Defending production | Producers told to aggressively defend industry and practices against animal rights lobby
The livestock industry needs to go on the attack against animal rights activists and prosecute an “endless war” against them, says an American lawyer who specializes in attacking activists.
“Just commit that you’re going to play offence, put them on defence,” Rick Berman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer, told the Manitoba Pork Council annual meeting April 10.
“You may find yourself on the other side of this debate very quickly, and more importantly, that they’re on the other side.”
Berman is the bane of activists who attack industries such as food, alcohol, tobacco and agriculture. He has established a number of organizations that challenge the claims of activists and ridicule their motivations and methods.
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He has been involved in attacking the leading voices of the call to ban gestation stalls for sows, including the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and has gone after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Berman said Manitoba farmers should not abandon sow stalls, which he calls “individual maternity pens,” just because activists have managed to force minor pork users to make weak statements saying that in the future they will try to use pork not raised in stalls.
He said farmers need to fight back against activist organizations and “hold fast” to current production methods if they find them humane and efficient.
However, fighting back does not mean farmers defending themselves against activist claims, which Berman called just “playing defence.” Instead, he argued for aggressively attacking the people who are attacking farmers and farm production methods.
“You’re in a war. It’s an economic war,” said Berman.
“I’d like you guys to play offence and to budget for offence.”
He said activists are convincing some consumers that sow stalls are bad just by running ads and operating campaigns that represent them that way. Farming organizations tend to defend what they’re doing but don’t run counter-campaigns against the activists.
Berman said that allows activists to set the terms of the debate and build momentum.
He said the activists also attack food retailers that sell pork and have managed to intimidate some minor users.
However, they have failed to sway major retailers such as Walmart, and Berman thinks they will continue to fail. Most major U.S. hog producers are not willing to change to open housing, and the major retailers know they won’t be able to get affordable pork supplies if they insist on using meat that is raised only in open housing.
“These guys are saying: ‘We’re not changing.’”
He said some of the major producer-packer companies might have converted their own production, but they aren’t making other hog producers do the same thing. They are unable to do so because those companies produce only 15 percent of U.S. pigs.
“HSUS has a very tough hill to climb.”
He said farmers should fund attack campaigns that hit the activists where it hurts them most: their ability to raise money.
Berman said a campaign he took part in helped slash the public approval of PETA from 74 percent in 2004 to 47 percent in 2010. The same can be done with the humane society and similar organizations, such as Mercy For Animals, which conducts undercover video exposes like that used against a Puratone barn in Manitoba in 2012.
He said the general public could quickly turn against these activist groups if they are portrayed as vegan extremists that use money donated to them for negative purposes, such as paying for legions of lawyers to tie up the courts in litigation. Their fundraising ability collapses when this happens, he added.
“It’s a very simple equation: de-fund your enemy.”
Berman said campaigning against activists won’t be cheap or easy, but it’s part of the “endless war” in which animal agriculture is engaged.
