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HSUS’ ‘anti-meat’ rhetoric continues to stir strong emotions
Nebraska rancher Kevin Fulton discusses formation of the HSUS national ag advisory council at a news conference in Lincoln. He was joined by HSUS director of rural outreach Marty Irby and Nebraska state director for HSUS Jocelyn Nickerson.
The chairman of the newly-formed Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) National Agriculture Advisory Council, Nebraska rancher Kevin Fulton, says the group is not out to eliminate animal agriculture.
“That is something that has been propagated by the opposition to demonize us, because they cannot defend the (inhumane) practices,” Fulton says.
AUDIO: Kevin Fulton
But Ansley Mick, executive director of We Support Agriculture, a coalition of Nebraska ag groups formed to combat HSUS inititatives, disagrees. She points to statements on the HSUS web site that encourage consumers to “reduce and replace” meat and other animal-based foods in their diets with plant-based foods.
Mick says another irritant for many livestock producers is frequent use of the term “factory farming” by HSUS officials and other animal rights activists.
“Most of the people using the term ‘factory farm’ have never even been on a farm. They’ve never seen a hog barn, they’ve never seen a feedlot, they’ve never been on a dairy,” Mick says. “They don’t see people working 24 hours a day in all kinds of weather—especially in Nebraska, where it can be 85 today and snowing tomorrow—and they have to handle their animals, they have to care for them. They’re not productive if they’re not.”
AUDIO: Ansley Mick
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