This exerpt from an article posted in reference to the Westland beef recall illustrates what our industry is up against. These people are not just a "few extremists," they are large, organized groups that are extremely well funded -- and are focused on stopping animal agriculture.
--------------------------------
The beef industry treats cows with extreme cruelty; both when they are alive and when they are about to be killed for processing. The horrors that cows must endure are atrocities against animals. And these individuals who have engaged in this extremely cruel behavior against cows are guilty of far more than minor violations of regulations regarding animal treatment, in my opinion: They are guilty of torturing living, breathing conscious beings. What these slaughterhouse workers do on a day-to-day basis is nothing less than an organized system of torturing, then murdering mammals for the purpose of earning money by selling their flesh. This is one reason, by the way, that eating beef makes people angry and violent. The violence is built right into the meat because the cow is killed in a state of extreme fear while experiencing extreme violence. These emotions get imprinted right into the beef, and when that beef is consumed by humans, those emotions are unleashed into their own tissues.
Read the entire article here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10359.cfm
If any of you think this article isn't worth doing something about, you are wrong.
The average consumer is at least three generations removed from production agriculture. Chances are they have never set foot on a farm. What they know about animal agriculture is what they see on TV, and that is seldom a positive image. Last week's beef recall video was worse than negative. It could be catastrophic.
We like to think consumers like beef enough not to believe all the worst-cases they see and hear about reflect the entire industry, but not all of them do. We had better believe that there were more than a few people who quit eating beef because of the video last week.
Young consumers are especially impressionable. We have to change the impression they get from the media and animal activists. And when the Humane Society of the United States (the organization that "broke" this story, not to be confused with your local humane society animal shelter) has $113 MILLION in assets, we have our work cut out for us. Our industry organizations need to formally join forces to make a consolodated effort at improving the image of animal agriculture.
Even though it's not in most cattlemen's personalities to be confrontational, this is one issue we can't afford not to be. Talk to your local cattlemen's assoc. representative, talk to your neighbor, talk to your friends, talk to your local papers, talk to strangers in the grocery store. GET TALKING! We have been silent long enough. We have taken the garbage for too long.
Resources: http://www.activistcash.com/index.cfm http://www.loostales.com/ http://www.facesofag.com/