They ain’t shy

You’ve no doubt read on Brownfieldagnews.com or in other ag publications about the introduction of HR 4733, the pejoratively titled “Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act” by two Los Angeles area members of the House, Reps. Diane E. Watson (D, CA) and Elton Gallegly (R, CA). This bill, once you peel away all of the rhetoric, is the federal equivalent of 2008’s Proposition 2, thus far the Humane Society of the U.S.’s (HSUS) proudest moment. You’ve got to give the animal rights movement its due. It has no compunctions about waltzing into a member of Congress’ office, whipping out its videos and photos, and pleading for the good member’s help in – and I paraphrase here — “saving farm animals from lives of the most hideous abuses on this country’s factory farms.”

What a load of manure.

HR 4733 would bar the federal government from buying pork, veal or eggs for its myriad feeding programs – including school lunch and breakfast, nutrition programs, military or federal building cafeterias – if the pig was in a gestation stall, the veal calf raised in a stall or the eggs came from hens housed in cages. HSUS wants these animals to be able to “fully extend all limbs” without touching the sides of an enclosure, and in the case of laying hens, extending wings without touching an enclosure OR another egg laying hen. Oh, and they also must be able to “turn around freely,” meaning they apparently can spin like tops to their hearts’ content as long as they don’t touch the side of an enclosure.

The good news is no other member of Congress has joined the two Los Angelinos in pushing the bill; the bad news is that these two members probably didn’t do a lot of fact checking on the animal rights group’s allegations. I’m guessing they didn’t think it important enough to call and talk with California’s ag community before they introduced the bill. You’d think with all the publicity Prop 2 generated, at least a call to one of the affected farm or commodity groups would have been made so one or both of these elected officials might have learned the following:

• The California Department of Food & Agriculture still has not been able to write even the first regulation to implement the proposition because the language of the ballot item was so vague no one can define or agree on what “alternatives” to stalls and cages would qualify under the proposition, and

• States like Idaho are actively putting in place state legislation that will entice California’s 19 million egg laying hens to move East where the likelihood of a Prop 2 attack is pretty much slim and none. And you can’t fault them for putting out the lures given this is exactly what the United Egg Producers predicted during its battle over the proposition.

This is truly one of the most arrogant, elitist pieces of activist legislation in a long time. Arrogant because groups like HSUS, which immediately hailed the bill, don’t really care about the unintended consequences of their political agenda; elitist because the negative impact of this type of legislation never falls on the upper-middle class folks who can afford to shop organically, holistically or “locally.” The only folks who truly feel the pain of these attacks are those that can least afford to pay the increased price of food these initiatives inevitably bring.

The science establishing the welfare of stalls and cages is always ignored in these debates. What can’t be ignored is how unrealistic such legislation is. Less than 5% of U.S. farmers could likely meet the criteria in HR 4733, and since it’s well established such open systems cost a whole lot more to operate, you can figure only large, well-financed farming operations could afford to make a transition to the systems this bill would impose. So, I guess these House members are from the big-is-better school of farming. The biosecurity and animal health issues are obvious to us.

The costs to the federal government would be staggering given the millions of pounds of meat, milk and eggs our government buys. How would you verify a farmer was obeying the law? Would farmers have to sign affidavits to prove they’d followed the letter of the law and indemnify the processors? We certainly couldn’t afford to hire hundreds of inspectors to check on each farmer’s production practices.

Here’s an idea. Maybe we could deputize a group like HSUS to do those inspections for us?

Stop the madness!

But importantly, who pays? We all do – with our hard-earned tax dollars

Trust but verify

A buddy of mine who used to write about ag and agribusiness for the Chicago Tribune told me once he never reported on “studies” of any kind because there’s always another study that disputes the first study, and the readers just get confused. There may be some truth in that.

This week, two “studies” came out. I place the word in quotation marks to emphasize my skepticism of both, and my hopes that other work emerges to dispute the first.

The first “study” is entitled “Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United States,” and it’s from our friends at the Pew Charitable Trusts. The good news is Pew didn’t do the study — it was apparently contracted to Georgetown University as part of the so-called “Produce Safety Project” — but the bottom line is we’re paying $152 billion a year.

The reason I say it was a good thing to see Georgetown attached to this study, is that my experience with Pew and its various “commissions” is not good. The Pew Commission on Industrial Farming was so negative to modern agriculture, so provincial/naive in its thinking and conclusions, and so totally oblivious to the science and the prooffered input of mainstream agriculture that I’d double check anyone else’s watch if Pew told me what time it is.

Unfortunately, the media mob does not share the same skepticism of Pew that I do, and the “study” has been widely reported. Tis a pity; unless you’ve read the following “study.”

Harris Poll this week reported on a survey of 2,010 adults, 40% of whom are absolutely convinced they had some form of foodborne illness over the last two years. Now, Harris didn’t judge the opinions of its respondents, but brought up an excellent point: Food manufacturers and suppliers should pay attention, because this response is based on the public’s perception of what made them sick.

It’s scary to think someone may have a touch of the flu or a stomach virus and immediately attributed it to something he or she ate. The scarier thing is that more than a quarter of those who got sick from whatever they think they ate — and 70% of the sickies say they know what caused their probelm — removed that food item from their diet entirely. Harris didn’t ask if folks knew the basics of food purchasing, handling, storage and cooking.

Foods of concern most often cited by respondents, in order of frequency: Fresh meats; fresh poultry, fresh fish, and fresh vegetables. Now compare that to the last few major recalls, and only one of those pops into the top three.

Harris speculates such feelings lead to “heightened media scrutiny,” but I’m going out on a limb here and speculate this is kind of a vicious circle, as in a food recall leads to a flood of media coverage, which leads to folks becoming hypersensitive to a particular food, which leads to complaints that food made them sick, which leads to another media tsnuami. Forgive the pun, but it seems they feed off each other.

These two “studies” remind me of some basic rules I learned early on: Trust, but verify; all things in moderation, and when in doubt, throw it out.

Keep your friends close…

I was interviewed this morning by a trade press editor, and was hit with the following question: “Do you think there’s a strong relationship between industry and USDA?” My gut response was “Not so much.” The follow-up question was, “Why not?” My answer: “The trust isn’t there yet.” I wished I could have taken back the words, because with two nanoseconds of additional thought, I realized trust is one of those two-way relationships, and perhaps we in industry are just a tad too wary of the new kids on the block.

I’ve said before, I trust someone until they give me reason not to. However, I get the sense within that it believes an Obama USDA doesn’t get it yet, or as one wag put it, USDA cares if you happen to be organic, natural or a locovarian urban consumer. Certainly an outsider combing the press USDA press releases of the last year could come to that conclusion.

There’re those who contend the expertise within the department is not as deep as it’s been in the past. Then there’s this kind of wait-and-see attitude, the assumption something bad is going to happen, you just don’t know when or how bad. But – and not to put too fine a point on it – we need to lose that attitude and realize at least for the next three years, these folks are in charge, they’ve only been in office a little over a year, or as my dear mother used to say to me and my three brothers: “Don’t’ whine at me. Suck it up, make it work.”

I found myself talking to the reporter this morning about shifting from this “sky-will-fall” mindset to one of anticipating the priorities of this administration, public or not, and then objectively deciding how implementation of those priorities, if left unfettered, will affect you or your part of the food chain. Once you’ve got a worst-case scenario, step back and decide how you and yours can make lemonade out of these perceived lemons.

This takes honest introspection. A good example is the chaos that is labeling. Everyone and their uncle is trying to psych out what this Administration may or may not do when it comes to bringing some kind of rational reform to labeling. What can and should be claimed? What can and should be allowed in “labeling by exclusion?” However, do most of them sit down, figure out how they can be part of a solution and then inform whatever process may be beginning? Not so much.

Some groups and some companies get it. One group, long the beneficiary of federal farm program payments, surplus product purchases, and so on, and smartly remembering the slew of regrets issued after enactment of the last Farm Bill that reform had eluded us once again, is working with USDA and Capitol Hill (you’ll recall Congress is controlled by the same party as the President), to replace its payment scheme with an income insurance approach. They’ve joined in joint ventures with the department. This is very smart.

I’m not calling for capitulation or a mass approach to damage control. I’m suggesting honest information sharing and negotiation will generally yield a better result than one side or the other digging its heels in and refusing to budge. This means USDA is held to certain obligations as much as is industry. The department doesn’t cheerlead for one food industry segment to the detriment of another; that reality guides program evolution as much as lofty goals, as in can we actually afford to do that, and can 95% of consumers afford to buy that?

There’s whispered concern over USDA’s rhetoric about “healthier” school lunches and humanitarian food assistance. I’m not going to get into how much the poor or victimized actually think about “healthy” when getting their first decent meal in weeks, I’m talking about how we don’t have to demonize – even by implication – conventional products in pursuit of a broader or different choice of products.

View change as an opportunity, not a threat, and that goes for the department as well. Invite the challenge of working with the constituency, at the very least it may prevent some very embarrassing and costly mistakes.

Too many chiefs…

In the last few days I’ve been reminded too many times of agriculture’s Achilles heel when it comes to beating back the crazies who would force us to return to 1930s food production — as long as the food produced was exclusively fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes.

That vulnerability is the two-edged sword of ego and infighting. I heard just this morning from a high-ranking Administration official, who said directly: “Agriculture has got to get its act together; there’s still time to win back the consumers.”

What’s a bit ironic is I’ve never seen ag so committed to “getting its act together.” New groups, listserves, players and strategies for retaking ownership of the food production/sustainability/safety/humaneness issues are emerging, and the energy among the grassroots is as high and strong as I’ve ever seen it.

The challenge we face is that everyone wants to be “the lead group” on the issue. No one wants to coordinate to ensure we don’t inadvertently take out another part of animal agriculture with friendly fire; no one wants to make sure our messages are coherent and coordinated, and no one wants to admit they haven’t got all the answers when it comes to dealing with a near-fanatic opposition dedicated to putting us out of business.

The real irony here is that 20 years ago those same two weaknesses plagued the anti-technololgy/animal rights movement. Constant bickering among the various groups over fundraising, who got the credit for what campaign, who’s strategy was keenest, and so forth was the hallmark of the movement. Oh, and everyone hated PETA for being too big and too rich, and, well, too weird.

But our enemies have overcome their petty bickering and have come up with a collective strategy, acting in concert when necessary, but also independently, but always echoing the fundamentals anti-agriculture bile of their confederates.

I’ll say this as clearly as I can: No one ag organization is strong enough, well-funded enough, smart enough to take on the anti-agiculture forces alone. I don’t care how big your membership is, how wealthy your individual members may be — you need allies.

Yes, there must be a voice for the poultry side, the pork side, the beef side and the dairy side of animal ag. But there must also be a loud chorus of voices that sing the anthem of animal agriculture overall. There are hundreds of ways to bring that message to the public in towns large and small, cities and the hinterland. All are good; they just must deliver messages that are consistent and coherent, meaning we cannot afford to confuse the target audience — the folks who buy our products, either from the farm, the processor or the retailer.

So, folks, let’s check the commodity rivalry, the competing issues and the egos at the door. There’s true strength in numbers. We must never forget: We’re in this together.

Bad Day at Black Rock

It can’t be all that good to be Katie Couric right now.  At Black Rock, the historic headquarters of CBS on 52nd Street in New York City, the powers that be are looking at cutting her $14-million-a-year salary to help cut their losses, or as one unnamed producer put it, “We could hire 200 reporters at $75,000 a year on what they pay her.”
 
So there’s a certain irony in the fact this week’s “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” two-part story on antibiotic use in agriculture was preempted both nights due to ongoing local “blizzard of the century” coverage in Washington, DC.  Her home town folks didn’t get to see her trash American farming and ranching – she calls it “factory” and industrial” – nor did the folks in the federal government who were far too busy worrying about digging themselves out.  However, for a conservative colleague and friend, it’s just more proof in his eyes that his god is a Republican.

Thus the DC metro area, buried under nearly four feet of snow, was spared the truly execrable bloviating of anchor Katie Couric. Would that it snowed as much in more of CBS’ major urban markets.

The only slack I’ll cut Couric is that it was pretty obvious she was just another talking head, asking the questions her producers gave her, inquiries that sounded as though they’d been taken chapter and verse directly from the ravings of the now-discredited Pew Commission on Industrial Farming or the playbook of the Center for a Livable Future, a program at Johns Hopkins University about which the school should be embarrassed.

The silly part of this CBS News debacle was that it was so patently and completely naïve.  For any CBS producer to think he/she can objectively explain the intricacies of unresolved science as complex as antibiotic resistant bacteria in a couple of seven-minute segments is ridiculous; to have so obviously decided the outcome of the story before the “reporting” even began, is pathetic and sad.  I won’t accuse CBS of stalking ratings, because the birthplace of television news would never stoop so low, now would it?

I won’t go into the inaccuracies of the reports, the ignored science and fact, the free advertising for organic and natural products, or the implications for drastically compromised animal welfare, food safety and qualify and cost of the CBS conclusion, i.e. on-farm antibiotic use is the root of human resistance problems, and if we just followed the example of Denmark, where, by the way, they use more antibiotics to treat sick pigs than they did 12 years ago when the country banned growth promotion uses, all would be good.

The truly regrettable part of the CBS scenario is that it has become the poster child for “news as entertainment.”  When Time Magazine allowed its environmental editor to echo agriculture’s critics without evidence or merit, it was passed off as “point-of-view” journalism.  This week’s CBS report is just more of the same; if it isn’t sexy enough to garner viewers by telling the whole story, as in both sides of an issue, then just air that half of the story that alarms, worries or scares the crap out of your viewers because that will jack up the ratings.

This is one more example of how completely and utterly out of touch with food production are the folks who benefit the most directly from our efficiency and skill. To report what CBS reported, without thought to food security for the poor in this country and overseas, the disease and death awaiting the animals, or the compromised safety, quality and affordability of the food we produce points out not just ignorance, but arrogance.

And if you need any more convincing just how inaccurate this story was, all you need do is read Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) President Wayne Pacelle’s blog on the subject:  “The antibiotics are laced in the feed and water of the animals as a crutch to try to counteract the stressful, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions on these industrial operations.”  That means Pacelle agrees with the CBS conclusion it’s better to let an animal get sick and then treat it – and cross your fingers that treatment is successful – than to prevent the condition in the first place.  Now, how we do we reconcile that with “animal protection?”  A subject for another day.

I urge everyone who reads this to go to www.cbsnews.com, find the links to the investigative section’s reports on antibiotics in agriculture register and leave a comment for the folks at CBS.  It’s time they heard the truth.

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.

Next Page »