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NOTE: Dan Murphy, editor of Meat Marketing & Technology (MMT) Magazine,  will  be speaking at AR2002 during the Sunday evening plenary session. An  outline  of his presentation follows this article.

COMMENTARY: Why industry must embrace reform agenda on animal welfare
by Dan Murphy
6/28/02
www.meatingplace.com  

On the eve of the 2002 Animal Rights 2002 Conference set to s tar t  tomorrow  in Washington , D.C. , meatpackers and processors must once again brace  themselves for renewed "attention" on the issue of humane handling and  appropriate treatment of livestock and food animals.

That's because there are few things activists do more proficiently then  point a righteous finger of blame -- especially at big, bad Corporate  Amerika.

With more than 120 speakers from more than 40 different groups making  presentations, conducting workshops, running meetings and orchestrating  rap  sessions that are spread across the entire weekend, you can bet that  this  animal rights and veggie activist gathering will garner its share of  mainstream media coverage.

I'll have my own report on that conference next week, right here on the  Meatingplace.com, so we won't get into the impact of their little  festival  right now.

However, the timing of the Animals Rights Conference is not  insignificant,  because yesterday a companion initiative much more visible on the meat  industry's radar screen was released jointly by the Food Marketing  Institute  and the National Council of Chain Restaurants. The report, entitled,  "FMI-NCCR Animal Welfare Program," outlines the framework within which  all  livestock production facilities and meatpacking plants are supposed to  operate.

That seems pretty straightforward to me, but based on the secrecy with  which  this report is being shrouded, its actual title might as well have been  "The  Inside Story of WorldCom's $4 Billion Accounting Screw-up." Benign as  the  details of the document proved to be once it was made public, FMI  officials,  perhaps still stiff from the shellacking they recently endured on  national  television over the meat package re-dating scandal, refused to comment  further on its contents or its potential impact on producer industries.  Compared with their tight-lipped silence, the stony-faced Russian  generals  planning nuclear Armageddon in the current hit flick "The Sum of All  Fears"  looked like an inbred family getting paid by the epithet on "The Jerry  Springer Show."

Which makes no sense. FMI's reaction, that is, not Jerry's "guests."

I realize that calling attention to animal welfare issues implies  there's a  problem needing to be fixed, but even if the report concluded that  conditions are horrible on the nation's farms and in its meatpacking  plants  and that wholesale reform needs to s tar t like, yesterday, it would be  producers and packers on the hot seat -- not retail grocers or chain  restaurant operators.

So what does the report actually conclude? Basically, that conditions  for  most food animals are generally acceptable, although more could be done  to  ensure their comfort, safety and well-being. That won't be the  conclusion  animal rights groups and vegan crusaders come to, I assure you, but  after  reading the report myself and speaking with six of the seven members of  the  FMI-NCCR committee of expert advisers, it is evident that there are  really  only two significant "problem" areas in animal agriculture: egg  production  and pork production. And in both cases, it's more a matter of  addressing  specific practices, rather than re-vamping the entire process.

Neither industry would be too happy about having the issue stated that  bluntly, but let's examine each area briefly.

In the egg industry, there is an emerging consensus among poultry  scientists, activists and a growing percentage of consumers that forced  molting by way of feed withdrawal needs to be phased out. Nobody denies  that  such a regimen results in hens laying larger, stronger-shelled eggs,  but the  obvious impact of a s tar vation "diet" is far from humane.

Research funded by the trade group United Egg Producers is underway at  several universities, with the goal of figuring out a way to achieve a  similar "action-reaction" pattern without having to withhold feed.

Similarly, industry experts are seeking ways to obviate the need to  trim  hens' beaks as a deterrent to the often violent pecking that occurs in  the  close quarters of an egg house. Again, this is something that will have  to  be eliminated -- not "managed."

The FMI-NCCR guidelines call for "beak trimming only when necessary and  only  when carried out by trained personnel monitored regularly for quality  control."

That's about as do-able as the assurances from the Federal Aviation  Administration that "passenger safety will be assured by maintaining  rigorous training of all airport security personnel at key  checkpoints."

Let's hope some poultry scientist somewhere figures out how to breed  beakless chickens sometime soon, because that's the only way to solve  the  beak-trimming problem.

The other criterion at issue for both egg and pork producers involves  space:  How much and in what configuration is acceptable enough to be labeled  "humane." For egg producers, a phased-in timetable is already in place  to  gradually increase per-bird space to anywhere from 67 to 76 square  inches  depending on the size of the breed.

There will always be pressure on egg producers (few of whom are getting  rich  doing difficult, demanding work, I should point out) to provide more  space,  more freedom, more ventilation -- more of everything. But if producers  stick  to these guidelines, eventually only the most rabid, fanatical critics  of  the industry will keep squawking.

In pork, the space issue arises in breeding facilities. Sows are  actually  more comfortable in a relatively confined space during gestation and  nursing. I said "relatively." As the guidelines suggest, that doesn't  mean  they should be squashed up against the bars of their stalls, nor be  unable  to stand up and turn around.

Of course, industry critics love to paint the entire concept of  confinement  itself as cruel and unusual punishment, conveniently forgetting that  even  so-called "pasture pigs" who are raised outdoors are provided snug  little  huts in which the sows spend most of their time prior to delivering  their  litters. To the more radical activists, keeping an animal in  confinement  period is universally characterized as inhumane.

In fact, I have to give the activist community credit for an extremely  clever strategic initiative: They have managed to position the debate  over  animal welfare in the context of how the average household pet is  typically  treated. When the debate over what's appropriate for animals is framed  in  terms of the "lifestyle" enjoyed by Fluffy and Fido, meat or egg  producers  s tar t looking like Nazis by comparison.

The real comparison, however, is between the living conditions of a  farm  animal and those of a wild animal. If activists really want animals to  enjoy  a "natural" lifestyle, they need to accept that in any herd or flock,  thousands will die a cruel, painful death from s tar vation, disease or  predators every single year.

Probably the most graphic example of such a scenario occurred in the 

1970s  and 1980s, with the wild horses in Oregon , Nevada and a couple other  Western  states. Few images are more romantic than a herd of horses "running  free,"  whether it's on a cheap drug-store poster or whether it consumes a  couple  hours of soft-focus footage in some Robert Redford-directed homage to a  lifestyle that increasingly only people in his tax bracket can afford  to  enjoy.

Problem is, the wild herds soon began multiplying out of control, since  they  were federally protected and had no significant predators to thin out  their  numbers.

No problem. Nature took care of the overpopulation in short order, with  dozens of skeletal horses literally collapsing from s tar vation and many  more  dying from diseases, while the rest of the herd did serious damage to  streambeds and riparian areas during their relentless migration in  search of  forage. Eventually, rangers from the Bureau of Land Management had to  use  helicopters and Jeeps to drive the horses into makeshift stalls, where  they  were "tamed" and auctioned off to private citizens wanting to adopt  them.

I don't think I need to remind anyone who followed the whole debacle  that a  significant percentage of the people who took possession of the horses  ended  up selling them (some to slaughterers), giving them away or simply  keeping  them corralled until they died, unable to adapt to captivity.

But I digress. The point is that in contrast to wild animals, livestock  are  kept warm, dry, well-fed, properly medicated and protected throughout  their  lives. Are they better off than animals who must hunt and forage and  fight  for survival? I don't have the answer, but I know that's the question.

Finally, there is one more compelling reason why every company and  trade  group in the meat and animal foods business needs to take seriously the  issues raised in the FMI-NCCR report. Ultimately, the goal of this  project  is to develop standardized guidelines for humane handling and welfare  across  all of animal production. That's a monumental task, but it's crucial in  that  the alternative would be a whole series of specialized protocols and  policies, each developed by a grocery chain or fast food company  specifically for their own packer-producer/suppliers. That would be a  nightmare that would cause far more problems than it solved.

Eventually, a private organization will probably need be created under  government auspices to contract the on-site auditing and compliance  that  will be the heart of the final guidelines envisioned by the FMI-NCCR  committee.

But until that day arrives, the message every organization in this  industry  needs to trumpet is clear: We care about our animals. We've made real  progress on humane handling issues, but we're not going to stop  improving  conditions wherever it can be supported by solid scientific research.

Because s tar ting this weekend, a whole chorus of critics is warming up  to  drown out whatever spin industry might be tempted use to avoid dealing  with  the animal welfare challenges it must overcome.

Outline of Dan Murphy's presentation to Animal Rights Conference 2002:   June 30, 2002 :

Brief historical review of meat eating and livestock production.

Brief review and analysis of changes in industry operations and  structure,  including:

* Consolidation, as bigger packers acquire smaller companies

* Food safety, as new antimicrobial technologies come online

* Newfound attention to foodservice, retail customer concerns

Top three areas where packers must improve:

*Animal handling and animal welfare, including specific issues in the  areas  of confinement housing, transportation, feedlot and packing plant  receiving,  handling and stunning.

*Food safety, especially in dealing with microbial contamination in  live  animals and fresh meat products.

*Labor issues, especially in terms of working conditions, worker  safety, and  race- and ethnic-related concerns

How the animal rights, animal activist movement can help fast-forward  the  above agenda.