(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)
A few months ago, I was visiting some of our members’ eggs farms--when I discovered a little known chicken fact: chickens are cannibalistic--the first taste of blood and they’ll go after the whole bird. It’s kind of like gladiator, chicken style.
Gruesome, but true.
Last week I was in Charlotte, North Carolina for the AgChat Foundation Conference. Like many conferences, the buzz-words transparency, openess and story-telling kept coming up over and over again. But as we try and get out there and share our stories about agriculture, some of us are doing that at the detriment of others--building up a specific production practice or farm philosophy while tearing another down.
Are we in agriculture like chickens? Are we cannibals too?
The closing speaker at last week’s conference was a woman by the name of Laura Daniels, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin and a personal pal of an “agvogate” getting a lot of virtual attention lately: Dairy Carrie, or as she’s know in real life, Carrie Mess.
Laura gave a moving speech about how and why she farms. She told stories about her kids and anecdotes about farm life. Most interestingly, however, she talked about a trip she took with four other ag professionals to visit Joel Salatin’s farm. Most of us know Joe--he was prominently featured in the documentary “Food Inc.,” has frequently admonished conventional ag practices and has just written a new book, titled: “Gaining Ground.”
Laura admitted she went to visit Joe’s farm hoping to walk away knowing that how she raises her cows is the “right way”--but instead, she told the group, she realized that Joel is “one heck of a farmer.”
There exists a mutual respect between Laura and Joel because they’re both farmers--they’re both raising and growing food to feed our hungry and growing population.
When Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food” came out a few years ago, Laura and other Wisconsin ag folks banded together to attend his speech to the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Go Badgers!).
Hundreds of farmers turned out to the event wearing shirts that said “In Defense of Farming: Eat Food, Be Healthy, Thank a Farmer,” and answered questions from UW Madison students and media following Mr. Pollan’s speech.
I, like Laura, read Mr. Pollan’s book cover to cover--putting post-it notes in the margins and highlighting crucial passages. I quickly discovered during Laura’s speech that she and I were both bothered by Mr. Pollan’s book for one crucial reason: it leaves out so much about farming and makes the differences between production methods seem black and white.
As Laura told the Agchat attendees last week: “I didn’t see myself in that book--I’m a combination of many farming practices.”
As everyone in the industry knows--there’s more than one way to raise animals; in fact, you might even say there’s fifty shades--or more--of farming.
Everyone is passionate about their given style--if you raise organic, you believe that that’s the right way. Same for natural, free-range, raised without antibiotics, grass-fed and so on and so forth. You might raise your dairy cows in the pasture for nine months of the year and then feed GMO crops the other three months because that’s what’s available.
In my mind, there’s room for everyone--everyone’s different production methodologies allow for good, healthy competition in the market place and preserve consumer choice; I think we can all agree that America’s consumers are blessed with the most diverse options at the grocery store.
The bottom line, however, is that just because you may raise your animals different than your neighbor down the road, doesn’t mean that your neighbor isn’t still “one heck of a farmer.”
None of us like it when retailers like Chipotle do it--so we need to stop doing it ourselves.
You can still think that your method of farming is superior while speaking up in defense of someone else on issues that are vitally important: animal welfare, food safety, and human health. Just because your production practices differ, chances are your core values and passion for farming are incredibly similar.
It’s not enough not to sling mud--we all need to go one step further and stop using fear and misinformation to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.
Let’s not cannibalize our own industry, after all, enough folks out there are already pecking away at us issue after issue.
Us birds of a feather gotta stick together, am I right?
8/27/2013