Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

There’s an odd psychology among many national ag groups – whether producer, input or processor – as well as among monster-big companies when it comes to “responding” to attacks from activists or ill-informed bureaucrats on what we do and how well we do it.  It generally comes down to waiting until the bomb has dropped or getting someone else to stand up and scream, “Enough of this junk.”  Those days have got to end.

If you plumb the motivation for this hesitance to confront our adversaries or to challenge the Big Lie(s) about production agriculture and modern food production, you generally get the following responses:  1.  “I/we don’t want to make a bigger deal out of this than it already is”, or 2.  “We don’t want to tick off (fill in the name of your favorite critic – private or government) because they might punish us with something worse.”

Forgive my frankness, but this kind of thinking is crap.

The groups, movements and individuals who attack us expect us to be reactive. They expect us to be timid, overly cautious and darn near afraid of going on the offensive. They understand how we think and how we act almost better than we do and they plan their attacks accordingly.
I spend a whole lot of time on the road preaching to farm groups across the country that they must get off their backends and start speaking up.  This does only mean we sing the song of happy agriculture, but that we start telling folks – whether consumers, government or media – that we’re the heroes in this story, not the villain.

So, when we find out a some author is heading to a publicly funded university to call us names, or a major network is going to do yet another “point-of-view” story on food will kill you, or we pick up an animal rights group is planning yet another frontal attack on our livelihoods, we shudder collectively, huddle together and wait for that smoke in the barn to turn to flames. Then, bless us, we debate about whether to call the fire department and when. 

When we know we have the angels on our side – we have our facts, our experience, our experts who will join with us – then we must get out in front of these episodes so that at the very least the unenlightened out there get both sides of a story at the same time, or at the very least we can blunt the effect of these attacks.  We must speak up loudly to ensure we’re heard, and we must exercise that freedom repeatedly.

Ohio getting out ahead of the Humane Society of the U.S., folks in Wisconsin who demanded a balanced forum when the university invited foodie activist Michael Pollan to speak, the men and women of Oklahoma who decided the state legislature would decide how animals are raised and handled, not the activists with the price of a statewide referendum. This is what I’m talking about.

Yes, in some cases it will be a gamble, and you must pick your battles. If it makes no sense to pour gasoline on an open flame, then control yourself and save your strength for another battle another day.  But in the grand scheme of things, we must take back the public debate.
Those who sit back and wait to react will never win.  Those who speak up, vent their frustrations and present their case in a logical and well-planned way will win the day. 

As they say during wedding ceremonies, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”  Amen.

Standards boards and preaching to the choir

There are two issues that have been keeping me on the telephone and answering email all week. They are: Since Ohio set up a Livestock Standards Board, shouldn’t all states follow suit? And, secondly, proactive, pro-farmer advertising and information campaigns are popping up and folks are hearing/reading about them in the ag press. Isn’t that good news?

The first one is admittedly tough. The short answer is this: What worked for Ohio farmers and ranchers in their campaign to beat back the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) and what’s best for the farmers and ranchers of Ohio, may not be the best route for your state to take.

Remember: Ohio had a perfect storm of political, public opinion and resources come together that led to its stunning victory in 2009. The aggie-led coalition did its homework, expended the necessary dollars and shoe leather, and was able to put together a formula which works for Ohio.

The problem with every state jumping onto the standards board bandwagon is consistency between and among states. Laws and regulations in the area of animal care and treatment vary from state to state, but this has never been an impediment to commerce. However, an official division of a state, dealing with the particular and peculiar authorities, challenges and other variables, could begin to threaten that interstate balance the folks across the border or across the country aren’t setting the same or at least similar standards.

Second, there’s a kind of  unspoken assumption that if correctly defined and constructed, a state standards board will always be a pro-ag kind of arbiter of care and treatment issues.  There’s no guarantee over time this will happen as the politics of states shift along with the population and industry of the state. The most you can hope for is that any state standards board is mandated to use the science of animal husbandry and solid common sense when standards are to be set and/or interpreted.

Keep in mind other states have been as creative as Ohio, but have not adopted standards boards. For instance, in Oklahoma, there’s new law that holds only the state legislature has authority over standards of livestock and poultry care and treatment — no referenda, either state or local, can usurp that authority. In Arizona, the state legislature passed a bill last year mandating all chickens raised in egg production must be raised in accordance with United Egg Producer guidelines on care, housing, handling and so forth.

A standards board approach to livestock care and handling is a classic example of “Be careful what you ask for, because you may get it.”  The key to avoiding stupid legislation in any state is to make sure you’ve got the support of not only your traditional champions, but those urban folks who are logical targets for groups like HSUS.  Ensure all members of your state legislature understand — and I mean really understand — what it means to mess with animal agriculture in your state, not just for farmers and ranchers, but what the “unintended consequences” of bad legislation will mean to food prices for every state legislator’s voting consumer. 

As to new public information campaigns designed to educate consumers, reminding them of the professional, caring men and women who produce their food, these efforts are to be loudly applauded.  But there may be a problem.

If folks only hear these campaigns on farm radio, and don’t see/hearing these adverts as often on mainstream radio and TV, or read them in daily newspapers and general interest and magazines, then we may be fall prey to one of our blunders of the past, namely talking to ourselves, not to the general consumer out there who I’m guessing doesn’t subscribe to Feedstuffs, Hoards, or Pork  or routinely listen to Agri-Talk.   It’s akin to say, the National Pork Board only pitching the other white meat in Des Moines.  Not the best use of the checkoff or advertising dollar. 

I’m excited these campaigns are beginning to emerge.  Let’s make sure our messages are consistent, each campaign echoing the messages of the others, sometimes with a twist, but always on page.  These campaigns —  and I haven’t seen all of them –  show great promise, are the foundation of an emerging movement of proactive farmers and ranchers.   We just have to ensure we’re pitching to the right audience, not just preaching to the choir.

The unintended consequences of “sweeps week”

There’s a phenomenon in the world of  television called “sweeps week.”  Twice a year — February and November — the beady eye of Nielsen and other ratings companies focuses on the networks to assess how many people are watching what. It is, in part, the resulting numbers that inform the networks how much the market is willing to pay for advertising time.

This is when you see all of those local and network news stories about one-eyed aliens spotted in midtown Manhattan, plastic surgery “disasters” and, of course, the requisite twice-a-year “food-will-kill-you” story.

I’m aware of at least two national networks which are working on stories on antibiotic use in agriculture.  One network is looking at alternatives to the use of these products; the other is planning a two-part “in-depth investigation” of the products and their use in ag, their contribution to human resistance and disease, the “Danish experience” and so forth and so on.

I’ve been through these stories so many times over the years I believe I could actually produce the two-parter myself — in my sleep. I will go out on a limb here and volunteer to produce the piece without ever leaving my office. Give me sufficient video footage of dedraggled animals, folks laying on gurneys in hospital emergency rooms, a handful of out-of-context disease statistics, thow in some gruesome slaughter facility film, an interview with a perky and/or earnest organic farmer/rancher, and top it off with a “victim.”

What these pieces are not likely to “investigate” is the lack of any hard science that proves on-farm use of antibiotics is the root of human resistance, and they’ll surely not look at the various risk assessments done showing  just the opposite is true.  Nor are they likely to put medical doctors and hospitals under the same bright light of “investigation” into overprescription of antibiotics for conditions for which they’re not indicated and nosocomial infections. And, there will be little if any attention paid to the consequences — intended or unintended — of what a one-sided “point-of-view” report could mean to animal welfare, food safety, food availability and abundance and food costs.

My cynical self assumes these stories will condemn the practice of low-level antibiotic use on farms and ranches through feed and water use and they’ll use the activist line to do so.  Why do I assume this?  Because groups, such as the Pew Commission on Industrial Farming, the Johns Hopkins “Center for a Liveable Future,” and the Union of Concerned Scientists have burnished their halos of certainty and assumption and sold the networks on the badness of these products through their campaigns and propaganda.

The networks will pay only passing attention to the fact all of these products were reviewed and approved by FDA for safety and efficacy – taking years and millions of dollars in company sponsor money to do so. Nor will they look closely at the FDA rules that govern their inclusion in feed and water, nor the rules set down for farmers to follow, or the fact the feed is inspected and monitored by FDA, the presence of residues monitored by USDA, etc. In short, the products and their use on farms will be found guilty based on hearsay and anecdotal evidence.  There will be no attention paid to the fact antibiotics are safe, approved, professionally and judiciously used medications for farm animal health.

Worse case scenario, what happens if there is such a public outcry based on these prospective broadcasts that our government moves to ban the use of the products?  What’s the net impact on farmers, ranchers, consumers and the animals?

First is the obvious impact on animal health and welfare. Is it morally and ethically right to let an animal get sick and then move to make it well? It’s bogus to say raising animals indoors is the root cause for using preventative medicines.  Flocks of birds and herds of animals will instinctively stick together no matter the environment.  And no matter what the production system or ethic underlying the farm or ranch, animals, like people, get sick. Is it ethically and morally correct to force a farmer or rancher to watch animals get sick and suffer when he/she knows the suffering could have easily been prevented?

Does the American consumer want to buy meat, milk and eggs from animals which have been healthy all of their lives or from animals which have been sick and then treated to cure an illness? What is the impact of losing these tools on not only quality, but supply? I want the Johns Hopkins and the Union of Concerned scientists to give me the acceptable farm animal body count.

And finally, in addition to the emotional and economic impact on farmers and ranchers and the serious compromise in animal welfare, there’s a price to be paid by the consumer. Higher input costs magnified by lower output translates into higher costs to processors and retailers, and ultimately, higher supermarket prices paid by the consumer.

I don’t for a minute believe ag is a perfect endeavor and should never be examined to see if there’s something that can be done better. However, I’m tired of the one-sided stories, the uninformed critiques by unenlightened and uneducated critics, and the naive and dangerous demand that agriculture abandon its technology, reverse course and return to 1930s production practices.

Cross your fingers that I’m dead wrong on all of this.

Too much, too early

This is the January week during which we who bother the government for a living do our mental desk cleaning, catching up on the last-minute machinations of democracy during the holidays, and playing the game of “what’s coming” for the rest of this year.

So far, there’s been way too much activity way too soon. This is likely because 2010 is an election year, and the politicians are operating on the misguided notion that the general populace has an exceedingly short memory, so the leadership of both houses of Congress and the guy who lives in the big white house at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue are putting the pedal to the metal to get controversial issues wrapped up. Can you say, “health care reform”?

After the State of the Union address, it will be all election positioning all the time. Every member of the House is up for reelection, while a third of the Senate is campaigning. Add the most recent announced retirements of Sens. Chris Dodd (D, CT) and Byron Dorgan (D, ND), and your total of not-returning Ds is six, equal to the number of GOPers who’ve chosen not to run again.  While I won’t bore you with the demographics and the politics of the various races, I think I can be bold enough to say the politically highly vulnerable Sen. Harry Reid (D, NV), the Senate Majority leader who’s among those Senators hoping to hang on to his seat, can pretty much kiss his 60-vote, veto-proof majority goodbye.

 Speaking of positioning, House Ag Committee Chair Collin Peteron (D, MN) started the ball rolling in late December when he gave a couple of interviews and said he’s planning to hold his first 2012 Farm Bill hearings in March or thereabouts. This makes my head hurt for so many reasons. My cranial condition notwithstanding, Peterson is probably wise to begin the painful Farm Bill gestation process now given his priority on revamping the farm program payment system.

Some of you may recall when Congress birthed the 2008 Farm Bill, Peterson was residually frustrated by his inability to bring some kind of significant renovation to the old system of crop programs, deficiency payments and so forth. He’s now eager to examine how these programs can be “trimmed,” how new and innovative crop insurance programs can supplant old payment programs, and how he can make life easier overall for “family-run” farming operations.

Peterson faces the peculiar political and timing challenge of even contemplating tinkering with farm programs during a period of seriously depressed farm income, an almost historic delay in harvest — with about $200 million in corn still in the fields — and a livestock sector just beginning to see light at the end of a really long tunnel.

All of this creates a similar headache for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D, AR), rookie chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who faces her toughest reelection battle ever this fall. Lincoln, one of the main engines of the Southern Machine which won the battle of the status quo when it came to farm program changes in 2008, does not need to open that can of worms prior to November.  She’s said as much, indicating her committee’s “plate is full,” with her committee staff having just manned up to operating efficiency, and her almost zealous listing of her personal goals as committee chair:  Creating new “green jobs” in agriculture, an unwillingness to buy into any form of climate change/cap-and-trade legislation, the need for over-the-counter derivatives legislation and reregulation, a rewrite of federal nutrition progams and so on.  Lincoln will likely move into heavy press release mode early on and stay there through November.

The White House can’t be eager to tackle farm programs — particularly with its stated goal of not only revising programs, but really slashing payment limitations — given the host of ugly issues with which it’s wrestling.  Heck, this is a White House which has not yet named the president’s special assistant for food, agriculture and trade — and that’s a statutory mandate — nor can it find someone, anyone to take the job of undersecretary for food safety, even in a year when it keeps saying it intends to seek legislaton to make the Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) a more efficient agency.

The good news is it appears the whole climate change/cap-and-trade debate is moot for now, and EPA has to be lining up its in-house lawyers to head over to the Justice Department to begin the legal team prep work for the myriad lawsuits likely to be filed against its greenhouse gas rulemaking.

Another small ray of sunshine is the FDA reform/food safety debate, which as of this writing remains bipartisan and productive, as in proposed changes in how FDA does business appear to be part of the real world and not some fantasy realm demanded by the activist crowd.

But there’s inevitably more ugly coming. The remarkably quiet Humane Society of the U.S. is no doubt shopping its list of idiocy around Capitol Hill in hopes of finding yet another urban member to take the bait. PETA has reestablished itself in DC by spending millions on real estate both downtown and on Capitol Hill to obviously begin some kind of assault on ag, biomedical research and other legitimate animal use.

So, sifting through all of this, on balance, this shaping up to be a pretty routine kind of election year, as in a lot of noise and likely not much action

When opinion shouldn’t matter

Most of you know that in a former life I was a newspaper/magazine reporter and editor. Journalism is one of those professions that’s always a part of you. I still attend meetings and have DC conversations which trigger that antenna in my head, and I start thinking: “Gosh, I wish I could write a story about this.”

So I view today’s journalists and their endeavors through a lens of my education and experience with the printed word. Most of the time I chuckle to myself. A good example is watching TV “journalism,” or the neverending struggle to fill a 24/7 newshole. While back in Minnesota for Christmas, my favorite moment was the teaser for a story on the “historic December blizzard” that threatened Minneapolis. The TV anchor/news reader, “teasing” the story for the next news segment, almost screamed into the camera: “Do you have travel plans for the holiday? Well, MAYBE NOT!!!”

More and more I’m just plain frustrated by what passes for “journalism” these days. Gone is the bedrock rule of objectivity in stories, gone is balance of viewpoint, replaced by “point-of-view” reporting, or “narrative journalism.” Call it what you will, most of it’s a crock — it’s editorializing and opinion mongering purely and simply, and done to sell subscriptions and advertising.

A good example is this week’s story from Associated Press with the headline “Pressure rises to stop antibiotics in agriculture.” Written by one reporter out of Mexico City and one reporter who’s a fellow of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard Universtiy, the piece is one of the most factually inaccurate and subjective stories I’ve read on the use of low-level antibiotics on farm. Statements on which products are/were used in ag and how they’re used are wrong and there are huge gaps in the context of antibiotic use, meaning are we talking human or animal use?

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I represent a company which manufactures and sells livestock and poultry antimicrobials, and I’ve been involved in the antibiotics issue for more years than I can remember, both during my days as the head of government affairs for the American Feed Industry Assn. (AFIA) and as a consultant. However, what this experience has taught me is the science of the issue, the facts of the products’ use, the rigor of federal and state regulation, and the benefits inherent in keeping animals healthy, no matter what production system you may choose to use.

This article obviously was pitched to an editor by a reporter with a viewpoint. Now, keep in mind neither of the reporters who created this “narrative” have an obvious expertise or on-farm experience. They build the story off a farmer who developed a strep infection after being gored by a boar, and the obvious problem with his treatment was that his pig feed contained penicillin. Then there’s always the assumed Google search for “on-farm antibiotic use and why it’s just plain wrong.”

Most of the sources are avowed opponents of technology in agriculture. The general statements about resistance in humans to antimicrobials by medical folks are broad statements. No where in the story is there any mention of chronic overuse of the drugs by physicians and hospitals, no where are the critics’ statements and allegations balanced by experts/scientists who refute these claims. No where do they discuss the animal suffering and death that will almost certainly result from a loss of these products.

One colleague refers to this kind of reporting as “journalistic epidemiology,” the weaving of a science story implying an assumed cause-and-effect where none has been established. Apparently, the rule of the day is not to let facts get in the way of a good story.

This is our challenge — educating reporters so this kind of science fiction does not get passed off as fact. The public won’t check to see if the reporting is accurate, and they’ll buy into the “scariness” of the reporting.

The general media have always done a crappy job of reporting on what happens on the farm. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing “sexy” about feeding 300 million folks affordably, safely and sustainably.

That’s too bad, because to my mind there’s even less “sex” in watching animals get sick and die and folks struggling to make ends meet go hungry.

Let’s be less than precautionary

I’ve heard our president say countless times that the regulatory pathway of his administration will follow “science and the rule of law.” That said – a hundred times that said – I’m getting nervous about regulatory evolution in the Obama era, and the first signs that this administration may be getting ready to head down the road to precautionary – “what if” – rulemaking.

A good example is the EPA juggernaut that is C02/greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rule writing. To say the science of climate change is controversial and equivocal and rapidly evolving is no overstatement. Yet we have an Obama EPA thundering like a freight train to regulate the heck out of GHG. You can’t help but wonder if the cynics are correct: EPA is on this road because the White House decided fear of heavy-handed regulation was the best way of forcing the Senate to eat the House-passed climate change bill. This strategy is equally driven by the U.S. passion to be able to “reclaim our rightful role” as the planet’s leader in the rush to cut emissions. So far, both moves have failed, based on a stalemated bill in the Senate and a whole lot of noise and no action in Copenhagen. Yet EPA is now bound to continue its rulemaking despite the obvious negative impact on just about every product and service we citizens consume, most particularly the food we eat.

USDA is this administration’s chief cheerleader and mouthpiece for the philosophy of climate change, yet here’s a department which has enjoyed for nearly a century the credibility that’s inherent in the “USDA-inspected” seal, an emblem that automatically said to consumer that the food is good. Now USDA is banging the drum for a world heading for an ugly end if we don’t restrict in a major and expensive ways all gases emitted by man or animal in any shape or form.

Then there’s FDA, an agency which for decades has taken rightful pride in being a science-driven entity, one which could stand apart from the political controversy, and make tough decisions based on the science and the facts, not on the chicken little predictions of activists who’ve never found a drug for man or animal, a medical device or a food technology they didn’t want to demonize.

FDA is currently challenged by a host of tough issues, including whether or not to regulate or outright ban BPA in plastics – read food containers – or when to approve transgenic food animals, or whether to step up and defend its own safety declarations for various animal health products and chemicals which have safely and effectively been used in food production and processing, but which have now become targets of activist campaigns.

To worry more about the political fallout from critics than the science of an issue is not only to ignore progress and technological achievements that can aid the planet, it’s to squander the hard-earned reputation agencies like FDA and USDA have developed over time as the “gold standard” for the world on tough scientific issues. I can’t tell you how many other countries routinely look to our FDA or USDA when dealing with their own domestic acceptance of technology.

We’re the nation leading the world in the approval of important human and animal drugs which have saved millions of human and billions of animal lives; we’re the nation that so far has nurtured and advanced biotechnology – one of the U.S.’s few truly homegrown technologies – an industry that likely holds the key to meeting the challenge of world hunger, but also the next explosion of medical breakthroughs that will prevent and cure hundreds of diseases.

To embrace the precautionary philosophy and practice of Europe would be a catastrophic mistake. In Europe, the science says one thing, but if the citizenry — and by that I mean the citizenry which knows only as much as the press reports from the non-activist side of an issue – says “no,” then all bets are off.

Research and development in this country would grind to a halt as companies now facing years and millions in research, development and approvals begin to look overseas for government’s that not only appreciate technology, they work to ensure its success. Take a look at Great Britain where they so took for granted their biomedical research community, they provided no protections from activist assault. As those companies fled the country, parliament scurried to almost too late recognize them for their inherent and economic importance. Say good-bye to more jobs and more tax dollars.

While I’m not one to generally point to Europe as an example for the U.S., in this case, I suggest we study Europe and make sure we don’t make the same “precautionary” mistake.

The hits just keep on coming

 If I wasn’t before, I’m now completely convinced the most undervalued, taken-for-granted industry in America has to be food production.  I’m talking the farm-to-fork food chain. In the last week or so, I’ve been involved in more meetings on more issues with the obvious potential to whack agriculture and the food industry, and the inevitable “why’d they do that?” always boils down to this:  The powers that be gave nary a passing thought to the impact of this, that or the other policy decision on this country’s ability to produce food that is safe, abundant and affordable. 

The best example is the climate change bill currently snagged in the Senate, and the EPA “declaration of endangerment” on greenhouse gases. The House bill was literally glued together to get it out of the House by one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) arbitrary deadlines, and despite the valiant efforts of House Ag Committee Chair Collin Peterson (D, MN) it stinks as far as its disproportionate economic and infrastructure impact on all of agriculture. As Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, CA), chair of that chamber’s Environment & Public Works Committee, tried to waltz her bill through the process, it wasn’t until the aggies reared up did she hit a wall as all GOP members of her committee refused to show up for the committee markup, and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D, AR) said her ag committee wasn’t having any of it.

Food and ag champions in the Senate, including Lincoln, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R, GA), Sen. Mike Johanns (R, NE) and others demanded to see updated impact analyses from USDA and EPA to back up their assertions that the authors of the climate package neglected to think about the farm and food sectors when they set off down the road to save the world from C02.  And they were right, despite Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s now very tired exclamation that farmers will make out like bandits in about seven or eight years. 

Joe Glauber, USDA’s much-respected chief economist, reported last week the no-gloss bottom line: The current congressional approach to climate change legislation means a whopping 56 million of acres of currently productive farm land and pasture will go out of production by 2015 – and this does not include acres already or soon to be placed in existing conservation programs – to replaced by forestland, the big paid “offset” to a farmer’s carbon footprint. This sets off the cascading dominoes of increasing commodity prices, higher feed and crop input prices and reduced cattle and hog production.  Said Glauber:  By 2015, corn production would be 1.5% below baseline, and by 2030, that figure would increase to over 7% below baseline, with prices more than 30 cents a bushel higher in 2015, and 50 cents a bushel higher in 2030. Soybean output would lag baseline by nearly 6% in five years and nearly 10% by 2030. Hog production drops nearly 6% by 2015 and is off 10% by 2030; cattle production would drop about half of a percent in five years, but would be about 3.5% below baseline by 2030.

This approach is, in a word, “nuts.”

If I were the cynical sort – and who’d accuse me of cynicism? – I’d think the simple-minded Capitol Hill/White House/EPA rationale when confronted with the neglect of food production goes something like this:  “Gee, those near-term numbers aren’t so bad, and by the time the big hit comes in 25 years, none of us will be around anyway.”  But again, no one’s looking at the big picture, as in first it’s the “unintended consequences” of bad climate change legislation, multiplied by the silliness of the EPA “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases and its redundant and likely more onerous regulatory scheme, further compounded by the nearly daily tug-of-war between industrial, biofuel and food uses for available commodities, topped off by our zeal to export every kernel of corn and every soybean we can. 

All of this translates quite simply into everyone’s worst fears:  Consolidation of production into ever larger farming operations; fewer independent livestock producers, and, ultimately, reduced exports, constrained supplies and higher food prices as we strive to feed a growing population which FAO says will need a 70% increase in production by 2040.  So much for food security.

Think food and farmers first!

The best laid plans…

Call it freshman exhuberance or grand ambition, but no one can deny the sheer volume of legislative initiatives the Obama Administration has put forward during the first 10 months of his presidency.  However, the likely record of enactment into law is not nearly so stellar.   Understand, it’s not for lack of trying on the Obama Administration’s part; his former employer just isn’t complying, and while no agreements on big ticket items are forthcoming, nothing else is getting done.  So Congress is setting itself up for yet another end-of-the-year rush to judgment.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) did her job in spades, shoving monster economic stimulus, climate change, health care reform and food safety packages through the House in record time.  Now, she’s teeing up a “jobs package” — don’t anyone dare call it a second economic stimulus package — and there’s every reason to expect she’ll shoe-horn that puppy through in time for Christmas.  However, every one of these issues is deadlocked in the Senate, and it appears the likelihood of enactment of any of them before 2010 is slim. 

This is the ultimate object lesson in political strategy: Pick your priorities based on those of your constituents, don’t spread yourself too thin, and push hard to get them done.  Once you’ve ticked off your first couple of wins, move down the list in order of importance, again important to you and your constituents, all the while keeping in mind, these two things should be the same for the elected official.

Health care reform is being debated on the Senate floor as I type this, but the pace is snail-like and the hurdles to overcome significant.  On health care, the Senate is beginning the process of unraveling what the House believes it so tightly wove together, many in the upper chamber keenly aware of constituent angst, signaling at best, a contentious conference committee reconciliation of the two versions. A similar dynamic is working on climate change.  For the climate gurus in the Senate, they’ve been stalemated by regional differences, not to mention the final recognition that a proposed cap-and-trade system on carbon credits will whack food and agriculture in a seriously disproportionate way.  Food safety is in less political trouble, it’s just not at the top of the Senate list, despite Sen. Tom Harkin’s work to move the bill through his Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee.  A jobs package may fare better in both chambers given it’s serious political implications for every member of Congress up for reelection next year.  Remember: The priority of the constituent should be the priority the member, and right now every poll shows that Americans care about one issue above all others:  Jobs.

All of the attention to these marquee issues means others have been left in the dust. For some of these, Congress can let them pend into next year.  However, there’s a gazillion tax items that must be acted on by the end of the year, including biofuel tax credits, and Congress has yet to complete all of its spending bills. There’s also a highway reauthorization package languishing in both chambers.  And — wait for it — agriculture disaster assistance legislation to help producers still trying to dry out corn and beans along with the fields from which they came has not only been introduced in both chambers, it’s multiplying.

This is the classic rush to judgment in the last days of a non-election year, the goal being to get the ugly legislation over with so that next year all candidates appear to be “everyman.”   Expect to see several of these unrelated items bundled together in what’s being referred to now as a “multibill omnibus” legislative package, meaning there’s one train leaving the station before Christmas and we’re loading it up.  Another lobbyist in this town calls this the “garbage can approach to legislation,” mean such bundling of disparate legislation sets up a scenario for mischief.  Individual parochial amendments — those which generally have been rejected or are ignored by leadership — wind up as bargaining chips for votes so a lot of bad stuff has the potential to happen.  No one reads this kind of legislation — I know that’s a surprise — but it makes for bad law in more cases than not.

As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Will 2010 be Missouri’s year?

I’ve just gotten word from the Missouri Cattlemen’s Assn. that HSUS filed the necessary paperwork yesterday with the state attorney general to mount a statewide referendum. The question now is, what’s the goal? Word is Paul Shapiro, the 30-something self-styled HSUS farm animal guru, says the initiative will be focused on puppy mills. Time will tell, I guess.

However, the filing of papers in Missouri begs the question as to whether Wayne Pacelle, HSUS president, will make good on his threat to take a similar path in Ohio in hopes of overturning the recent election victory in that state which created a state livestock standards committee. He vowed he’d not let the voters’ of Ohio get in the way of the HSUS agenda. Again, time will tell.

Let’s hope it’s puppy mills and HSUS has decided it can’t afford to fight a two-front war against legitimate animal users. However, I’m a big believer in forewarned is forearmed.

What this development does in spades is make it crystal clear that we must renew our efforts to put the public on notice that we’re the folks who feed them. Especially at this time of year, let’s take the effort to impress upon our brethren in the cities that without farmers and ranchers, Thanksgiving is less about thanks and a whole lot about hoping someone is giving.

We’ve had too many stupid incidences in the last month to ignore the need to rebuild relationships with our customers. We’ve had undercover video in New York and Vermont exposing idiocy; we’ve had four separate farmers whacked by the feds for illegal drug use in their animals, and we’ve had at least one farmer caught illegally discharging waste into a waterway.

All of these are separate distinct incidences and can be brushed aside as just a really bad coincidence. That’s reality. But reality and perception are two wholly distinct things. Our enemies revel in our mistakes, taking them, exaggerating them and marketing them to the public as the standard operating procedure of our operations.

Start building alliances. State ag groups need to sit down NOW and begin to plan for how they can market their people and their processes to the public. Talk to feed companies, animal drug companies, equipment companies — any company which makes its living off selling to farmers. We need to look beyond ag’s traditional allies and cultivate new friends.

Check them out, and if they seem approachable, sit down with the local, county and state humane societies and animal welfare groups — keeping in mind they’re not affiliated with HSUS for the most part. Ohio enjoyed the support of the American Humane Assn., which in the media is invaluable and steals a whole lot of HSUS’s holier-than-thou status.

Talk with reporters who cover ag and then branch out to those who cover business, those who write food sections, ande those who write about consumers and “lifestyle” issues. Educate these people as to process, product, economic contribution, etc., but impress upon them that the people who grow food in your state are good people.

Talk with legislators — the message is the same, but you’d be surprised how many “friendly” state house folks can run for cover when threatened with awkward headlines and ugly campaigns. Show them you’ll be their ally.

Talk to your processors and the retailers. Make sure they won’t stand silently by if ag is attacked. Again, make sure they understand and appreciate you’re the good guys and will stand with them or in front of them when — not if — they’re attacked.

The message here is simple — prepare now! If you wait until the barn is on fire, you’re simply going to have to build a new — and very different — barn, and one likely not nearly as nice as the one you enjoy today.

Do it correctly, not quickly

I don’t work the health care reform issue, mainly because I don’t have a client who pays me to do so and health care reform is so far out of my comfort zone it isn’t funny. But I’ve had three people today ask me “Is the

Senate going to pass something?”

What’s disturbing to me is that either through statement or implication, what these folks are reacting to is stories in the press about how Congress will work through Christmas to get health care reform done so it can hand President Obama a bill before year’s end. The inevitable follow-up question is: “Isn’t it more important to do it right rather than do it fast?”

The answer to that question is “yes.” And this answer applies to all legislation not just health care. I’ve never understood House Speaker Pelosi’s (D,CA) penchant for arbitrary deadlines to pass legislation. It signals an intolerance of debate and compromise to play let’s make a deal every time one of your deadlines looms large.

A large part of this rush to action is symbolic. Congress wants to hand President Obama a “win” on his biggest campaign promise, and they want to show that a Democrat-controlled Congress can deliver to a president of their own party. This demonstrates collaboration and no small amount of control. This would be happening if the Republicans were in control — remember “The Contract with America?”

But everyone in this town knows that when you propose groundbreaking legislation — health care, climate change, food safety and so on — you will not make everyone happy. At the same time, there’s a remarkable lack of internal fortitude among politicians who wish to be reelected, and controversial legislation during an election year generally does not happen. To put this in context — next year is an election year; this explains the Christmas gift approach to health care reform.

A good example of how partisanship morphs into a group hug is the climate change bill in the Senate. Pelosi rammed her chamber’s version through on one of her deadline runs. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, CA) thought she could pull off much the same thing when she brought her draft bill to her Environment & Public Works Committee for markup. When the Republicans refused to show up for the markup, they sank the Boxer bill. All of sudden, Sen. John Kerry (D, MA) is reaching out to everyone and anyone from the other side of the aisle, trying to hammer out a bipartisan bill that can survive the Senate floor debate. Again, get it done as early as you can so it doesn’t become an election issue.

But with Congress’ approval rating a point or two below whichever profession is the least trusted by the public right now, President Obama could make some serious points with the general electorate if he’d stand up and say, “There’s no hard deadline on (pick your issue)because the impact of what we’re attempting to do is so sweeping that getting it right the first time is what really matters.”

Politics is the art of the possible. It’s possible to do “this” — defined as any issue you truly care about — correctly the first time.

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