A3ttamMtar> Farmlng, »Saturday r ftUy> 14, J 334
Producers Must Deal With An Increasingly Anti-Agriculture World
Editor’s note: Following is
part 2 of the coverage of last
week’s American Registry of
Professional Animal Scientists
Mini-Symposium.
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
COLLEGE PARK. Md.
Before the turn of the century, the
controversy grew. Should animals
be used for food and research?
But it wasn’t this century. Actu
ally, it was in the late 1800 s that
scientists, politicians, clergy,
newspaper editors, and much of
the general leadership debated the
“hot” ispue of animal rights/
animal welfare.
As the saying goes, the more things
change ... and only now, after other events
(including two world wars) took center stage
before mid-century have the issues (never
resolved satisfactorally before) taken on new
meaning.
The controversies occur in SO-year cycles,
according to Dr. Lonnie J. King, acting admi
nistrator of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS). King was a fea
tured speaker last week at the American Regi
stry of Professional Animal Scientists
(ARPAS) Mini-Symposium.
* Tt is not clear today whether this issue will
again start to fade away at the end of this
SO-year cycle or will its new intellectual
underpinnings sustain it for a longer period of
time,” said King.
“The issues and arguments, intersting
enough, put forward in the 19th century, with
one exception, are exactly the same ones that
we deal with today, and they still largely
remain unresolved,” said King.
The one exception—using animals less for
research because of the public’s conception of
alleged animal pain and suffering has
taken hold in a big way. As a result, bowing to
the pressure, animal testing for commercial
products is decreasing. “It’s probably
decreased about SO percent over the last two
decades,” he said.
Animal research to test new products and
new techniques will continue to remain a
* ‘hotbed of contention” with increasing pres
sure on animal science. Unfortunately, pro
ducers who raise animals for food may have to
face the same pressures.
“It’s something for
you to look forward to,”
King warned the agri
industry agencies and
representatives present
at the meeting.
A large part of
APHIS’S budget (28
percent, according to
King) is spent on
surveillance and moni
toring for outbreaks ol
potential animal agri
culture and infectious
animal diseases.
The role of APHIS it
evolving to meet at
increasing world popu
lation and the changing
perceptions and
demands of consumers,
who reign supreme, said
King. But increasingly,
food animal agriculture
is exceedingly vulner
able to public fluctua
tions and consequent
demands, with a percep
tion that becomes
increasingly anti
agriculture.
But APHIS will
monitor the pressures
and work to counteract
controversies before
they get out of hand,
according to the admini
strator. APHIS is taking
a more “ad hoc”
approach, which works
on the solutions needed
by producers and pro
viders rather than act-
ing, as in the past, like a pigeonhol
ing and boxed-in bureaucracy.
“At APHIS, we’re engaged in
strategically brokering—problem
identification with problem sol
ving,” said King. “In the past,
we’ve been brokers, through reg
ulation. More and more, we’re
going to be brokers through
facilitation.”
More and more, APHIS is help
ing the public and working with
producers to ensure that the adop
tion of new agriculture science,
including biotechnology, is done
smoothly.
“Carl Sagan staled, *We live in
a society exquisitely dependent on
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science and technology, in which
hardly anyone knows anything
about science and technology,”’
said King. The next great ag revo
lution, biotechnology, is on the
horizon, and agriculture must
adopt a new strategy as it relates to
the public.
“I hear from producers that
they’re involved in producing
food, not producing animals,” he
said. The strategy at APHIS is to
help producers adopt the Idas of
accountability and responsibility
of products after they leave the
farm, or point of production, to
help rebuild and sustain public
confidence from the farm “all the
way to the table,” said King.
Even though APHIS and other
ag agencies are trying to change
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according to consumer demand, it
makes it all difficult because of die
“vacillating,” or easily change
able needs of consumers, accord
ing to Dr. Bradford W. Berry,
research food technologist with
USDA’s Agriculture Research
Service (ARS).
Berry spoke about the research
undertaken by ARS on the new
lean meats and how consumers are
reacting to that research.
Berry mentioned one study,
undertaken by The Roper Organi
zation through the auspices of the
American Meat Institute, in 1992,
on low fat When asked the ques
tion, What is low fat?, 59 percent
of those polled didn’t give an
answer. Of the 41 percent who
responded, answers varied from 2
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percent, to 10, and in some cases,
SO percent The median and most
frequently cited answer was 10
percent
Also, of a study from Prevention
Magazine in 1993, 58 percent of
the adults surveyed said that are
trying to avoid high-fat foods.
But according to Beny, what
they say they are going to do and
what they actually do is complete
ly different
While people indicate they are
going to cut down on fatty food,
this "vacillating” behavior finds
them eating, at times, "comfort
foods,” to make up, every once in
a while, on what they cut back on.
But the trend continues to be for
more and more consumer accep
(Turn to Pag* A 35)
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