Why is Chris my new hero? Because she blogged on “Just Farmers” that ag needs to pay it forward when retailers do the right and smart thing.

When Dominos Pizza – the world’s largest pizza delivery company with 6,450 outlets worldwide – recommended successfully to its shareholders they reject a Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) stockholder resolution on gestation stalls, Chris blogged on “Truth About Agriculture” which spawned a Facebook Group – “Farmers Paying it Forward with Pizza” – where you can demonstrate your appreciation to Dominos by buying your family one or more of its pizza’s this weekend. It’s now called “the Ag Pizza Party.” My wife doesn’t know it yet, but Saturday night dinner is going to be an “Ag Pizza Party.”

Chris – who drove 45 minutes to pick up her Dominos pizzas – told Pork Network: “Dominos’ decision speaks volumes to me as a farmer. It shows they trust the experts I trust. It shows they trust me. I appreciate that.”

So, anyone reading this must forward these wise words to all friends and family, work and school colleagues, church congregations, the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Rotary, 4-H, FFA, everyone to whom you owe money to or who owes you money, the Chamber of Commerce and the folks down at the local watering hole or cafe, and tell them: Buy Dominos Pizza this weekend! And when you do, thank them for standing with U.S. farmers.

Over 80% of the Dominos shareholders rejected the HSUS propaganda, and while that’s a hefty percentage, I’d still like to see it closer to 99%. However, what I liked best about the Dominos show of backbone and solidarity is the following company statement: “We rely on animal experts to determine what is the best way to raise an animal that’s being used for food.”

The experts will tell anyone who asks or has the power to conduct a Google search – and that apparently doesn’t include the spineless retailers who have rolled over for HSUS on gestation stalls – there are as many good ways to raise pigs as there are pork producers, meaning each producer adapts systems to meet the farm’s needs and the needs of the animals. There are organic and conventional systems, free-range systems, stall systems, “family systems” and variations and combinations of those systems, often on the same farm. None of them is pig perfect, but professional farmers and their support teams determine which system best fits the needs and wellbeing of their animals.

And while I’m waxing effusive, another round of kudos goes to Tyson Foods – the target of another HSUS Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint.  Tyson again quite deftly kicked HSUS to the curb.

When asked about the SEC complaint, a Tyson statement said the following: “We’ve not seen the complaint…so it’s difficult to provide a specific comment. However, we will note that according to a new Humane Watch survey, HSUS appears to be deceiving its donors. The survey of more than 1,000 donors to HSUS found that 90% were unaware the organization gives just 1% of its budget to local pet shelters. After learning HSUS did not spend a majority of its funds assisting local pet shelters, 80% of the HSUS donors polled believed the group engaged in deceptive funding raising practices.”

This is what me must do in all similar situations.   Instead of simply taking the abuse, we need to reward our allies and ignore those who refuse to support us.

So, this fine spring weekend should be celebrated just as Chris Chinn recommended, with at least one big ol’ Dominos pizza – with a thank you note saying why you love Dominos – and maybe a Tyson’s chicken or two.   And if you care, I’ve got a list of restaurants, fast-food chains and supermarkets maybe you should avoid.

This tale of dueling titans began earlier this week when Safeway, the country’s second largest supermarket chain, joined McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s and the Compass Group (British-owned) in capitulating to HSUS and telling the world it would source pork from farms phasing out gestation stalls. This strikes me as the classic “win/win” of public relations illogic: If we’re part of a gang, no one can criticize us for being the only bad guy when it comes to farmers and ranchers; if we’re part of a gang, then it shows collective thinking on the issue. I say it shows Safeway has no independent thought process.

The surrender by Safeway was followed by a rather desperate move by HSUS in holding a tripartite press conference in DC, Little Rock and Denver to unveil its latest undercover video showing cruelty at a Wyoming hog farm – a farm owned by a Japanese company – it claims is a supplier to Tyson Foods.

However, while the actions shown on the video are inexcusable and all in industry should be outraged, HSUS’ media presence Wayne Pacelle continually tried to draw a straight line between the use of gestation stalls, the portrayed cruelty and Tyson sourcing pigs from farms which use gestation stalls.

Tyson responded in a measured fashion: “Contrary to the impression left by HSUS, there is no connection between this Wyoming farm and the pork that we process.” The company went on to explain it has a small subsidiary company which sources old sows from several locations and resells them; this Wyoming farm is among the farms from which it has purchased sows over time. None of the sows bought by the Tyson subsidiary goes into the Tyson pork line. Tyson has severed any relationship with the farm.

Pacelle obviously giddy over the Safeway announcement, tried to keep the anti-stall momentum going and continued to indict Tyson for seemingly even knowing the Wyoming farm existed. The HSUS groupthink is that if it can knock off the biggest or a couple of the biggest, the rest of the industry will fall in line like sheep. Apparently in this case, they’re correct as far as Safeway and the fast food crowd go, but dead wrong about Tyson. Tyson has been a target of HSUS since 2005, and a company which has continually had the backbone to tell HSUS to go pound salt, that it places science, animal health and wellbeing ahead of placating activist political agendas, sources from farms which use both stalls and open systems, insists that any farm from which it buys be certified under the Pork Producers Quality Assurance Plus (PQA+) program, and it conducts audits of its suppliers.

So while Tyson is my hero of the week, big kudos are also due the National Pork Producers Council, which when informed of the Safeway decision/announcement, refused to be a part of the silent gang afraid to offend the guys with the checkbooks.

NPPC President R.C. Hunt said the following: “With regards to Safeway’s decision to give preference to pork suppliers who phase out individual stall housing, the NPPC is concerned that similar actions taken by governments – or other restaurant or grocery chains – have increased production costs and consumer prices. These actions have forced some hog farmers out of business or caused them to reduce operations with no demonstrable benefits to the sows…it seems Safeway was intimidated by an animal rights group whose ultimate goal is the elimination of food animal production.”

So much for corporate social responsibility.

I’m not talking about self-proclaimed “journalists” who go into a story with a definite opinion and a desired outcome, then proceed to winnow the facts and edit the video to fit that bias. Think “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” and on-farm use of antibiotics. I’m talking about reporters and editors who are too lazy or too ignorant – or both — to get it right, and do little to overcome those two shortcomings.

The latest and best example I can give you is the general media coverage of the fourth U.S. case of BSE – and the first in nearly a decade – announced April 25. That cow, nearly 11 years old, tested positive for atypical BSE, caught during routine USDA BSE surveillance testing. “Atypical” means it’s more than 99% certain the animal did not get the disease from eating diseased mammalian tissue, and may have spontaneously developed the cattle brain disease. That last part’s still the subject of scientific debate.

USDA’s Chief Veterinarian Dr. John Clifford provided a comprehensive briefing to the media. All of the facts which could be shared at the time were shared; all questions were answered. Subsequent reports on the results of cohort testing, etc., have flowed from Clifford’s office almost daily. Clifford, at least in the subsequent industry briefing, stressed several times the case was atypical and what that meant, that the animal was tested at a renderer as part of regular and routine USDA testing, was never presented at slaughter so no meat or byproducts entered the food or feed chains, and that beef and milk were safe. In short, the system worked.

Instead of presenting a relatively minor news story, several general media outlets ran with stories patently designed for shock and awe. Either explicit or implied food safety issues were raised where none exist. In one network TV report, the word “atypical” and its meaning were never used to describe the ancient cow found in California; in another network report, the “on-air talent” flat out stated there was a “break in the feed rule,” referring to the federal regulation banning the refeeding of mammalian tissues to bovine animals. Several major newspapers simply parroted activist criticism of USDA’s testing program under which about 40,000 animals are tested yearly. None of the examples cited qualify as objective reporting or even good entertaining-it’s-so-bad yellow journalism. To be fair, the best, most professional story I read – objective, balanced, factual and understandable by the layperson – was in USAToday.

So bad and so inaccurate was most of the popular press reporting that USDA took the almost-unheard-of step of issuing the federal government equivalent of a media slap down. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s press secretary, Courtney Rowe, sent to the media and released generally a polite but firm April 26 rebuke in which she took the press to task for harping on how much testing USDA does – a focus “(which) produced an unfortunate amount of misleading reporting” – ignoring other equally important components of the U.S. government’s BSE prevention and detection system. She also reissued to all the press all the information the department had already issued. They can’t say they weren’t warned.

For me, it wasn’t just the testing issue. The general media ignored USDA testing rates are 10 times greater than World Animal Health Organization recommendations; ignored the FDA’s publicly reported 99%-plus compliance rate among U.S. feed and rendering companies with the federal ban on refeeding of mammalian tissue to bovines; ignored the 99% reduction in global BSE cases since the height of the European outbreak in the 1990s, and pretty much ignored the context of U.S. cases – one in a Canadian import, and three atypical cases. And just for grins, a comparison to other industrialized nations would have added some context, as in Japan’s had 36 cases and Canada’s had 20.

The story should have been about a good, strong industry-government collaboration that’s resulted in a prevention/detection system that works. The story should have been about a system assuring safe food. The story should have been based on the facts of the matter, not on scare tactics that suck in TV viewers or sell newspapers.

Should we talk “lean finely textured beef” and how well the general media did on that one? I rest my case.

Here’s the short version: The House writes a Farm Bill; the Senate writes a Farm Bill, then we go to conference committee and we all rewrite the Farm Bill. Now, that sounds like what you learned in 9th grade civics class, but it’s not Capitol Hill reality.

If you have no life or just a lot of time on your hands, fill up on caffeine, dig into the congressional/ag committee on-line archives and take a look at what played out during the 2008 Farm Bill debate. Compare what the House Agriculture Committee approved to what the Senate Agriculture Committee approved, then take a look at the final conference report and start making a list of language, sections, titles of the final product that were never even discussed during the respective chamber’s hearings, drafting, markup or floor action. Then create a second list of all those “important” sections of the respective bills that were included during regular action, but which disappeared completely during the conference.

This scenario will definitely play out this year. Why? Because the respective committees are pushing ahead with the hearing/markup phase of the process to get a bill done this year, but absent several key pieces of puzzle, to wit: A consensus among commodity groups on how to reinvent direct payments; a budget-slashing assault on federal crop insurance, which everyone says is the farmer’s number one priority; budget numbers in the House and Senate which don’t and never will agree; whither research, trade, disaster assistance, energy and the “miscellaneous” pieces/parts, and the great unknown – amendments and changes that will be occur once the bills hit the House and Senate floors.

We’re in the lipstick-on-a-pig phase of the bill writing process. Farm bills are never pretty – as previously stated – so right now both committees are demonstrating their ability to cut spending, discover and remove waste, streamline and modernize, all the while ensuring farmers both young and old continue farming. This is the period of supreme public posturing by the various “special interest” groups – including our brothers and sisters in the fruit, vegetable, organic, enviro, consumer and animal crazy crowds – with a vested interest in preserving government largesse, and it’s also the time when the whispering about “kill that program not this” goes on. This is when all of the dueling university and think tank studies get trotted out. This is when the regional and commodity rivalries are laid bare, and it’s hoped a foothold can be gained in the product that eventually heads to the chamber floor.

The committees will no doubt produce bills for their colleagues to vote upon. One reason the Senate is in the lead on this process – which doesn’t happen very often – is because the Senate doesn’t follow a formal budget resolution that stipulates spending caps. This does NOT translate into a spendthrift Senate, but it gives the panel members a lot more room to play than enjoyed by their colleagues in the House. The Senate Ag Committee also enjoys and benefits greatly from the expertise of Sen. Pat Roberts (R, KS), former chair of the House Ag Committee in his previous political life, and Sen. Kent Conrad (D, ND), chair of the Budget Committee and a member of the ag panel. Both have survived a lot of Farm Bills.

The House Ag Committee has the much rockier row to hoe (you’ll pardon the clichéd pun). It’s faced with a budget resolution to which spending must be reconciled – I know ag panel chair Rep. Frank Lucas (R, OK) says it’s just “an exercise;” it must face all of the serious budget hawks just waiting for the bill to hit the floor, those folks who keep chanting “go big” when it comes to spending cuts; it’s got about 385 House members who aren’t on the ag committee, likely have never met a real live farmer or rancher, who wouldn’t know a countercyclical payment from a calorie counter, and it has chamber leadership placing no great priority on getting a Farm Bill done in the first place and who will likely let everyone and his/her brother offer amendments so “the chamber may work its will.”

The final phase is “clean up,” as in “we did what we needed to do to get the bill to conference.” Now, the writing of the real Farm Bill begins. Hopefully, we’ve gotten most of it right. However, by this point we’ve also identified those sections which simply won’t work, can’t work or which don’t pass the political smell test any longer. This is when the fixing begins, be it surgical – as in excising a line, fine tuning some language – or wholesale, as in post-committee, but pre-floor, a better mousetrap was invented which needs to supplant what’s in the bill.

The conference report comes back to the respective chambers and if the legislative gods have smiled, it resembles for the most part what the members voted on earlier in the process. However, the legislative gods are notoriously fickle, so no one’s surprised when the only resemblance between what went into conference and what came out are the title and the table of contents.

If you – and every other farmer in America – weren’t so bloody rich, we wouldn’t have every Tom, Dick and Harry in the federal government calling for a slash-and-burn assault on farm spending.

OK, settle down. That statement reflects the prevailing government group-think about why it’s just fine to whack federal ag spending from direct payments to crop insurance to research. Rep. Paul Ryan (R, WI), chair of the House Budget Committee, pointed at record on-farm income when he released his committee’s budget resolution calling for a cut of at least $180 billion out of USDA’s spending over the next decade.

Just this week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), referred to as “the investigative arm of Congress,” cited record on-farm income in releasing a report proposing cutting $1 billion from the federal crop insurance program by capping the government-paid producer insurance premium subsidy at $40,000 a year.

Generally speaking, you can’t swing a dead cat in Congress without hitting some member or other who thinks farmers are sitting out there in the leather seats of the air-condition cabs of their luxury tractors and harvesters, clipping coupons, listening to the hum of their corn-based ethanol plant in background, all while the emailing their latest signed deal to sell 100% of their soybean crop to China.

It appears the common federal government belief is farmers and ranchers have finally figured out how to flatten out those cycles, control the weather, control demand – both at home and overseas – speed up/slow down crop and animal growth to match the market and time perfectly operation expansion or contraction, all without bank credit because farmers can simply spend all that cash they’ve piled up in the bank from last year’s success.

That good times never last and bad times can appear as quickly as a summer thunder storm is a reality that seems to elude our politicians, and I’m not convinced it’s simply naïveté or ignorance to blame. I think in many cases this new “rich farmer” alibi for such draconian ag spending cuts is another sad example of how this country’s food production system is taken for granted and if this nonsense works during budget battles, well, we’ll just deal with it later.

The notion of crafting a federal budget or a Farm Bill in the context that bad things never happen in rural America is not a wise move, unless Congress enjoys emergency ag assistance bills more than I think it does. The ultimate goal of any federal policy that touches food production should be, must be to literally protect independent producers during the toughest times. The secondary goal of such policy is to keep independent farmers competitive in a world market while hanging on to as much of the “free market” as possible.

Politicians who think a 21st century farm looks and operates as it did in 1960 need to be braced and given a strong dose of reality. It’s a tough sell when, overall, the ag sector is doing pretty well. We must get creative and remind the folks who hold our economic future in the palm of their sweaty little hand that bad things happen to good people no matter how many contingencies are accounted for.

Maybe we just remind them it’s a lot like losing an election