Managing for Profit

Just say no when HSUS comes calling

The online dictionary Wikipedia defines “negotiation” as dialogue intended to resolve disputes to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. Negotiation, according to Wikipedia, is the primary method of alternative dispute resolution.

The key in any dispute resolution is that one or more of those involved in the negotiation must be willing to compromise.

Are you willing to compromise with groups that abhor raising livestock for food? The Humane Society of the United States, PETA, and other animal rights groups are not going to compromise so why in the name of everything our ancestors gave in blood, sweat and tears to build farms in this country would we consider giving them something?

Rodents that find their way into the feed room in our barn will keep coming back if we leave buckets of grain sitting out, uncovered. They’ll chew their way through the tarp covering the grain wagon. They’ll leave holes in the bags containing beet pulp, oats, and various protein and mineral supplements.

Would you compromise with those rodents, thinking to yourself that they are small and can’t really eat very much? Would you sit down at the table with them and say, “Look, if you promise not to get into the grain wagon, I’ll leave the door of the feed room open so you can help yourself to the protein supplement.”

I think not.

One rat probably cannot do much harm, but where there is one rat there is certain to be another and another and pretty soon you have an entire army of rats, chewing away at the feed you have stored, eating up your profit and spreading disease.

If you are doing something wrong – if you are abusing your livestock in any way – then you do have something to be ashamed of and should be forced out of the business. However, if you are a good steward of your livestock, land, air and water, you should stand together with fellow farmers against the detractors whose goal is to put you out of business.

I attended the Missouri Simmental Association Spring Sale this past Saturday at the Miller County Stockyards. I was pleased to find, in a stack beside the sale catalogs and membership directories, a flyer titled “Untold Truths of HSUS” outlining some of the facts about the Humane Society of the United States.

Perhaps you could make sure there are similar flyers available at your local sale barn. While you are printing flyers, how about hanging one on the bulletin board at your local grain elevator, feed store and cafe? The grocery stores, banks, real estate offices and every other business in rural America are at risk of failing if HSUS and other anti-animal agriculture groups get the opportunity to sit down at the table to “negotiate” with America’s farmers.

Tell the lawmakers and agricultural group leaders who represent you to “Just say no” when HSUS asks for a place at your table.