In a late August edition, Time magazine published an article that has conventional farmers and ranchers in a knot.
Entitled Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food, writer Bryan Walsh criticizes conventional livestock production, its feeding practices, manure management and use of antibiotics and growth hormones.
It further takes to task the U.S. livestock industry’s reliance on corn, the abundance of which relies on large amounts of fertilizer. Excess fertilizer runoff is blamed for vast dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.
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On the whole, the article is a scathing criticism of confined animal feeding operations and all that they entail.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Meat Institute and the Center for Consumer Freedom have pilloried the article for being one-sided and rife with errors.
The latter group published this statement: “No doubt about it: sustainable food purists are working overtime to earn their reputation as ignorant elitists. Walsh’s article is full of falsehoods and misinformation calculated to capitalize on fear and guilt.”
I’ve read the article – you can too, on-line at www.time.com – and I believe the above noted groups are right. It appears balance was not one of the author’s goals.
Among the most distressing elements of the piece, in my view, is its intimation that modern livestock production has no inkling or interest in agricultural sustainability or how to achieve it.
We know from our own reporting at the Producer that this is not true. Practically every livestock producer we interview has an eye to sustainability as well as environmental and livestock health. The same is likely true in the United States.
Perhaps Time will publish a subsequent article that explores the other side of the story, and the efforts modern agriculture is making to constantly improve. We’ll see.
In another aspect of journalism, I’m pleased to report that Western Producer journalists were the recipients of recent Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation awards, which were presented Sept. 12 in Edmonton.
Sean Pratt won gold in weekly press reporting for a special report on the fall and rise of Viterra.
Brian Cross won bronze in that same category for a special report on the shortage of farm labour.
News editor Terry Fries won bronze for an editorial about the Canadian Wheat Board, and photographer William DeKay won two gold awards; one in the news category and one in the feature category.
Let us hope that Time magazine doesn’t try to steal these talented people away.
