A serious problem facing American agriculture is that consumers and policymakers are clueless about how their food, fiber and fuel are produced. More than that, they are clueless about some basic facts of life, according to Trent Loos, a national radio commentator and columnist.   Loos was the keynote speaker at the Midwest Pork Conference last week and shared a number of humorous examples of how the average American does not get the basic facts of agriculture and what he called the “cycles of life”. He told the story about the woman who refused to drink tap water when she was told that fish had been having sex in it.  He also told stories about how most consumers do not know what their clothes are made of. Seventy five percent of all the fabric used in clothing today has some percentage of cloth made from petroleum. But the issue is far more complicated than just ignorance.

It is not just a case of what people do not know but rather what they do know. Dr. Ed Pajor, assistant professor of animal science at Purdue, says the problems being faced by the livestock industry does not stem from a lack of understanding of livestock production but rather a different way of looking at animals.  In an interview at Farm World Expo, he told me the only experience most people have with animals is as pets.  Therefore, most people view all animals as pets.  Livestock producers view their animals quite differently.  This difference in perception is at the core of the debate over how farm animals should be raised. 

Loos and Pajor agree that simply explaining to people what we do on the farm and why is not enough.  Just as most consumers don’t really care what their clothes are made of or where their water comes from, they are not really interested in what we do on the farm.  What they are interested in is: are we taking good care of the animals.  We must resurrect the concept of animal husbandry.  We must reposition livestock farmers a caretaker of animals not the managers of a production facility. 

Anti-animal activist groups have been successful in planting the concept that a large livestock operation is a “Mega Farm” or “Factory Farm”. These concepts have negative connotations to most consumers.  That, of course, is the desired effect these groups want.  The truth is most farmers are caretakers of their animals even if they have thousands of them. We need to portray the livestock producer of today as a caretaker of animals whether he has 50 or 5,000.

Most consumers want to keep eating meat and want to do so happy in the knowledge that animals were well-treated.  They don’t want the messy details of production and processing. The recent ethical practices and PQA programs adopted by pork producers will go a long way to satisfying the conscience of the consumer.

In the short term, there are some production techniques we will have to give up because we have allowed the activists to poison the minds of the public on these practices.  If, however, we can regain the confidence of the public that livestock farmers know what they are doing and really care for and treat their animals correctly, we will see less restrictions on how we raise and handle livestock.  We also have to do a better job of policing ourselves.  We have to make sure that most producers are following accepted standards.
Most people trust the water company to provide safe water no matter what was going on in that water before it came to the treatment plant.  We need to get to the same level of trust in American agriculture.  

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.