Fox News loves to point out media bias in mainstream reporting on politics in particular, but probably not when it comes to agriculture. Fox carried an AP story over the weekend about state bills seeking to make it more difficult for animal rights activists to go undercover at agricultural operations to get video of abuse and sometimes hold it for …
Veterinarians on Call Videos
Zoetis has created a series of YouTube videos with veterinarians to show the public how farmers of all sizes take care of their animals. In new YouTube videos released today, swine veterinarians Dr. Matthew Turner of North Carolina and Dr. Tara Donovan of Wisconsin join veterinarians and farmers from across the country in speaking out for responsible livestock farming by …
How Many Machines are on Your Farm?
Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “Should we sit down with HSUS in ‘common cause’?” The results of this poll are skewed due to the hacking by HSUS. In the end, the poll read that eighty one percent voted Definitely, fifteen percent said Never, and four percent thought we Should in some cases. The attempt to affect our poll reflects …
Poll Hijacking
The question of whether agriculture should sit down with groups like HSUS to find “common cause” is our poll question this week on AgWired.com and while the answers had at first been running well against such dialogue, the poll has now been “hijacked” by HSUS supporters voting in favor. Overnight last week, the poll received nearly 400 responses in the …
New Communications Director at Animal Ag Alliance
Animal Agriculture Alliance President and CEO Kay Johnson Smith announced the appointment of Emily Meredith as the Alliance’s new Director of Communications. Meredith, formerly of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, joins the Alliance after receiving her J.D., with a concentration in food and drug law, from Seton Hall University in Newark, New Jersey. As the Director of Communications, Meredith …
National Grange Releases Third e-Book
The National Grange just released their third e-Book. They’re using my e-book store of preference, the Kindle Store. On Oct. 12, the National Grange released “Notes and Quotes: On the Origin of the Ritual and Early Years of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry” as a Kindle download available through Amazon’s Kindle Store. The text, written by author C. Jerome …
Pork Slogan Target of HSUS Lawsuit
One of the most successful advertising slogans in the world of food is the target of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture filed on Monday by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The lawsuit charges that the National Pork Board “struck an unlawful backroom deal with a D.C. lobbying organization for the purchase of the iconic …
Organic Pig Farming
Here’s something you don’t see everyday. A group of agricultural journalists from many countries playing with some organic pigs. This is on the Asbergby Farm during the 2012 IFAJ Congress. We met Olle and Catharina Linder who are organic farmers raising pigs and cattle. You can see how they keep their pigs in the video. What do you think of …
USDA “Meatless Mondays” Uproar
An internal USDA Greening Update newsletter that promotes “Meatless Mondays” caused a bit of an uproar on Wednesday. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) sent out a news release linking to the newsletter and questioning USDA’s commitment to the livestock industry. The newsletter talked about various “greening” initiatives by the agency and suggested that “one simple way to reduce our …
Livestock Reports Not Sexy, Hard to Understand, and At Risk
For anyone who has ever done livestock market reports in the media, you know how complex and how intertwined they are. What happens in one market can greatly affect all of the others (including what goes on in the grain markets), and understanding these relationships is certainly not an easy task (doing markets for Chuck back during our days at …