There’s a television program that many of you have probably seen that places unwitting people in ethical scenarios. Actors are used to set the stage while hidden cameras roll. The premise of the program is to show viewers whether normal people will step in or mind their own business when put in situations that set the internal moral compass spinning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A collective sigh of relief was followed by shouts of victory that echoed across the country when the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division released a statement withdrawing its widely criticized proposed rule restricting children under the age of 16 from doing regular farm chores. This victory in keeping the family active on family farms is proof that agriculture in America can come together with one loud and clear voice when inspired to do so. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we in agriculture believe young people are not only significant participants on our family farms today, but very well may hold the future of those farms in their smaller, calloused hands.

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

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

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

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

My husband and I, like many others who live in rural America, do not subscribe to satellite television, so our television news options are the three national news networks that have been around for a very long time and a couple of public television channels. In recent weeks, months and years, my disappointment in the so-called “news” programs on these three networks has grown significantly. I hear the same from many others.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another of my reporters wrote:

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

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

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

And finally, one of my reporters wrote:

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

For years, the agriculture industry has struggled with the stereotypical picture of a farmer as an unkempt man wearing bibbed overalls and a straw hat, carrying a pitchfork, and speaking in some sort of non-existent hillbilly language. This “hayseed” farmer is portrayed as ignorant, illiterate and socially inept. He is incapable of carrying on a conversation using words that are more than one syllable, and even then, sounds as if he has a mouth full of something that keeps the words from coming out the way they should.

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the end of the day

Level the playing field

Game changer

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

And finally, my own personal pet peeve:

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

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

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

Every time I turn around I see, hear or read about some new regulation that is being proposed, lobbied, dangled and wrangled.

 The increased restrictions I have witnessed in my not-quite-50-years in this world are monumental. I cannot imagine what it must be like for my parents in their 70′s or my remaining grandparents in their 90′s to recall the many freedoms that have been taken away from them by out-of-touch and out-of-control lawmakers, elected by an easily influenced and increasingly lazy and selfish society.

 There are countless examples everyday of the growing pressure to increase regulations in every aspect of an American citizen’s life. They want to take away my right to keep and bear arms, my right to free speech, and my right to pursue the American Dream. Unlike some of our former and current lawmakers, I do not see the American Dream as a “right” but instead, it is my right (according to a little thing called the Constitution) to pursue my own American dream. How the heck do they know what each of us envisions as our American dream and how dare they make that decision for me?

 What impact will the cost of increased regulations on animal welfare have on U.S. producers and consumers? Andre Williamson with the research firm Agralytic provided some answers to that question at the recent National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) meeting. Williamson discussed findings from a recent Agralytic study which looked at the impact that hog housing and antimicrobial restrictions have had in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark.

 The study showed that regulations imposed by federal, state, and local governments can make domestic farmers and ranchers uncompetitive with competitors overseas and drive them out of business. Just as manufacturing and service jobs have been “offshored” to Mexico, China, South Korea, India, and other countries, the researchers concluded that excessive regulation could eventually cause animal agriculture to move offshore.

 Williamson says this could lead to higher consumer prices. No kidding.

 When a 1999 United Kingdom law banning sow stalls with tethers went into effect, the herd dropped by about 45%. The farmers who did stay in the business spent a fortune retrofitting their operations. The country began importing more pork. The consumer began paying more for pork products.

 Many people may think that regulatory costs are a business problem, but according to the Heritage Foundation, the costs of regulation are inevitably passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices and limited product choices.

 ”Basic items, such as toilets, showerheads, light bulbs, mattresses, washing machines, dryers, cars, ovens, refrigerators, television sets, and bicycles, all cost significantly more because of government decrees on energy use, product labeling, and performance standards that go well beyond safety—as well as hundreds of millions of hours of testing and paperwork to document compliance.”

 Although it is nearly impossible to get a firm handle on the total cost of regulation in this country, the estimate widely used is $1.75 trillion.

Many government agencies in this country are out of control. Instead of listing those that are, I would challenge you to give me an example of one that is not, at some level, in pursuit of regulating, restricting or defining your American dream.

I am not suggesting a country free of man’s laws. We need laws to maintain order. But when I receive hundreds of news releases a year describing restrictions being proposed and/or demanded by lawmakers, organizations and individuals, it is, at the very least, disheartening.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past 3 or 4 years, you’ve heard plenty about the expected increase in world population. You’ve probably heard that in order to keep up with population growth, more food will have to be produced in the next 50 years than in the past 10,000 years combined.

Projections show that feeding a world population of 9.1 billion people in 2050 would require raising overall food production by some 70 percent.

Dr. Terry Barr, senior director of the Knowledge Exchange Division of CoBank and former head of the USDA’s World Outlook Board shared some startling numbers with attendees at the recent National Institute for Animal Agriculture conference. In his presentation “Advancing Animal Agriculture with Scarce Resources” he talked about how global meat production will have to increase by 73 percent between now and 2050 in order to meet the world’s fast-growing demand for protein—and it will have to happen despite dwindling land and water resources.

I was checking e-mail while listening to the interview with Dr. Barr on the Brownfield Ag News website. I opened one containing a press release from Worldwatch Institute, which according to its website, is an independent research organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on energy, resource, and environmental issues.

The release, Rising Number of Farm Animals Poses Environmental and Public Health Risks, states “The global population of farm animals increased 23 percent between 1980 and 2010, from 3.5 billion to 4.3 billion, according to research by the Worldwatch Institute for its Vital Signs Online publication. These figures continue a trend of rising farm animal populations, with harmful effects on the environment, public health, and global development.”

The release went on to say that animal agriculture and consumption of meat and animal products are increasingly concentrated in developing countries. Between 1980 and 2005, per capita milk consumption in developing countries almost doubled, meat consumption more than tripled, and egg consumption increased fivefold.

As people make more money and their lot in life gets a boost, they are likely to add more meat to their diets. The demand for meat and animal products continues to increase at an astonishing rate.

Worldwatch Institute is sending up a warning flag about all of this animal agriculture. Among other things, Worldwatch says all of these animals produce a lot of waste, use a lot of water and land for feed production, contribute to the spread of man and animal disease and contribute to global warming.

The press release also points out diets high in meat not only make us all fat, but have been linked to numerous deadly diseases.

The SOLUTION, according to Worldwatch Institute’s press release is to ramp up regulation on animal agriculture.

Well, there’s an answer to the need to feed and clothe and house and employ more than 9 billion people! Frankly, I’m more concerned about the waste produced by that many people than I am the waste from livestock. I’m more concerned about public health and environmental pollution and global warming and criminal activity caused by all those human beings than I am about animal agriculture.

I have a question for those think tanks out there whose research points to modern animal agriculture as an environmental and public health risk: What will you do with 9.1 billion hungry mouths to feed when you’ve managed to regulate their food supply right down to weeds and crumbs?

Many of the national media outlets spent much of last week as they do every other week: trying to make a story out of a non-story. It is hard for me to understand why they choose to operate that way when there are so many important stories left untold.

A news conference held in conjunction with a coalition of governors’ visit to Beef Products, Inc. drew several reporters. Among national media attending was the one who broke the non-story about lean finely textured beef or LFTB (they called it pink slime) on a national news program earlier in the month. After listening to the news conference then tuning into the 5:30pm national news program that featured a short piece from Mr. Avila, I had to wonder if he was actually reporting from the same event. The non-story that had either topped or come close to topping several nights’ newscasts was buried at the end of the program.

It was sometime in the mid-to-late ‘90s when food consumers began to be scared into or persuaded into knowing more about food production. It was about that time, too, when the quality of reporting from many national news outlets began to fall short. Some make the case that the coming together of biotechnology in agriculture and the introduction and use of the World Wide Web to people everywhere spawned public distrust of agriculture and our food system. A society that trusts something read on a random internet blog before trusting scientific evidence is destined to be hungry and naked.

Knowing where your food comes from is not a bad thing. Most of us want to know our food is safe and of good quality. We care about availability. We care about price. Consumers today are also more concerned about the environment and sustainability practices than they were a decade ago. In recent years, farmers and the agriculture industry as a whole, are being forced to prove themselves – as well as their products and processes – at every turn.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad told media attending the aforementioned news conference that “Inaccurate, inappropriate, and charged words designed to scare people. . .” about the use of Lean Finely-Textured Beef has to stop. “I believe the national media has permeated this discussion with a poisonous tone that is detrimental to the beef industry and the jobs that support it . . . It’s time to end this smear campaign.”

Dr. Gary Acuff, Professor of Food Microbiology and Head of Animal Science Department, Texas A&M University shared his thoughts about the time wasted by those trying to create public distrust of beef. He told reporters that had the same amount of time been used to educate consumers on how to use a meat thermometer, some lives could have been saved.

There have been many comments made in regards to the poor reporting about LFTB in recent days. In my opinion, none better than that made by Gary Sides of Pfizer during the National Institute of Animal Agriculture meeting in Denver last week.

Sides summed it up by saying, “Simple lies are more palatable than complicated truths.”

Commentary.

Every day last week at least one or two supermarket chains announced they had made the decision to stop selling ground beef containing lean finely textured beef, also known as LFTB. Most American consumers know LFTB by the term it was dubbed ten years ago by a United States Department of Agriculture microbiologist who referred to it in an email to his colleagues as “pink slime.”

According to ABC News, whose story on “pink slime” helped start the discussion, 70 percent of all store-bought ground beef contains LFTB.

In a statement, Safeway, the nation’s second largest supermarket chain said “considerable consumer concern” led to its decision, even though the grocery chain admits it has no safety concerns with the product.

In a statement released late last week, Des Moines-based Hy-Vee said it will no longer purchase products containing LFTB due to a “loss of consumer confidence in the product.”

Others steering clear of LFTB include Kroger, Supervalu and Food Lion. Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club will begin offering fresh ground beef that does not contain lean finely textured beef. Kroger’s decision also affects their Stop & Shop stores, Supervalu owns and operates Acme, Albertsons, Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Hornbacher’s, Jewel-Osco, Lucky, Shaw’s/Star Market, Shop ‘n Save and Shoppers Food & Pharmacy stores. Food Lion also operates Bloom, Harvey’s and Reid’s stores.

New York City Department of Education announced they would eliminate LFTB products from the school menu next school year

USDA announced that it will disclose to school districts which of its suppliers use LFTB so administrators can decide whether to purchase it or not. USDA also announced that beginning next fall schools will have the option to choose between 95 percent lean beef patties made with the product or less lean bulk ground beef that does not contain it.

So what is it about LFTB that has everyone so worked up? To make LFTB,Gregg Rentfrow, associate Extension professor of Meat Science at the University of Kentucky told Brownfield Ag News “They take these lean trimmings and centrifuge them to remove the fat.” Rentfrow says because of the centrifugation process, there could be pathogens present and to ensure safety, the LFTB is “puffed” with ammonia hydroxide gas.

He says the ammonia hydroxide gas is not your household ammonia and has been on the Generally Recognized as Safe list for over 20 years. Rentfrow said the products used for LFTB have all gone through the USDA and FDA approval processes. “The meat science community was asked to create a safe product,” he said. “This enables us to create a safe and cheap food for the marketplace.”

Personally, I have absolutely no concern about the safety of LFTB. I prefer an all- natural ground beef product. I think it tastes better. I am willing to pay more for beef I find to be more palatable. It will be interesting to see if other consumers are willing to do the same.

I understand that the ammonia is a processing agent, not an ingredient. I get it. But there are a lot of people out there who feel like they have been hoodwinked. They feel like mixing LFTB with ground beef and labeling it as ground beef is a form of fraudulent labeling.

I think USDA’s failure to respond to consumer concerns more quickly created a great deal of uneasiness and distrust of the product.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter what I think. If the consumers of our agricultural products believe we are not transparent at any level– from farm to fork – then we need to take a hard look at our products and our processes and do a better job of educating.

Commentary.

Spring has sprung. At least it feels like spring. It looks like spring. It smells like spring. And according to my calendar, spring rolled in this Tuesday past, so I guess it is official.

I love spring mornings. We were up early to bring 2 cows in to artificially inseminate. The morning air smelled of hyacinths and cows when I stepped out the back door. The dew drops on each single blade of grass collect the light from the early morning sun, creating a symphony of rainbow colors across the yard, the creek bottom and the hillsides. It is as though there is a diamond atop each blade.

One of the blessings of waking up on a farm is the simple, yet awesome beauty in the landscape.

Having spent winter evenings poring over seed catalogs and sorting through “saved seeds” and last year’s leftovers, boxes from Johnny’s and Jung’s and Seed Savers have arrived. Trays of tiny seedlings are stretching their necks to artificial light. If we pay attention to the weather and not the calendar, those seedlings will be enjoying the real thing much sooner than normal.

It’s breeding season in the country. I watch the Tom turkeys strut and dance in courtship with the bevy of beauties of the opposite sex. With Jupiter and Venus in the western night sky, I watched last evening as a pair of owls chased and called to one another in flight.

The pastures and hay fields seemed to awaken overnight. The cows, seemingly headless a couple of months ago as they buried themselves neck-deep in the round bale feeders, now prefer green grass on the hillsides. In the afternoon sun, they lie down to convert.

A quick trip to the local farm and home store is more proof that spring is truly here! I’m drawn to the “cheep, cheep, cheep” of chicks and ducklings under heat lamps in a prominent area of the show floor. Rabbits scurry through pine shavings in large, round galvanized livestock water tanks.

 Although I’ve yet to see one this year, I know the elusive morel mushroom will soon poke its head from the rich timber soil and dare me to find it. There are rumors that an abundance of “grays” have been discovered in the river bottoms not far from here.

The promise of greater yields from greater seeds has farmers hopeful and restless to plant their crops. Some have already started.

As you continue your vigil, awaiting the right conditions to lay that seed in the ground, I hope you will find the time to smell the hyacinths and watch the sky as it changes from day to night. I hope you will find time to contemplate the turkey’s dance and the Baltimore Oriole’s nest-building and the discovery of the first morel mushroom in your area.

 Time passes so quickly. Before you know it, the corn crop will be as high as an elephant’s eye and then you will be harvesting it and planning for the next growing season.

Commentary.

 In recent months, there have been many instances where school districts have implemented bans on flavored milk in their school lunch programs.

During the fall semester of 2011, Los Angeles (California) Unified School district banned flavored milk. It was the district’s belief that eliminating flavored milk was akin to eliminating other foods deemed unhealthy, such as corn dogs, nachos, and chicken nuggets. The district believed these foods to be too high in sodium, sugar and/or fat.

In the place of the foods deemed unhealthy by the district, school children were offered foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, tamales filled with vegetables, vegetarian sushi, vegetable curry, and low-fat white milk, deemed healthy by the district.

A healthy menu in my opinion would include more meat, fish and poultry offerings. Those young, developing bodies and brains need the protein, zinc, vitamin B12, riboflavin, niacin, thiamin and iron these foods provide. A healthy menu would also include chocolate-flavored milk.

I have absolutely no problem with offering healthy foods and more locally grown and processed foods in school cafeterias. I like the idea of serving meatloaf containing ground beef from beef cattle raised in the Midwest in our local schools. It makes little sense to me to ship beef from cull dairy cows in California all the way to the Midwest to serve to unsuspecting school children. I like the idea of local apples, eggs and other foods purchased locally to support the local economy. But the school districts can’t all afford to purchase local produce and meat, so they do the best they can with what they can afford.

The Los Angeles school district’s ban on foods deemed unhealthy triggered some unexpected economic stimulus in the form of black-market trade in foods kids actually like and would eat. From pizza deliveries to the schools’ “back doors” to foods brought from home and sold under the table, students were presented with options other than those offered in the school cafeteria.

I’m not suggesting that the vegetable curry and fresh apples went untouched, but there were more cafeteria lunches in the garbage cans in the fall of 2011 than there were in the spring of that year, before the “healthier foods” initiative took place.

Do we as a nation consume too much junk food? Probably. Do we make bad choices even when a better choice is presented? Probably.

The customer is always right. Anyone who has ever sold a product or service knows this to be true. As I mentioned in the first paragraph of this column, several school districts are removing chocolate and strawberry milk from their drink options. It’s being driven by the childhood obesity epidemic and concerns over the added sugar in milk contributing to that weight gain. Greg Miller, president of the Dairy Research Institute, says that’s short sighted because chocolate milk is a nutrient rich drink and the sugar it contains makes up only a small percentage of sugar in kids’ overall diets.

Here’s what we know: milk consumption drops when children are not offered the option of chocolate or other flavored milk in schools.

Would you rather have your child drink chocolate or strawberry flavored milk or no milk at all?