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Michigan prepares for activists by forming farmer action teams

By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich.— Farmers in Michigan are becoming increasingly concerned about the effects that animal rights campaigns are having on their businesses.

At least, that’s what the Michigan Farm Bureau is saying. The statewide farm bureau has held meetings about the subject recently and has started a project to form “farmer care action teams” on a countywide basis across the state to keep farmers abreast of what is going on in this regard and to help farmers get better at educating the public about livestock agriculture.
The most recent flurry of activity and discussion revolves around the Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) Humane Lobby Day in Lansing, which took place March 31.

A press release from the group publicizing the event states that its priorities are to rid the state of what it calls puppy mills and to eliminate the possession of primates as pets. The farm bureau insists, however, that it is up to a lot more than that.

“What we’re trying to do is respond to this threat from HSUS,” said Jason Jaekel, the farm bureau’s northeast regional representative. “They’re a radical group. People don’t realize that they’re out there lobbying against production agriculture. They generally misinform the public about what’s going on.”

Jaekel is helping to organize a farmer care action team in the northeastern part of the lower peninsula. He meets with farmers on a regular basis. Victor Daniels, a dairy producer in Arenac County north of Bay City, is one of them. He has 275 head of cattle altogether, and grows hay, oats, wheat, corn and soybeans on his 550 acres of land.

Daniels said he is concerned about what’s going on.

“My major concern is the more generations that get removed from agriculture, they don’t understand what goes on on a farm,” Daniels said.

“They think that sometimes what goes on with the livestock is inappropriate. We really need to educate the non-farmers.”
He said that some people are concerned that cattle aren’t allowed to go out on pasture to forage. He said that he can’t allow that because it’s too inefficient.

Daniels said he sometimes gives tours of his farm to classes of school children. He said that, while Arenac County is very rural, it’s not unusual for only three or four hands to go up when he asks the children how many of them are growing up on a farm or are close to someone who is. That’s out of a class of sometimes 40 kids, he said.

He also said that he recently spoke with a young mother who didn’t realize that a cow has to give birth in order to produce milk.
“A lot of people” aren’t aware of that, Daniels said.

Paul Shapiro, a spokesman for the HSUS, said he doesn’t know why the farm bureau is upset about what his organization is doing.
“The two issues that our members lobbied on on Humane Day was puppy mills and primates as pets,” he said.

Kelly Turner, the southeastern regional representative for the Michigan Farm Bureau, said her group was afraid that the HSUS would try to introduce legislation detrimental to farmers, although it turned out not to be the case.

“We were afraid that they were going to try and introduce legislation similar to what they did in these other states,” Turner said.

Those other states include Arizona, California and Florida. According to Turner, HSUS spearheaded a petition drive in California that brought Proposition 2 to the ballot. Proposition 2 was passed last year by the public and, unless it’s successfully challenged in court, will become law. According to agricultural experts the law will likely put an end to the egg laying industry in the state. It will also end the use of veal crates for calves and will require that sows be allowed to turn around in their gestation stalls.

Shapiro said that all Proposition 2 states is that all farm animals must be able to turn around and extend their limbs.

But, Turner said, if such mandates became law in Michigan it would make it difficult if not impossible for producers who rely on these practices now to stay in business.

4/15/2009