Josh Balk of HSUS at the Friedman School April 24

Josh Balk, director of corporate policy for the farm animal protection campaign of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), will speak at the Friedman School, tomorrow, Wednesday, April 24, at 12:15 pm, in the Behrakis Auditorium of the Jaharis Building on Tufts University's Boston Campus.

The abstract says:

His seminar will offer an exceptional opportunity to discuss the controversial strategies and tactics used by HSUS, addressing the vexing issue of animal welfare in a meat-eating society.

You may register to see a live stream of this presentation.

I will introduce the event and moderate a conversation afterwards.

I have been especially interested in the work of HSUS in recent years, following the organization's successful negotiation with leading egg industry associations about egg production practices and labeling.  You can read an impartial and even-handed summary of that agreement (.pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

The Humane Society is one of the few major public interest organizations that shares my curiosity about the semi-governmental National Pork Board's questionable $60 million purchase of the "Other White Meat" brand from a leading pork industry trade association.

Wayne Pacelle and Chuck Jolley discuss pork checkoff

Veteran food industry journalist Chuck Jolley recently discussed the pork checkoff program with Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).  Jolley asked Pacelle if the recent HSUS lawsuit against the pork checkoff program was "legal shenanigans" or a substantial case.  Pacelle's response noted some recent reporting on the U.S. Food Policy blog.

Warner left no doubts about the NPPC position. Let me ask the question posed in my column directly to you: “Does HSUS have a case against the National Pork Board or are they just engaging in some legal shenanigans in order to force NPB to the bargaining table?”

A: You can read our complaints. We have (hard evidence) that the Pork Board used check-off funds to participate in NPPC lobbying events. NPPC says the charges are baseless, yet it quickly acted to remove evidence of the Board’s high-donor “Partner” status in its Alliance lobbying program. Within days of the HSUS complaint, the U.S. Food Policy blog reported that the Pork Board had been (removed) from the Alliance website.

HSUS and pork farmers also filed a (complaint) over the $60 million pay-out from the Pork Board to the NPPC for the use of the ‘Pork: The Other White Meat’ slogan. NPPC used $500 million from the checkoff to make the slogan successful, so producers should not have to pay again for it, especially in light of the slogan being put to bed.

Chipotle advertisement

Willie Nelson covers an eloquent Coldplay song in this new advertisement from Chipotle. 

The animation makes us hunger for a simpler time when farms were small and animals were free to go wherever they chose, without fences, before there were assembly lines and food was transported in tractor trailers on highways.

What year was that exactly?  I'm not quite sure.  But whenever it was, I want the time machine to that year.

Yet, I can see for myself that Chipotle makes its burritos on an assembly line right in front of the customer. Chipotle's "Food with Integrity" position on animal production is quite good, but surely the meat comes from very large farms with thousands of animals.  I know Chipotle food reaches the restaurant in tractor trailers on highways.  Perhaps the imagery overreaches what a fast-food restaurant can be expected to achieve.

The song makes me want to go to my town's farmers market, which is open on Wednesdays.  I will still eat at Chipotle, sometimes, but I know what I'm buying.

The irony of Oprah's KFC coupon nightmare

The quick-serve restaurant industry publication QSR reports that KFC's coupon promotion for grilled chicken, featuring Oprah Winfrey, has been a public relations "nightmare."

Why a nightmare?

Was it the blistering criticism from Paula Crossfield at Civil Eats?

If she would have taken the time to think about all this, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she would see that encouraging these practices is not in line with the Eckhardt Tolle, Live Your Best Life, “We will all be judged on how we treat the least among us” persona she sells on her popular television show. Individual choices do matter, especially the choices of those with enough money to buy every person in the United States two pieces of chicken.

Was it the pointed contrast noted at Ethicurean between Oprah's KFC promotion and her earlier reporting on production practices (as described by Eating Liberally)?

Naw. The restaurant executives and QSR reporters never noticed those commentaries.

The "nightmare" in the QSR headline is the overwhelming demand for chicken from the coupon-wielding masses, causing what Gawker describes as near-riot conditions in some store locations.

Animal cruelty in egg production

Civil Eats has good coverage of the latest in a series of undercover video reports from animal rights groups about animal cruelty at production facilities. In this case, commercial egg production.

To me, the interesting thing is not just the images of cruelty. You can probably imagine that even without seeing the video. The more interesting question from a policy perspective is whether the video investigator can convince a skeptical viewer that the images are routine rather than exceptional. In this case, to my eye, the video is completely and successfully damning. The body language and tone of voice of the workers in the video say clearly, "this is all routine." This factory may be an unusually bad factory, but it is hard to believe the cruelty on camera is atypical in that factory.

Short of government regulation, one of the best ways to enforce humane treatment standards is through self-regulation and third-party monitoring. In that light, isn't this response in a pro-industry editorial in Dairy Herd Management foolish to emphasize that the factory in question had been certified as compliant by the egg industry's monitoring organization? If I were a food industry writer trying to stave off regulation, I certainly would not have emphasized that failure of self-regulation in this case!

The editorial is titled, "Secret Video Footage: Can You Protect Yourself?" The implication is that typical factories -- not just exceptionally cruel factories -- need to keep the public from understanding where its food comes from. If you were trying to stave off regulation, by implementing meaningful private-sector monitoring, is that the line of argument you would take?

No, these people themselves believe they have an awful thing to hide, and they want to hide it well.

Update: Okay, a comment points out that the editorial was not all bad, and I neglected the good parts because I suspected it of cynicism -- coded language where the talk about protecting animal welfare had a nudge and a wink. To give the full tenor, the editorial advises: "Maintain an employee handbook that strictly prohibits cruelty to animals, and enforce the rule on a “zero tolerance” basis."

USDA releases 'naturally raised' marketing claim standard

The USDA Agriculture Marketing Services has issued a voluntary standard for 'naturally raised' livestock and meat marketing claims.

Naturally raised, often used as a marketing tool to attract consumers concerned about animal welfare, has up until now not had a official definition.

The new standard states that livestock used for the production of meat and meat products have:

1. been raised entirely without growth promotants, antibiotics (except for ionophores used as coccidiostats for parasite control)

2. have never been fed animal by-products

The voluntary standard will establish the minimum requirements for those producers who choose to operate a USDA-verified program involving a naturally raised claim. USDA analyzed over 44,000 comments from producers, processors, consumers, and other interested parties in the development of this standard.

Many are concerned that:

a) the standards aren't stringent enough on what it means to 'naturally raise' an animal. Under this ruling, animals raised in CAFO's (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) can still be tagged natural.

b) the new label will undercut the USDA Organic certification and/or farmers pushing to establish sustainable raised meat.

The Consumers Union and Food and Water Watch say the new standards sanction un-natural practices.

"This regulation will allow an animal that has come from a cloned or genetically engineered stock, was physically altered, raised in confinement without ever seeing the light of day or green of pasture, in poor hygiene conditions with a diet laced in pesticides to be labeled as ‘naturally raised.’ This falls significantly short of consumer expectations and only adds to the roster of misleading label claims approved by USDA for so-called natural meat," said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst at Consumers Union.

"These last minute rules for the 'naturally-raised' label on meat practically invite agribusiness to greenwash their products and rip off consumers" stated Patty Lovera, assistant director for consumer group Food & Water Watch. "Until these standards are revised, consumers will have to navigate another set of misleading labels at the grocery store."

USDA said it received more that 44,000 comments about the rule, while Consumers Union and FWW generated more than 36,000 signatures stating that the USDA's proposed standards for "naturally raised" were flawed, would only confuse consumers and should be withdrawn.

A national telephone poll conducted by Consumer Reports’ National Research Center released in November 2008 showed American consumers want the “naturally raised” meat claim to mean more than USDA's proposed standard, including that it came from an animal that:

• Had a diet free of chemicals, drugs and animal byproducts (86%)

• Was raised in a natural environment (85%)

• Ate a natural diet (85%)

• Was not cloned or genetically engineered (78%)

• Had access to the outdoors (77%)

• Was treated humanely (76%)

• Was not confined (68%)