My Fear of Complacency
By Trent LoosIf you go to the pasture everyday and all cows are there, does that mean you never need to go around the fence? Even if all cows are accounted for, you better make sure somebody isn’t looking for an opportunity to escape. It is becoming more common for us, as farmers, to look at the trends. The Atkins diet rage means more meat consumption. Combine that with a shortage of dairy cows and increased milk consumption rumors suggest twenty-dollar milk may be on the horizon. Things look good.
With some of the best economic times in animal agriculture and crop production, we may become a little complacent and let holes develop in our fences. I spend a tremendous amount of time focusing on the Animal Rights movement. These groups are promoting the myth that animal and crop farming poses a threat to a healthy environment. There are attacks leveled against individuals regarding personal property rights. But none of these things are as dangerous to the dairy industry as the divide and conquer strategies being implemented against us.
Many find it interesting that I attend animal rights and environmental conventions and I hear as much about the controversial issues in agriculture as I do when I attend an event like the AMPI convention. Why is it that anti-ag activists care about the check-off or country of origin labeling? They recognize the impact of pitting farmer against farmer.
At the AMPI convention, a SYSCO representative stated that they have 17% of the market and their goal is 50% of the market. I did not get the feeling that one single person in the audience thought that was a bad thing. Since SYSCO is one of the best distributors of milk products, their goal was perceived as a wonderful opportunity. If a group of dairymen admitted to owning 17% of the cows in production with a goal of owning 50%, they would have been run out on a rail.
The challenges that we face in American food production are not in the demand for high quality, safe products but rather in our ability to continue converting our God-given natural recourses into products for human consumption. At the AMPI meeting, I shared the story of George Willer a Quincy, IL dairyman whose farm has been in the family for over 100 years. George had two sons return to join the operation. They were hit with a nuisance lawsuit by several neighbors who had moved into the area. The Willers’ spent three years and $250,000 defending their right to operate their property in the safe and productive manner they had utilized for years. They won the battle in court, but they lost the war. They were forced into bankruptcy and the bank sold their cattle. The Willer’s will tell you that the monetary cost was nothing in comparison to the mental anguish of defending a way of life that their family had cultivated for over one hundred years.
The average American consumer has been led to believe that modern food production is done without humans. They believe that industrial agriculture has stripped young people of any opportunity to make a life on the farm. The activists forgot to tell that to your Youth Leaders of the Year - Kevin and Kari Knapp. They didn’t fall into the trap of letting themselves believe what they read most frequently rather worked hard and found a way to be involved in this great industry.
We can’t let the good times we are experiencing now cause us to become complacent. Farm families across this nation are experiencing the same type of harassment as the Willers’. Special interest groups are convincing legislators to enact unnecessary restrictions such as banning non-ambulatory cattle from the food chain and 100% testing for BSE. Activists make in-roads because we typically only have time to check the cows and don’t bother to check the fences until the cows are out. I don’t need to tell any of you how hard it can be to get free-roaming cows back in. If you think that is tough, image how hard it will be to bring food production back to U.S. soil after we let it escape to another country.
