Are Americans willing to back their words with THEIR dollar?

(heads up this is kind of a long one)

Friday is my favorite day of the week not only because its the end of the week but its the day I have my advocacy class. Each week we have a speaker come in and discuss issues in agriculture and what we can do to make a difference. We have had Oklahoma legislators, veterinarians, producers, and even Trent Loos! This week Dr. Bailey Norwood, professor of Ag Economics at Oklahoma State, came and spoke to us about the research he conducted for his up coming book "Compassion, By the Pound". Now Dr. Norwood kinda came out and said that he himself could not teach us about speaking to the public, but his presentation was about establishing credibility. He presented to us in the form of a debate, in which he was on both sides. Kind of different right? Well he presented us information that he collected while researching his book and directed it in two different fashions, an anti-ag mindset and one in defense of agriculture.

On the Anti-Ag side he presented 3 main points,

1) There is no doubt; layers and pigs suffer. ( Dont run away yet, remember he is coming from 2 different sides)
-Information that he gathered from studies showed that cage systems and gestation-confinement are the worst forms of production in egg and pork production.

- No where was he able to find a citable study in which a cage system was better that an cage free system or where a gestation stalls were better than group penning.

*Now when he comes back with the Agriculture side of the debate he stated.

"The Availability of "better" systems does not imply modern egg and pork production is inhumane. I have seen the most prestigious animal scientists defend battery cageing and gestation stall systems."

Kinda easy to leave a scued message, huh?

The second point he made-

2)People care about layer and pig suffering. (Now if you are a sick and twisted person you may enjoy seeing animals suffer, but face it livestock producers and animal welfarists share a common goal of wanting to see animals treated right. We just have different ideas about doing so.)

-81% of Americans believe that farm animals can suffer just like humans can.

-84% believe that animal welfare is more important than low meat prices.

-75% would vote for a law in their state requiring farmers to treat their animals better.

-31% believe that animals have a soul.

*Then Dr. Norwood comes back for Agriculture and states that he left out information that was collected in the SAME studies.

- People care more about the financial well-being of FARMERS, food prices, and food safety than they do animal welfare. Additionally he states that even though some of these studies were done anominously, people still answer with a biased opinion. He put it this way, if some one asked you if it was important to help developing nations have better food, medical, and educational resources, you would most likely say yes. BUT would you back your words with your dollar?? Most dont. When they restated the question "Do you believe that the Average American cares more about low food prices than they do animal welfare?" those results were that 68% thought so.

- Also in the sudy it showed that 50% of people believed that desicions about animal welfare should be made by experts.

- and only 1% believed that livestock should be gauranteed a "happy or content" life.

- he also said that he couldnt help but notice that 1/3 of all the studies came back that people did not care at all about farm animal welfare.

Again its easy to find credible information for the anti-ag side because of the fact that no one is going to say they do not care if animals are being harmed. Yes people care, but likely they will not act upon it. (just like when you flip the channel when that commerical comes on about starving children in 3rd world countries)

3rdly) People will pay for better animal care.

-Economic experiments prove that people will pay the additional costs of producing cage-free eggs and free range pork. These experiments were conducted using real money in real purchases so there is no survey bias takin place.

*What Dr. Norwood left out in this argument was that these studies were conducted with real money, but not in a grocery store. They conducted an auction in a laboratory after paying people $100/hr to come and participate (they were told the money is theirs to keep and that they do not have to spend it) However people felt obligated to do so because they were there, and were more willing to do so because it was not money that they had earned. In other studies conducted in the grocery store, where humanely marketed products were even on sale, not a single product was purchased because people's main agenda when shopping is to save money, not how was this pork raised?

So he asked "Ok class who won the argument?" Well, no one really did.

I think as advocates we have to remember that their is going to be legit credible information that the anti-ag side is going to use. It is our job to understand that there is probably more behind the story for those studys and realize that to our consumers see things in black and white, (Cage free -good, gestation -bad). We also have to avoid from becoming discredited by admitting that welfare can always be improved upon, but it will come at a cost. This is not a struggle between meat eaters and vegans, and public education about modern egg and pork production will likely not help us.

What I took away from this lecture was that surprisingly eventhough people say that they care about farm animal welfare, very few are willing to back it up with their own hard earned dollar. What I also realized is that we are going to have to do the real fighting for agriculture legislatively. I asked Dr. Norwood if he expected for consumers to demand better welfare for livestock, interms if having a numerical value and rating system for how animals are raised would ever likely come into play? He did not act as though he foresaw a consumer demand for humane steaks, chops, and eggs, but we will have to be concerned about the misguided mindsets of voters.

So what do you think? I am not only considering vet school but also graduate school and I greatly care about these issues. Do you think there is going to be a need for Animal behaviorists in 15-20 years? I dont know, maybe no one knows ,but I do believe it is our duty to care.

God bless! And always remember to Keep Pork on Your Fork, make beef your meat, and make each day EGGcellent!