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Listen to a conversation with Steve Agan, Wells Fargo

The announcement and release last week of an undercover video taken at a hog farm in this country brings this television program to mind, as I question the indefensible and malicious behavior of people charged with the care of animals. As a person of animal husbandry, the display of animal abuse I saw on that video sickens me to my very core. I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I didn’t even realize that I was crying until the tear dropped on the hand that I had placed over my mouth as one does when one bears witness to shocking behavior.

I have seen videos in the past where anyone with knowledge of animal agriculture and editing abilities can see how and where the “film” has been doctored, making things appear much worse than they actually are. The video I watched had been edited, but the mistreatment of the animals that I saw was very real. It was rife with suffering animals and bad actors.

The Humane Society of the United States released the video that had been taken last month by an undercover investigator on the HSUS payroll. According to its announcement, HSUS received the tip three months ago and sent an investigator to the farm to gain employment and video the facility during the month of April.

If it really were about the animals, why did the undercover investigator do nothing to stop the abuse while it was happening? If it really were about the animals, HSUS would not have dallied around and wasted time. If it really were about the animals, it wouldn’t be about positioning and power and money for HSUS.

Which brings me back to unwitting people placed in situations where they have a choice of doing what is right or what is wrong. Why did the anonymous tip go to HSUS instead of to the county sheriff’s office? I find it hard to believe that there was such a veil of secrecy surrounding the happenings at this farm that no one came forward and reported the abuse to local law enforcement.

We often ask why anti-animal agriculture and animal rights groups are recognized and influential in determining how animals are treated on farms. We wonder why it is that those who don’t eat meat and don’t want us to eat meat have a voice in how meat animals are fed, watered, handled, sheltered, transported and processed. If we were all more vigilant and aware of what is happening in our own back yard, animal rights groups would have no place in our world.

I have always believed, and still do, that those to whom the animals belong are those most likely to know what is best for those animals. We have a few bad actors on farms the same as there are a few bad actors teaching 5th grade, performing open heart surgery, and preaching the gospel in churches on Sunday mornings.

We do not want some bureaucrats in an ivory tower somewhere telling us that we can no longer hire teenagers to buck hay bales or detassel corn. You’ve heard all the arguments, and probably have a few of your own, for allowing farm kids to be farm kids. The proposed DOL rules were overreaching and would have wrongly restricted the activities young people are engaged in on their own farms, their relatives’ farms, and on neighbors’ farms.

But the fact remains that children are killed in farm accidents every year. Agriculture is a dangerous profession. We dedicate one week every year to remind and educate farmers and others who work in agriculture to be safe. Many of you are familiar with the non-profit organization Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, founded in 1987 by a mother whose 11-year old son suffocated in a gravity flow wagon of shelled corn on his family’s Iowa farm. The campaign to promote farm safety awareness that Marilyn Adams started 25 years ago now reaches across the United States and Canada. It provides resources and training to individuals and communities to conduct farm safety awareness and education programs. Farm Safety 4 Just Kids receives financial support from many large agribusinesses as well as individual donors. This organization is a prime example of a successful grassroots effort to address a problem without government interference and undo added regulation.

The tools, technologies, equipment, and inputs used on farms in this country are, for the most part, much more advanced than those used when the previous legislation regulating safety practices of youth working in agriculture was enacted 40 years ago. Although many of the “basics” are the same, the training for those who will work on a farm today is different than the training needed in 1972. Are we investing enough time in training the next generation of farmers to be effective, efficient and safe?

We won. Now let’s prove that we deserve it.

When I walked into the Brownfield newsroom one morning last week ranting about an unprofessional and distorted lead story I had seen on the 5:30pm news the night before, one of the reporters on my staff suggested I write a letter to them. So I asked my team what they would say if given the opportunity to write to those who put the stories together for the national news networks. I have known for some time what my team is made of. The response to my request leaves me humbled. There is not enough room in this column to share all of their thoughts, but here is a sampling:

To me, it’s a question of ethics. And I really wonder about the ethics of many reporters in the mainstream media today.

It seems obvious that they have an agenda and the stories that they do are designed to further that agenda.

I think we all know how easy it is to spin or distort a new story. Several ways to do it if you really want to—choice of words, taking a quote out of context, presenting opinion as fact, etc. I see it and hear it constantly in news stories and it infuriates me. The problem is that the average listener, viewer and reader does not always recognize it and assumes what they are seeing, hearing and reading is the gospel truth.

When I write a story, I’m constantly asking myself, “Am I being fair and objective?” and “What might be the consequences of what I am reporting?” Before I put a story out there, I usually go back over it a couple of times to make sure it’s objective and accurate. Many times, I have gone back and changed the wording in stories because of how it may be misinterpreted by the listener or reader. Are my stories always 100 percent pure? Probably not, but that’s what I strive for.

I’ve never had anyone question my ethics as a reporter. I can’t imagine how a reporter like that lives with himself, with people calling him bad names and questioning his integrity. He may just be the type of person that thrives on that kind of controversy, but that type of reporting is better suited to a gossip tabloid than it is to a major news organization.

My message is to put your own feelings aside (as much as possible), do your research, be fair—and consider the consequences of what you are doing before you do it.

Another of my reporters wrote:

Do not buy the line that “corporate” agriculture is evil. Get both sides of the story! Come at your story with a thirst for knowledge about agriculture production and contact farmers and agribusiness leaders – if you don’t know who they are, use your journalistic abilities by picking up the phone or Googling or emailing to find out.

Give growers and food makers the chance to tell their side of the story. Do NOT assume. Understand that the vast majority of farmers CARE. Understand that organic and conventional agriculture can co-exist. Understand that a broad and diverse agriculture system is necessary for the planet. Call ag operators out when they are clearly violating the environment or abusing animals but don’t assume that most farmers don’t care.

Stop sensationalizing headlines and stories and stop making them so one-sided. Do you have any idea what power your words have – how they can go “viral” in today’s media environment – how they can directly impact the livelihoods of America’s farmers and ranchers and those businesses and rural communities that are tied to agriculture? – Farmers and ranchers do what it takes every day to FEED you, to feed all of us. If you don’t understand the importance of agriculture, stop buying groceries and going out to restaurants and begin growing your own food yourself. Go ahead. Let us know how that works out.

And finally, one of my reporters wrote:

I think I’d ask them how I could help them to better understand U.S. agriculture.

Apparently, that stereotypical “hayseed” farmer isn’t the only one using words that some of us would like to see banished from the English language.

The annual list of “banished words” was released last week by Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The word receiving the most nominations was amazing. Apparently, there is so much over-use of the word on reality TV and by television programs hosts that a Facebook page was started to encourage people to submit the word to LSSU for inclusion in the “banished words” list.

Other words and phrases included on the list are: baby bump, shared sacrifice and occupy. The word blowback, as I interpret it, means backlash. So why use a made-up word when there’s already one in the English language that works perfectly fine?

Man cave has got to go, according to the LSSU list. New normal, most often used to describe the current state of the American economy, made the list, as did pet parent.

Trickeration, oft used by football analysts is on the 2012 banned words list, as is ginormous, which I must admit I have used to describe both the federal deficit and our fertilizer bill. I am also guilty of having used the phrase Thank you in advance. According to the person nominating the phrase for the 2012 banned words list, it is a condescending way of letting someone know that since they’ve already been thanked, they had better do whatever it is they’ve been thanked for doing.

Upon receiving and sharing this list with several other journalists, my friend Bob challenged us to come up with our own nominations. It took no more than 2 minutes to come up with our own list:

At the end of the day

Level the playing field

Game changer

Incent, which one of my friends declared is especially offensive to her. “There should be no such word uttered. One can provide incentives, but one cannot “incent” someone to do something.”

And finally, my own personal pet peeve:

Beginning every answer to every question with “So…….”

Not just a quick “so” but a drawn out to 2 syllables sounding “soh-ohh.”

I have written about the power of words in the past. Although I’m mostly poking fun today, I think it would do all of us well to stop and think about our vocabulary and the words we use to tell our stories.