That was then and this is now

by Trent Loos

I have just spent two days in the Nevada High Desert near North Spring Valley with one of the best ranchers this country has ever known, my dear friend Hank Vogler. Hank is that person that the phrase "one of kind" was created for. His accomplishments regarding federal lands need to be told rather than the message of this story. As we were driving down the highway near his ranch, looking for a signal that would allow me to get contact with the outside world, Dr. Temple Grandin happened to get through on my phone in one of those "phone booth" spots.

She was calling me in an attempt to set up a phone interview for radio because recently I have been very critical of her work. As I am about to hang up, Hank says, "Trent, let me talk to her for just a minute." I handed him the phone and he told her that they have just built a corral using her design and it works tremendously. I share all of that with you so that you know that I fully recognize the positive impact she has made on animal handling the past 20 years. But that was then and this is now.

Grandin is no longer working for the livestock producer and she is obviously not working for the consumer, so I will let you draw your own conclusions about who she is working for.

A couple of weeks ago Grandin was quoted in a non-ag publication about animal handling. The statement was wrong, incorrect, and less than factual. However you want to couch it, she misled the public. Non-ambulatory beef animals of any size cannot enter the food chain and she said bob veal calves often cannot walk on their own in the slaughter facility.

That statement sent me into a radio rant about how she has lost her way. I did send a copy of that to her personally to make sure I hadn't misrepresented anything she had said. She responded in written form first and then joined me on the radio for 12 minutes.

Here is part of what she shared with me in response to my rant.

"Downer bob calves would be condemned, but they would still have the stress of travel. Bob veal is a regional industry that occurs in places where there is no market to grow the calves into either milk-fed veal or beef steers. The development of beef steer or milk-fed markets in these regions would improve animal welfare."

I am sorry, Temple, but I am unfamiliar with any part of the United States where a beef feeding operation, whether dairy or beef in origin, doesn't exist. Cattle for beef are grown and fed in all states.

Her response, which truly worries me to no end, was this:

"Gestation stalls--over 10 years ago, I conducted a very objective informal survey with fellow airline passengers. I showed them very attractive pictures of sow gestation stalls and clean finishing pigs housed indoors on a slatted floor. Almost everybody liked the finishing pigs but two-thirds of the people did not like gestation stalls. Later scientific surveys had the same results. Gestation stalls are a degree of confinement that many people find objectionable. On the other hand, I have taken many people through a large beef slaughter plant and they were amazed at how quiet and calm the cattle were. A well-run beef slaughter plant was acceptable when it was shown to the public and gestation stalls were not acceptable. I am fully aware of the scientific studies, but the public will not accept them."

Nowhere in that response, from the individual that is recognized globally as the leader in animal welfare, does she mention the need for science to determine the best housing or handling for animals. In no way, shape or form should we allow public opinion to determine how animals are handled.

Do you think that picture of cattle in the feedlot would be acceptable to the average plane traveler? No way. Yet the people that actually care for the animal know that by growing cattle in a feedlot we have increased the beef production and fed more hungry people.

Dr. Jude Capper's work shows that cattle in feedlots have improved productivity (growth rate and slaughter weight), reduced land use per pound of beef by 34 percent, reduced water use by 14 percent and the carbon footprint by 18 percent since 1977.

The European Union has been allowing public opinion to drive animal handling in that region and as a result 711,000 pork producers exited the business in 2011. Today the 27 countries in the EU import more food than they produce. The EU food policy is not a model for food production that we want to follow here in the United States unless we want to depend on foreign countries for fuel and food!

It reminds me of a statement by Lee Cockerell, who spoke ahead of me at the 2011 International Poultry Expo. Cockerell was VP of Operations for Walt Disney in charge of 40,000 employees and he said, "The guest doesn't come first, leadership comes first."

It is this simple. The people who care for the animals every day are the experts in animal welfare. If we continue to cater to any person who has ever eaten a pig to tell the pig farmer how to do it...well, let's just say it won't parallel the motto and success of Disney. And I am sure they would be happy to make a movie about it.

Editor's note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.FacesOfAg.com, or email Trent at trent@loostales.com.

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This column originally was posted at  The High Plains Journal.

And on the "pink slime" fiasco, everyone should read his Consumers are not always right (scroll down to find it). Therein he provides the data to show "If you were to eat a double cheeseburger the ppm of ammonia in the burger with “pink slime” is lower than that of the cheese, the bun or the condiments (ketchup, mustard and mayo)."