into light what happens when non-agricultural people begin to influence food trends.

It is safe to say that soybeans have become a major celebrity in the food world. We associate soy products with a modern, healthy, trendy, stay-away-from-that-bad-meat-milk-and-eggs sort of diet that is widely adopted by health conscious people. Everyone seems to want a piece of the nifty soybean marketing pie; one does not have to try very hard to find soy milk, soy cheese, soy meat substitutes, soy egg substitutes, the list goes on and on. These bean-based foods are marketed as better for everyone because they do not have any of that scary cholesterol or those terrifying preservatives and hormones that farmers wildly pack into their meat products. In other words, soybeans are accepted as a wonderfood that can solve all the dietary problems of today.

Or can they?

Remember my post about the hormone levels in untreated and hormone-treated beef? I mentioned that the meat hormone scare is fairly irrelevant because hormone concentrations in a serving of non-treated and treated beef differs by only several billionths of a gram. This is what I was referring to: a serving of meat from an untreated steer contains 1.1 nanograms of estrogen (one nanogram is a billionth of a gram; estrogen is what the animals are implanted with and is the hormone everyone is afraid of ingesting). On the flip side, a serving of beef from a steer on a rigorous hormone treatment schedule contains 1.4 nanograms of estrogen. Neither concentration is large enough to even be considered a threat by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA - the people dedicated to making sure your food is safe), and the difference between the two is small to the point of irrelevance. Estrogen levels in a serving of milk are slightly higher at 13.6 nanograms, still a level that does not cause a stir. Despite these manageable (even healthy, if you will) hormone levels, meat and milk have gotten a black eye when it comes to the health conversation.

Now consider this: our cure-all soybeans also produce and contain estrogen. Quite a lot of it, actually. In fact, a serving of soybean oil contains 189,133 nanograms of the hormone. Yes, you read that correctly: a serving of soy oil (that is touted as healthy and harmless) contains 189,133 times MORE estrogen than a serving of beef from a rigorously-enhanced steer (that is ridiculed as unhealthy and dangerous). So when someone drinks a glass of soy milk because they heard from Oprah that real milk is unhealthy, they are introducing significantly higher levels of life-changing estrogen into their system than if they had enjoyed the real thing. That tofu burger selected by the college student who went vegetarian because she "found out from PETA that cattle are abused, hormone-raging science projects" is pouring thousands of times more estrogen into her body than if she had eaten a real beef patty. Worst of all, the trendy mother who gives her young boy soy milk every day for breakfast is blasting the little guy with estrogen - over a period of time, he is going to develop some very feminine features. Ironic, isn't it? The people pushing away from farmers in an attempt to become more healthy are actually walking right in to the problems they think are being avoided, and they have no idea it is happening.

It is interesting to me that people are more willing to listen to "food experts" who have never even set foot on a farm (where ALL of our food comes from!) than a farmer or agricultural expert who grew up producing the real thing. I read somewhere that we have gotten to the point of viewing what is on our plate as calories, cholesterol, vitamins, and all of the other health terms we can't get away from rather than vegetables, meats, and grains. This is devastating because food is so GOOD - it has awesome colors, textures, flavors, smells...eat a little of everything in moderation and forget all the scientific garbage. Look at what you are eating - if there is a nice variety of stuff and you can identify all of it as something that was grown, not processed, EAT IT! It is time we once again view and trust our farmers as the food experts, otherwise we will end up choking down "Jimmy's super low calorie ultra fat burning totally vitamin packed omega-3 enhanced eco-friendly awesome SOY protein bar!!!" Blah.

Small Steps to Huge Leaps

I recently read that an overwhelming majority of Americans are now three generations removed from agriculture. That is a long time-oriented separation from the "down in the dirt" knowledge associated with farm life, and a major opportunity for questionable "facts" to find a secure place in public opinion.

My guess is the first generation off the farm was well aware of their roots and was grateful for the opportunity to pursue a different lifestyle, so they were at least somewhat knowledgeable about food production and did not question it; the second was far enough off the farm that food production was not given a second thought, it was just something that happened to ensure that the grocery store aisles were well stocked; today, farming is something that is completely foreign to the third generation (even their grandparents were not farmers), and they are once again becoming interested in the origin of their next meal. Unfortunately, the new-found curiosity created a void that was filled by the loud voices of (equally uninformed) individuals spouting opinions about animal abuse, food trends, inappropriate production methods, etc. Perhaps even more unfortunately, farmers and ranchers (at first) stuck to their guns and remained behind the scenes, quietly going about their business while the public ate up every crumb of the slander-soaked pie laid out by various forms of extremest media.

It is easy for someone passionate about animal care and crop production to become angry at people who immediately believe the lies they hear about farming, but we need to realize that it is equally easy for non-farmers to latch on to what they hear; after all, nobody wants to support cruelty or wild science-fiction experiments, and if all they know is what they hear from the loudest source, who can blame them for pulling back in shock?

As our way of life began to gain a nationally recognized (but not legitimate) black spot in the eyes of the public, agricultural leaders began to spread the word that rather than becoming angry, farmers need to embrace the public with the real story and push back against our competitors with the same means they used against us. Almost overnight, groups of young (and young at heart) farmers began to spread the truth about farming, largely via the internet. Facebook groups, agricultural magazines, and various websites are now abuzz with success stories and techniques to educate people about farm life. Unlike our competitors, farmers actually have facts and physical proof (rather than opinions) to show people that agriculture has been portrayed in an artificial light, and the public is listening.

I guess there is no real message in this post other than I am excited to see the tides turning against radical organizations whose success is based on empty lies. Farmers turning to the internet is just the beginning; across the country, farms and ranches are being opened to the public so everyone is able to come in and see the full process for themselves. As people become re-educated about food production, fears and questions will disappear as fast as the organizations that created them. Keep listening to the real story, and I bet we will quickly see a bridge built to span the producer-consumer gap.