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Vice President, Communications Take charge Why the residual effect from the mishandling of cattle caught on tape at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company? NCBA, KLA, the Kansas Beef Council (KBC) and other responsible groups delivered a consistent message about this being an isolated problem that in no way reflected standard industry practices. Spokespersons hammered home the point that multiple interlocking safeguards protect the safety of the beef supply. Normally, a couple of weeks pass and the fire on an issue dies down. Not so with Hallmark/Westland. What started in January has continued a slow burn that will have a long-term impact on animal agriculture. Nothing about this story has been positive, although there’s a chance to change that. Animal care was on all the nightly news shows when Congress held oversight hearings on Westland/Hallmark. Nearly all the televised reports featured footage of the workers moving cattle with a forklift. It is not a good visual for consumers who choose between beef and other protein sources every day. The video also is disturbing to producers who work diligently day and night doing the right things when it comes to animal care. Hallmark/Westland gave animal activists a yet-to-be-determined amount of leverage on state voter initiatives and other legal means of dictating how producers care for animals. The ball already is rolling from bills in the California Legislature to the halls of Congress. They will use the video to make animal mistreatment look common. The fact that producers must take excellent care of animals to have a chance at profitability is lost on the activist crowd. Putting meat animal producers out of business is the goal of activists, no matter how far the truth must be stretched. If producers and processors take control, the good that could come from this has a chance to drown out the bad. This is an opportunity for the entire industry to re-commit to animal care. After all, Hallmark/Westland could have happened anywhere cattle are housed and handled. Nothing will change physically at the vast majority of ranches, feedyards and processing plants, but a healthy, full-scale review is in order and some adjustments may be necessary. A great opportunity to start this process will take place this month as Kansas State University hosts the "International Symposium on Beef Cattle Welfare" in Manhattan. It would serve your individual business and the industry well to attend the event, May 28-30. For more information, go to www.isbcw.beefcattleinstitute.org. The overriding component of this renewed commitment, however, will be devoting the time and effort to communicating positive animal care messages to the public. This can’t be delegated only to NCBA, KLA and KBC officers and staff. Every single person from top to bottom in this business must take the initiative to show and tell the industry’s great animal welfare story, whether in person or in a media interview. Producers assume everybody knows the care animals are given, but it’s a mystery to the general public. This lack of knowledge makes the people to whom we sell beef susceptible to activist misinformation. That’s something we can’t afford in this new era of heightened animal care awareness. |
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