04/05/07 Beef Industry Responds

Beef Industry Responds. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. By now, ardent followers of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck have heard that he is aligning himself with the Humane Society of America to promote the humane treatment of animals. Puck has announced that he will ban pate de foie gras from all his menus. Foie gras is the fatty liver of force-fed ducks. He has taken a stance against many farming practices. PUCK: And I think our slaughterhouses, our farms have become factories with no standards. But many ag industry officials have denounced Puck's statements as bowing to pressure from activists and many feel that Puck is also uninformed. Laura Wilder, Executive Director of the Idaho Beef Council feels the beef industry needs to respond. WILDER: What is important to reinforce to consumers is  and I'm speaking on behalf of beef production  that all beef is safe wholesome and nutritious and that we in animal agriculture need to speak up and be heard and tell the animal production story and all the positive things that are going on in our industry and not let anti-animal agriculture activists try to tell our story for us. Wilder is adamant that the cattle industry is holding itself up to a standard. WILDER: The truth is America's cattle producers work hard everyday to take care of animals and the land because it's the right thing to do and it makes good business sense and animals are well cared for and there's no reason for consumers to have any doubts about that. The problem herein lies that Wolfgang Puck is internationally known and has the ear of a worldwide audience. WILDER: You know this really enforces the fact that we have a very small minority of people in this country that are very vocal against animal agriculture and those of us in the industry that understand that best practices and science based practices are used at every level and we need to not let these people try to tell our story and influence consumers when they don't have the best interest of our industry at heart. Wilder believes that people have a lot of misconceptions about the ag industry. WILDER: I think people don't know very much about it and they hear words like factory farming and they don't understand that there are generations of families caring for animals and they just don't understand because they're so far removed from the industry. They don't have any concept of how food is really produced. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.