Neverland: Where NCBA, USCA, and R-CALF Work Together

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success

takes care of itself.”

— Henry Ford

Last week, Kayla and I sat down and rummaged through old documents in order to nail down a timeline for this week’s Western Ag Reporter front page which is focused on the rocky relationship between cattle producers and meat packers.  We spent hours looking at 20+ year old newspaper clippings, conducting research online, and reading old books.  It took us about an hour to realize one fundamental truth: nothing has changed.

We chose to start our timeline in July 1988 when the controversy between the producers and packers really began.  Headlines of major agricultural news at this time included qualms about the Packers and Stockyards Act, antitrust laws, labeling, price reporting…the list could go on.  It was funny to me to see this, because in the past year that I’ve been at the Western Ag Reporter, all of these issues have been covered on our front page — frequently.  Like I said, nothing has changed.

Actually, I take that back, I have noticed one thing that’s changed: the amount of anti-ags attempting to take our industry down.  The rise of social media coupled with advances in our food system such as non-GMO labeling, the creation of fake meat products, and the fact that every other person you meet has a self-diagnosed gluten allergy all contributes to several rounds of ammo anti-ags continue to fire at agriculturists every single day.

I engulfed myself in extensive research about anti-ags a few years ago when I got the idea for Activists vs.  Agriculture. To me, it seems like the turning point for the anti-ag activists was in 1980 when Ingrid Newkirk formed People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).  If you look at a timeline of PETA’s success story, you’ll see that in 1990 the first sensational vegetarian commercial aired with the tagline “meat stinks.” Compare that to thirty years later when Burger King, a company who’s supposed to be our ally, airs a commercial insinuating raising beef is bad for the environment — and this “change of heart” from a company like Burger King is just one item on a long list of PETA’s success.

Don’t get me wrong, there were animal rights advocates and vegans with a vendetta against ranchers long before PETA’s birth — but PETA sure did help get the word out about the anti-ag agenda.  Much like what our agricultural industry organizations were formed to accomplish.

Out of the various cattle organizations in the U.S. — we’ll take the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, and R-CALF USA for example — each has a different mission statement, but their purposes can really be boiled down to one common goal: to help U.S. cattlemen and women.  With their willingness to create, support, and fight for numerous laws and regulations set in place to help the American rancher, no one can deny that each of these organizations has done just that.  However, why is it that we can’t tackle the big monster which effects every single person who owns bovine: a fair and competitive cattle market?

Answer: we can’t work together.

I’ll give it to PETA, I may not agree with a whole lot of what they say or do, but man are they good at their job.  They are the biggest voice in the animal rights movement (which at its core is an anti-ag movement) and they speak out for their people.  They don’t publicize issues they have with other anti-ags, in fact, they promote them.  PETA sticks to their guns and has seemingly realized that working together accomplishes more than not only attempting to fix a problem on their own, but praising and helping their competitors who share a common goal.

This reminds me of sports, specifically football.  Every little guy wants to be the guy dancing around in the endzone, but every little guy eventually realizes that those valuable victories can’t be accomplished without the work of 11+ other players working toward a win.  

The quarterback will get sacked if the offensive line lays down.  Touchdowns won’t be made if the running backs have no one blocking for them.  The other team will score more points if defense isn’t on their a-game.  It takes a team effort to win a football game — just like it takes a team effort to achieve packer reform which benefits cattle producers.  So, why can’t we all come together and get it done?

I’m sure the packers and the anti-ags are sitting back and laughing at just how easy it is for them to win.  I mean, look at us, we’re destroying ourselves ­— we can’t even get along with each other.  And what happens to a team when its star players can’t work together?  They lose, and they lose big time.  The only difference between the loss of a broken team of cattle producers and a broken team of football players is that when cattlemen lose, we don’t lose a football game, we lose money, our future, and a cherished lifestyle for generations to come.

We NEED to come together to patch the packer-producer relationship.  We NEED to come together and finish the fight started back in 1988.  We NEED to figure out a way to put our differences aside and work towards the greater good because in the end, we all want what’s best for cattlemen and women everywhere.

We absolutely NEED to come together because if we don’t, my grandkids will look at a timeline of the ag industry and realize what I did last week: nothing has changed, especially not for the better.