One of the things I enjoy most about agriculture is the ability of farmers and ranchers to work together on projects large and small. At times we’re competitors, seeking a good deal at an auction or to rent land to expand. But we’re also neighbors and don’t hesitate to interrupt our work to help someone down the road, if asked.
These connections have served all of us well over the years, whether it be the informal request for help getting chores done or the grassroots advocacy through organizations like Kansas Farm Bureau that has helped adopt favorable legislation.
We also have to be honest that while our network runs deep between farmers and ranchers, we aren’t always in tune with those outside our fences. Whether they be individual food buyers at the local farmers market or corporations everyone would recognize in the aisles of the grocery store, it is essential we expand our network based on shared values to include everyone in the supply chain who moves food from farm gates to dinner plates.
Farmers and ranchers have faced and will continue to face challenges from people with extreme views about agriculture. These radicals are trying to turn one of our greatest strengths—the system that delivers food from farm to fork—into a weakness by attacking individual links in the chain.
They’re following the success of the Proposition 12 campaign in California, which substitutes the ideologies of activists for the knowledge of farmers for caring for livestock. The primary result of this law has been to raise the price of pork for all the state’s residents.
A similar situation is unfolding with our neighbors just east of the Rockies in Denver, where a purported animal welfare group is asking voters in November to ban “slaughterhouses” in the combined city-county metro. There’s only one meat processing facility in Denver—70-plus-year-old Superior Farms, which supplies sheep and lamb meat both locally and to grocers across the country.It would be easy for me to see Superior Farms as a competitor since I also raise sheep and sell their meat, too, but that’s not how I see it.
We are all in this together. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. This measure wouldn’t just put Superior Farms out of business. It would irreparably damage the country’s sheep industry by cratering prices paid to farmers and raising them for consumers. No doubt if the activists are successful in banning meat processing in Denver, they’ll soon set their sights on another target.
We can and we must prevent that from happening by growing our network from the peer-to-peer grid that’s already established into a trellis that extends up the supply chain. It is vital we recognize the values shared by those who grow, raise, prepare and market our nation’s food and let the broader public know our values are theirs as well.
The U.S. Agriculture Partnership Fund was created to provide public education and resources to ensure the U.S. food system remains safe, affordable and available. The ballot initiative in Denver will be its first chance to push back on an ideological assault on the system that delivers nutritious, high-quality and low-cost options to consumers.
There are two sides to the ballot in November. On one are activists who are seeking to disrupt up to $861 million in economic activity and put more than 150 workers out of their jobs. On the other are the farmers and ranchers who actually care for animals, the Superior employees taking pride in creating a product that’s in demand and consumers who enjoy the benefits of choosing what they eat.
I’m confident agriculture can succeed in Denver and beyond by leveraging and expanding its network through efforts like the USAPF to let food buyers know more about the value offered by agriculture’s abundance and contrast it with the prescriptive choices offered by activists. This is one of those times when neighbors help neighbors. If you’d like to learn more about the initiative in Denver, visit www.stopthebanprotectjobs.com.
Glenn Brunkow is a Pottawatomie County, Kansas, farmer and rancher. “Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.
