A Dialogue that Ended in Disaster

Perhaps its the time of year when people are feeling compassionate and forgiving, so I'm reading of those in animal agriculture who now want to reach out and advance communications with the animal rights activists. They are encouraging people like me to listen more before responding. Others tell me that dialogue ends in disaster. I've thought about this as I like to believe that I'm compassionate and forgiving, but also wary of the dangers out front. After decades in representing farmers both here and abroad, I too hoped for compromise and worked toward that goal through a decade-long public forum entitled “Future Trends in Animal Agriculture. It ended when the USDA brought to an end our meetings at USDA’s Jefferson Auditorium in Washington, DC. I became the co-chairman of that group and exerted all effort to engage the animal activists along with Members of Congress at these forums. It worked for a time with face-to-face meetings among industry, activists and Congress. The discourses were mainly civil and led to future meetings outside that forum. Not long ago, one of my members in Rhode Island invited me to discuss the benefits of caging chickens before a group of NGOs in Providence. A state bill was being pushed by the local ASPCA. When they saw my name on the agenda I learned they invited the former PETA VP. Not knowing he was coming to debate me, his entry into the meeting room was greeted with a friendly greeting from me. My member was in shock. I told him that I can still respect the person although our ideologies are opposite. I’ve held that perspective from the beginning. The former PETA representative and I debated in front of the group for 90 minutes, then parted amicably. It is a reminder that professionals will act professionally.Having recounted that experience, I can reflect on my current lack of success in achieving a compromise. Cage-free eggs appears to be the choice of consumers if you believe what's appearing in the press with some food companies announcing the transition. The group I represent, the National Association of Egg Farmers (NAEF), only opposes these announcements when the claim is made that cage-free improves the welfare of the hen and egg quality. Such was the case with McDonalds on September 9, 2015, and I in representing my association immediately circulated to the press the letter it sent to McDonalds correcting the misinformation. I reminded McDonalds that their support for the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply, a group of scientists commissioned to investigate the different production systems, and they did not conclude that cage-free improved the welfare of the hen or the quality of the eggs. In the press I noted that it doesn't take an investigation as extensive as that to see how this is the case. Chickens naturally establish a pecking order among a population of birds. In a cage-free environment where several thousand chickens are together, that pecking order is established among thousands of chickens. Compare that to chickens confined in conventional cages where that pecking order is established among six chickens. That is why cage-free systems have a higher incidence of mortality, sometimes 300% greater, because of this pecking order. Certainly this exposes the flaw in thinking cage-free is more humane. Additionally, the egg produced in conventional cages are less likely to come into contact with manure as opposed to chickens walking on the ground and laying their eggs there too. 

When you read of companies announcing a transition to cage-free eggs because of welfare and quality issues, you now know that is incorrect. Unfortunately the animal rights activists claiming they are concerned about animal welfare, yet what they promote is the opposite. They know better as I’ve spent decades explaining it to them. So why are they doing this? It's likely that a more expensive commodity means less purchases of that commodity. Cage-free eggs cost about $1 more per dozen eggs. The unfortunate thing is that driving up the price with misinformation hurts consumers.  The animal rights activists have been more successful in convincing retailers (and voters recently in Massachusetts) to dictate production practices without considering any of the science. I’ll continue to voice the views of the farmers I represent and hope that consumers will wake up the realities of where this dialogue between farmers and animal activists has gone, and what it means when the visit their grocery stores.