Animal agriculture takes on the Humane Society

The animal-agriculture industry is escalating its efforts agaunst the Humane Society of the United States. "The Humane Society is pushing ahead, state by state, for laws against such things as 'puppy mills' and intensive confinement of animals in factory farms," Matt Campbell of the Kansas City Star reports, while the agriculture industry argues "unnecessary rules" advocated by the Humane Society will "will drive up prices, cause food shortages and force farmers out of business."

"Ultimately, the Humane Society wants to make it more difficult to produce livestock on the scale that this country requires to meet demand," Don Lipton, a spokesman for the American Farm Bureau Federation, told Campbell. The Humane Society, which calls itself a mainstream voice with a mission "to celebrate animals and confront cruelty," has 11 million supporters who contributed nearly $87 million in 2008. One of the organization's favorite strategies is buying stock in publicly held corporations so that it can introduce shareholder resolutions for more humane animal treatment. The group has won recent victories with announcements from companies like Wendy's, Sonic Corp. and Subway that they will start to buy cage-free eggs.

Livestock-industry officials say that no farmer who wants to be profitable would willingly harm his animals, and that caging chickens and keeping sows in crates — two policies which the Humane Society has railed against — keep the animals from injuring themselves and other animals. The Center for Consumer Freedom, which bills itself as a research organization on food, beverage and lifestyle issues, last month launched a Web site challenging many of the Humane Society claims, Campbell reports. The group accuses the Humane Society of "soaking up money from people who mistakenly believe the national organization helps support their local dog and cat shelters," Campbell writes. He notes the "Humane Society acknowledges that it does not run local animal shelters and does not make a lot of grants." (Read more)

Meanwhile, "The national 4-H organization is catching heat for allowing the Humane Society . . . to make a presentation at the National 4-H Conference in late March," Ken Anderson reports for Brownfield Network. "Some of those who sat in on the HSUS presentation say the material was more focused on HSUS’ goals related to animal rights and animal welfare." 4-H said on one of its Facebook pages that HSUS’s proposal for its presentation met the conference guidelines and “did not present any indication of anti-animal agriculture views or positions.”