Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/6835
4A – Daily News – Saturday, February 13, 2010 Call For Free Information Toll-Free (800) 464-1403 or (530) 365-1403 6183 MEISTER WAY ANDERSON, CA 96007 (530) 365-1403 (800) 464-1403 LIC #808524 Red Bluff Garden Center 766 Antelope Blvd. (next to the fairgrounds) 527-0886 Free Class Feb., 27 @ 10am Gearing up your yard for What you can be doing now in your yard and what you can be expecting in the coming months Please call to reserve a seat BABY CHICKS have arrived Reynolds Ranch & Farm Supply 501 Madison St., Red Bluff 527-1622 Agriculture farm&ranch The trickery of animal welfare groups We arrived in San Anto- nio on Monday, and like many other cattlemen and women, we paid our respects to The Alamo on a sunny warm afternoon. Docents did a great job telling the story of the brave men, both inside and out doors. I attended the American National CattleWomen Animal Welfare Committee and very glad I did. When I returned home I was shocked to see ads on our local Redding TV station for HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) where "for only $ 19 a month you can help save the animals." Cattlemen and Cattle- Women alike need to realize the seriousness of this mat- ter. HSUS wants to get rid of animal agriculture and the goal of ANCW's Ani- mal Welfare Committee is to assist the animal industry in responding to animal rights activists and become pro-active in spreading fac- tual information about the care our animals do receive. The majority of con- sumers like meat and want to eat meat, but fear it is becoming politically incor- rect to do so. We need to give them permission to eat meat. And let them know they are not doing wrong by consuming our healthy and humanely-treat- ed product. Only a very small percentage of the public are animal activists. No matter what we say or do, they will likely not change their views. What is best is that we ignore them and focus our efforts elsewhere, as confronting them it is a no-win sit- uation. What we need to do is show the public how we care for animals. We need to be completely transparent in how we produce and care for our product by showing consumers the cow-calf production stage, stocker operations, the feedlot phase and even the harvest or slaughter process. How do we give the rest of the public confidence that eating animal protein is right? They need to see it all, understand that from conception to their dinner plate we give these animals the utmost care and com- passion. Food safety is not an option but a standard that we set higher than any- where else in the world. Yes, we grow beef to har- vest for food consumption — and we do it better, safer and more humanely than anywhere in the world. The problem is the ani- mal activist companies have turned meat production into an emotional issue - never mind sound science. They have humanized all animals. So some consumers believe eating meat is like eat- ing your pet. Most Ameri- cans are two to four generations removed from the farm — the only way the public can relate to ani- mals is through their pets — not the cattle and pigs that were raised to be eaten on their great-grandfather's farm. They truly think steaks come from the back room of the grocery store. Update on the Animal Welfare Committee. The committee has orga- nized into a committee that includes state team mem- bers. The committee will meet at annual and summer conferences. The state team members do not need to attend the national meetings but should attend their regional meetings. It is the state team members' job to implement the committee's activity at the state level and be the local liaison for their state schools participating in the College Aggies Online Program. College Aggies Online is a joint venture of the Ani- mal Agriculture Alliance, Arlington, Va., and Ameri- can National CattleWomen, Inc., Englewood, Colo., that connects college students from across the country who are interested in pro- moting agriculture. Partici- pants receive training and instructions from industry professionals and enjoy access to a private forum to post information about cur- rent and emerging issues facing farmers and ranch- ers. As of Jan. 15, over 300 college students are partici- pating in the College Aggies Online Program in over colleges and universi- ties. Fewer than 10 teachers have been adopted to date. It is educational programs like these that must be partici- pated in inorder to help our consumers understand fact from fiction. The strong front we are up against is significant in financial stature. HSUS has full -time state directors in more than 30 states. They are a 401(c)4 non-profit cor- poration which allows it to lobby and campaign under the banner of social welfare. The Center for Con- sumer Freedom shared numbers from HSUS's 2008 Tax Return. Just to show what we are up against, HSUS had an income of $86,727,035 with net assets in 2008 totalling $162,217, 144. What is even more telling about their goals are their 2008 expenditures: They spent almost $20 mil- lion on campaigns, legisla- tion and litigation; more than $ 24 million on fundraising; over $30.9 mil- lion in salaries, wages and other employee compensa- tion; and less than $500,000 — that's just one-half of 1 percent of its total budget — in grants to organizations providing hands-on care to dogs and cats, which is where most donors proba- bly believe their donations are going. By agriculturists work- ing together to protect and promote the beef industry, we can conquer even the largest and strongest groups. For more informa- tion on ANCW's Animal Welfare Committee or the Aggies Online Program, visit www.ancw.org. Recently Yellow Tail Wine of Australia pledged $100,000 to HSUS, the nation's largest anti-hunting organization. Alerted to this relationship, the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance (USSA) immediately con- tacted the American distrib- utor of the wine, and urged them to ask Yellow Tail to sever its relationship with HSUS. "This winemaker has fallen into the same trap as other companies who donate money to HSUS," said Bud Pidgeon, president of the USSA. "They believe they are helping animals in shelter when in fact they are funding an agenda from an animal rights group that is largely divergent from the vast majority of Ameri- cans." Jolley wrote on Cat- tlenetwork: Feb. 6, "Well, the whole thing went viral in a way they never expect- ed. The ag community, long a target of HSUS, was immediately up in arms. Good red wines, after all, are best enjoyed with a good steak, not a marinated and grilled piece of tofu. Hundreds of people in the ag community or closely affiliated with it, went to Yellow Tail's Facebook page and becoming fans of the company. They became fans, not to pat them on the back but to kick them a little lower down their anatomy. Within 24 hours hundreds of people had used their fan status to ask YT what the hell they were thinking. I spent an hour browsing through the comments. They have two Facebook pages, by the way, with 2,442 people on one and 1,657 on the other." If you want to help the animals, please donate to our local animal rescue or humane societies. Jean Barton can be reached at jbarton@theskybeam.com. Courtesy photo California CattleWomen President Melanie Fowle and her husband Ken, in front of The Alamo. Jean Barton Lawmakers help food stamps get to farmers markets SACRAMENTO (AP) — Tina Tennyson loved to make raspberry jam using the fresh fruit she bought at the farmers market in San Jose. When she recently moved to Sacramento, she hit a stumbling block: the local market didn't accept food stamps. Like most farmers markets across the state, the one held Sundays in the state capital only accepts cash. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would help the markets get equipment to accept electronic food stamp benefits cards — joining legislatures nationwide consider- ing similar measures they hope will expand the menu of fresh food options for the poor as food stamp enrollment soars. ''Everything in the supermarket is expensive, and a lot of their fruit and stuff is not ripe,'' said Tennyson, a 39- year-old grandmother who feeds a family of three on $300 a month. She called California's bill ''a good idea.'' The supermarket checkout counter-style card readers operate like those used for bank debit cards, except the cards cannot be used to get cash. Only about 15 percent of the 640 markets in the state have the capability. State Assemblyman Juan Arambula said he introduced the bill to help poor people gain more access to fresh fruits and vegetables because poverty and unhealthy lifestyles lead to obesity and diabetes. Unemployment soars above 30 percent in some communities in Arambula's Central Valley district. ''You have poor people who work out in the field and make very little money, and they can't afford to buy nutri- tious food for their families,'' said Arambula, an indepen- dent from Fresno. The need is growing amid the struggling economy, and persistent joblessness. Enrollment in the federal food stamp program grew by 43 percent in California from October 2007 until October 2009, according to the nonprofit California Budget Project. By comparison, the group says enrollment grew by 6 per- cent over the same period from 2001-2003, the last signif- icant economic downturn. Ballooning food stamp programs also have prompted lawmakers in Indiana, Texas, Vermont and other states to propose laws that would make it easier for farmers markets to get and use the machines, said Douglas Shinkle, policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures. ''This has definitely been a popular issue,'' said Shinkle, who is working with a lawmaker on drafting a similar pro- posal in Illinois. Most farmers markets in California are cash-only oper- ations and are set up in fields or parking lots that lack elec- tricity. To accept the cards, the markets have to get approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and obtain a read- er. Wireless devices can be used, but they cost about $1,000. ''They just don't have the money and personnel to do it. They're just too tight on their budgets right now,'' said Dan Bass, general counsel for the California Federation of Cer- tified Farmers Markets, which promotes and lobbies for 140 markets. Bass originally opposed the bill, which would have required the markets to accept the cards, but then worked with Arambula to make it more acceptable to farmers: the requirement was dropped, in favor of encouraging third parties to set up the machines for the markets or in some cases run them.