Farmers Urged To Prepare To Save Industry

www.agrinews-pubs.com
Jeannie Otto
2010-03-08

PEORIA, Ill. — Get involved. Get active. Get ready to spend some money. And get ready to put up the fight of your lives for your lifestyles and your businesses.

That was the message that Chad Gregory, senior vice president of the United Egg Producers, told an audience of pork producers and allied industry people at the Illinois Pork Expo.

“It’s not about how they product it. It’s about where they produce it,” said Gregory, referencing a comment made by a university professor after the outcome of California’s Proposition 2, which banned the use of cages in chicken production and crates in veal and pork production.

“Consumers had no idea on what they were voting on and they had no idea on what the ramifications would be,” Gregory said. Farmers in that state have until Jan. 1, 2015, to eliminate layer cages, gestation and veal stalls.

Gregory outlined the campaign that the egg industry operated in Proposition 2. One irony of that fight that the Humane Society of the United States won is that consumers still are consuming cage-raised eggs.

“Today, almost a year and a half later, consumers are still consuming the caged eggs that they voted out — 96 percent of consumers are consuming caged eggs because the uncaged and free-range eggs are too expensive,” Gregory said.

He also outlined what happened between animal agriculture and the HSUS in Michigan, noting that the compromise with HSUS bought producers time to implement changes or to wait for national legislation that could preempt the state agreement.

“I think whatever we decide to do, we need to do whatever we have to do to shorten the timeframe of uncertainty for you, the farmer,” Gregory said.

He added that since the passage of Proposition 2, some commodity groups are working on building a united front to face their foes.

“We need to work on coalition building, we need to fund it and we need to get others outside of agriculture to help fund this campaign,” said Gregory, adding that ag industry groups also are working on building alliances with environmental and other organizations outside of production agriculture.

While the word “activist” might conjure a 1960s-era hippie with long hair and ragged blue jeans, it’s a false image of today’s anti-ag activists.

“You’ve really got to understand your opponent before you can attack them and beat them, and these folks are really good,” said Gregory, noting that HSUS, with annual revenue of $131 million and net assets of nearly $200 million, is not “your typical activists.”

He outlined the tactics and goals of the HSUS, a massive corporation with corporate officers and a board of directors who keep their eyes on the bottom line. He noted that HSUS has 470 full-time employees, 12 full-time attorneys and 100 pro bono attorneys.

“They are corporate America. They have a board of directors, and they publish nice financial statements and as long as they can keep generating cash, going on the Oprah Show, they went on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and all these other shows and keep generating big time cash from grandmas and moms and pops for $20 a month, they will keep beating that pinata,” he said, earlier referring to the nation’s egg and pork industry as the pinata that HSUS currently is pounding in order to bring in donations.

“When that source of funds starts drying up, then they’ll find another conflict or another pinata to go pound,” he said.

To his industry, the cost to switch completely from caged layers to uncaged would cost $8 billion in land and equipment. Gregory said that many of the 200 remaining U.S. egg farmers likely would quit their operations.

In addition, grain farmers would need an additional one million more acres of corn and soybean production just to feed cage-free layers.

One of the ultimate goals of HSUS and PETA is to abolish meat animal production in the United States, Gregory said. After that is accomplished, American consumers will buy their eggs, meat and milk from Brazil, Mexico or China.

“You think shell eggs could never come from China? That’s not true,” said Gregory, pointing out that California egg producers ship shell eggs to Hong Kong every day. “Those eggs could easily come back here.”

In addition, foreign food production creates a new host of food safety, environmental and land use issues. Whatever route that Illinois producers, who do not live in a ballot initiative state, decide to take, whether to put up a fight against HSUS or sit down at the table with them, Gregory urged them to keep battle to keep egg, meat and milk production in the United States.

“Losing is not an option. We’ve got to do whatever it takes to fight HSUS and educate the public,” he said.


Return to Article List