Survey Says We Have to Do Better
Last week, I promoted a survey across my social media platforms with the mission to not only gain more insight into ways us agricultural communicators could provide valuable information to the public, but also collect intel into what animal agriculture enthusiasts and anti-animal agriculture activists think of each other.
Sadly, my survey link was only approved to be posted in one of my vegan Facebook groups — and even more sadly it was one of the more moderate groups where members eat plant-based foods and meats which they feel have been raised “humanely,” such as cattle being raised on an organic farm. This means most of the results were from animal agriculture enthusiasts, however, I will say the participants’ answers were not exactly what I’d predicted.
Below are some of the more “hard hitting” answers to a few of the questions from my survey. Some of these answers are not news to you or me, as we’ve known this all along. However, a handful of these answers were just downright shocking — specifically answers to the question: “Have you ever felt ‘attacked’ or ‘belittled’ by members of the opposing party? If so, how?”
I, personally, have been attacked and belittled by countless anti-animal agriculture activists. I’ve been called a liar, a fraud, a murderer (of animals), heartless, ignorant, and the worst one of all… slanderous. Which don’t get me wrong, I could see the murderer and heartless comments, I do in fact enjoy eating meat and if someone believes me to be a murderer and heartless for promoting the harvest of animals, then so be it. But slanderous? C’mon. Every time I state a fact or statistic, I always cite my source and that source is either a un-biased government funded organization OR a primary source, as in an actual eye-witness or expert, who has done their research and has the merits to prove their expertise — I digress.
I couldn’t believe how normal, everyday farmers, ranchers, and just plain ‘ol agriculture supporters were verbally berated with slurs and literal death threats. I’ve seen it on many other agvocate’s social media pages; I’ve seen it on many animal rights activist’s social media pages as well. But for a child who is simply exhibiting an animal at their local fair, or for a pig farmer who tends to themselves and rarely even shares details about their industry to the public to be yelled at, taunted, mocked, and threatened PUBLICALLY, was a major shock to me.
Below are some of the answers to my question about feeling attacked or belittled as an agriculturist:
Survey Question:
Have you ever felt "attacked" or "belittled" by members of the opposing party?
Survey Answer:
41.3% said no; 58.7% said yes.
Survey Question:
If so, how?
Survey Answers (for some of the people who answered “yes”):
“By animal activists: saying I’m a cruel person for eating an animal or keeping them confined. By animal agriculturalists: mocking my choice to cook/bake vegan options because it is different and usually commenting ‘gross.’”
“I used to work for the Oregon Cattleman’s [Association] and at one of our quarterly meetings, they [anti-animal agriculture activists] intentionally pretended to register and be ‘cattle folk,’ but busted into our meeting with signs, yelling at us about what we were doing was wrong, we’re murderers, etc. There was no reason for them to come in with poor intentions, in an attempt to vilify us in that way. They were disrespectful, we had to call the police. They had no intention to converse or learn, just attack our livelihood.”
“By being called a murdering hick with no heart and soul for the animal that they do rightly care for.”
“The list is long but the worst has been the [sexual assault] threats to my children via actual mail. But death threats on the regular.”
“Animal terrorists have harassed my social media posts when I post about my pride in farming and called me awful things because they don't understand some the practices on the farm and why they are so important. They just believe whatever they feel like.”
“I have been Facebook messaged to ‘go kill myself’ for a post about supporting U.S. ag, specially beef producers.”
“[By posting on] social media and [having] conversations where the opposing party tried to act like I didn’t know what I was talking about”
“Just by various posts I’ve seen on social media. It makes me feel like I’m fighting a pointless fight when you continually have to correct people and teach them what agriculture actually is and not what the media perceives it to be.”
Some of those comments were crazy, right? Frankly, they tick me off. However, getting fed up and griping won’t do me any good. So, I am choosing to look at this as a moment to learn something, make some changes, and hopefully inspire you to do the same.
You, the person reading this right now, know just as well as I do that agriculturists are not the bad guys here. Yeah, there’s always going to be a few bad apples, but for the most part we all just keep our heads down, do our jobs, and feed the world. However, because the end result of animal agriculture is death to the animal, we get a bad rep. Why? Because no one knows about the middle part of the animal life cycle.
No one knows that you cut grain through the night so your cattle have enough feed to brave the winter. No one knows that you get up early every morning to make sure your pigs have a clean pen to lounge in. No one knows that there are people out there who are actively trying to find a home for wild horses. No one knows that the chickens in your coop are actually fed, cared for, and have a comfortable place to rest.
No one knows about the way we live — so we have to tell them. Because when we do what we’ve been doing (twiddling our thumbs, complaining about vegans, and replying to their tweets with snarky comments just for a cheap like), we get nothing except a bad reputation.
I encourage everyone reading this column to advocate for agriculture every chance you get, because everyone wants to know where their food comes from, and everyone SHOULD know about the way we live.
