“Don’t Waste a Crisis — Your Patient’s or Your Own” M. F. Weiner Medical Economics, 1976.
Okay, so some of you will say Churchill said and some will say Rahm Emanuel is the proper attribution, but this one I could find and cite. Regardless of who said it first, we are in a crisis so are we wasting it? Extra time to do books instead of running to a social obligation, time to contemplate operation changes, estate planning, or financial moves if available, and you have less competition for your most precious commodity, time. Acknowledged, other demands, such as extra supervisors in the form of newly stay at home spouses or the kids on extended, early summer break are present, but you owe yourself to carve out a small block of time to reinvest in your operation.
If you don’t think enemies of production ag are using this event to further their own agenda, you are wrong. While milk is being dumped, hogs and poultry are being euthanized rather than harvested and fat steers are held off the truck, anti ag is hard at their own goals.
The easy things, like lobbying against aid packages for production ag and pushing plant-based foods only is to be expected. After all those organizations have deep war chests (Funded in part, by purposely confusing the public between local pet shelters and their national lobbying arms). But also, they are pushing on fronts that are not as watched by the public. For example, Chicago recently banned horse carriages without much public notice or outcry as we all remain affixed on acute economic strain. Protests are arranged at the harvest facilities; they engage producers on social media and are working hard to get “gotcha” footage of farm operations to create out of context images to incite the public.
These activities include trying to ban the use of animals on COVID related research, trying to plant the seed in op ed pieces that livestock and production ag is the root of the economic problems, and buying stock distressed companies in the fabric and food industry. PETA has purchased stock in Tyson, Sanderson Farms, Maple Leaf Foods, Oscar Meyer’s parent company Kraft Heinz, WH Group (owner of Smithfield) and Hormel Foods. Buying stock is a way to gain a foot hold on shareholders meetings and attempts to influence the board of directors and their polices. A new animal impact fund, with the former head of Human Society of the United States involvement, features publicly traded companies that support the anti-animal production agendas.
