• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Ranchers.net

THE VOCAL POINT: They kill horses, do they? Not in this House, they won't.
by Dan Murphy on Friday, September 22, 2006
Perhaps you're aware that the U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill banning the production of horsemeat.

Perhaps not.

It isn't exactly a high-profile issue with most folks in the meat and poultry industry, who regard horse meat as yet another example of strange European culinary preferences, if they even bother to think about the impact of shutting down the three remaining U.S. packing plants that still process horses.

But the fact is that the House voted 263-146 to prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Actually, Congress voted to end the practice last year by removing funding for the salaries of FSIS inspectors assigned to the plants. But the plants began paying for inspections themsleves and continued operations.

With all the controversy and activity surrounding the war on terror, you'd presume Congress would have more important agenda items to consider. But for a politician, this bill is the proverbial spun gold: a law that addresses an "outrage" that horrifies voters (instances of inhumane treatment of horses during transport and slaughter), without the presence of any appreciable constituency that could protest the impact this ban would have on their businesses.

That's part of the reason for the margin of victory this bill enjoyed. The other, and more disturbing, piece of the explanation is the not-so-secret sentiments legislators were all too ready to share. Consider these comments:

Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y): "It is one of the most inhumane, brutal, shady practices going on in the U.S. today. It's different from [beef] because horses, such as Mr. Ed, Secretariat and Silver, are American icons."
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.): "The way a society treats its animals, particularly horses, speaks to the core values and morals of its citizens."
Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.): [Horses] are as close to human as any animal you can get."
And as always seems to be the case with animal activist campaigns, celebrities showed up — equipped with photos of horses with bloodied, lacerated faces — to lend their intellectual heft to the congressional debate. Actress Bo Derek was present for last week's vote, along with financier and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and country singer Willie Nelson.

Wait a minute. Willie Nelson? The entertainer who's made a second career as spokesman for hardscrabble, low-tech family farmers? Yes, ironic, isn't it?

Ask yourself: What's the opposite of factory farming? If there were a spectrum of agricultural operations, what's at the other end of modernized, high-yield crop and livestock production? Answer: the Amish. After all, their farms are family-owned, eco-friendly, organically run and sustainably positioned. Everything that Willie wants for all of American farming.

And what's the key to Amish farming? Horsepower.

But I guess Willie and friends would prefer that horses be excluded from the financial calculations even Amish farmers have to make, and allowed to live out their days in fresh green pastures and nice warm barns, with all the free hay (and veterinary care) they can handle, right up until the end.

The problem here, the reason meat industry folks need to engage on the issue of horsemeat, has a lot less to do with the product itself, which I'll admit I sampled — and found wanting — during the 1970s "beef boycott," if you can remember that ill-fated reaction to President Nixon's wage-and-price controls, and more to do with the big-picture perspective within which all of production agriculture must operate.

There are three compelling reasons why this bill is about much more than merely keeping a few admittedly marginal packing plants in operation, or stoking Euro-appetites for yet another culinary curiosity. If this becomes law, it would represent:
The redefinition of farm animals, sporting animals and work animals as anthropomorphic companions/pets, with all the quasi-legal "rights" presumed to have been bestowed on cats and dogs and other animals with whom we share our living space.
The resurrection of the "bad-actor/inhumane handling" argument levied against meatpackers for more than a century now. If abuses occur, then the solution is to shut down the industry, so this argument attempts to suggest.
The reality that passage of this law would be a huge step down that proverbial slippery slope activists want policymakers to travel, with the end point being the de facto (or de jure) outsourcing, if not outright elimination, of the business of raising and processing food animals.
Seeking some solutions

All right, now assuming industry leaders do engage on this issue, what is their message? What's the counterpoint to the rhetoric painting horsepacking plants as evil, inhumane and unnecessary?

For starters, let's put to rest the issue of inhumane handling of horses, either at the plant or during transport. There is no excuse for it, and no motivation — monetary or otherwise — to allow it to continue. But that doesn't support prohibition any more than the daily carnage that takes place on our nation's highways presumes that the solution is banning the automobile.

Stricter enforcement? In both cases? You bet.

But let's also talk about the alternatives to a humane death at a packing plant. For all the horses that are no longer wanted, needed or otherwise remaining in somebody's ownership, what should their fate be? How should they be dispatched?

On-site euthanizing? Then what? Getting hauled off to a pet food plant? Is that really all that different from a horse meat plant? Or to a rendering plant? I think we know the economics of that venture.

Or maybe just ship the carcass straight to the nearest landfill, right? But if you're going to argue that Mr. Ed deserves better than a one-way ticket to a packing plant, is a sanitary landfill really a nobler resting place?

(Speaking of animal nobility, did you know that most major zoos are big consumers of horse meat? It's fed to their resident populations of big cats and other carnivores. Reason? It's lower in fat than beef, and zoo residents don't get the kind of exercise they'd ordinarily be doing in the wild).

The key is that those who propose to ban horse meat production want to talk even less about the alternatives for all the ex-racehorses not sent to stud, show horses no longer competing or even the pseudo-pet horses that teenage girls outgrow when they go off to college. If it's wrong to humanely process these animals, then the first step has been taken toward a ban on processing any other food animals, as well.

Thus, if you have any ownership or management connection to a meat company, and I don't care if it's one of the big boys or a mom n' pop, you need to get involved. Banning horse meat isn't about someone else's livelihood. It's about your livelihood.

When Congress sees fit to decide that a farm animal and potential food source has assumed de facto status as companion, pet and movie star, it's a leap across a barrier once considered a lot more formidable than the equestrian fences all those equine athletes are so skilled at clearing.

Most importantly, contacting your senators does make a difference.

As one industry lobbyist whose organization testified against the House bill related, the congressional contact so far has been awfully one-sided. He said that one House member with whom he spoke said his office received more than 700 calls — virtually every one supporting the proposed ban on horsemeat.

"But were these all your constituents?" the lobbyist asked.

The congressman replied, "After the first three or four dozen, does it even matter?"

If you're part of the meat and poultry industries, it better matter.

Dan Murphy is a freelance writer and former editor of MMT magazine based in the Pacific Northwest . His column, THE VOCAL POINT, appears in this space each Friday.
Top