Animal rights organization boosts image

Monday, February 20, 2012

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), is trying to improve its image in the agricultural community by stepping up its support for family farmers and ranchers, brownfieldagnews.com reports.

It quotes Joe Maxwell, a Missouri pork producer and HSUS director of rural outreach and development, as saying past statements by officials calling for the elimination of animal agriculture were "taken out of context. They're one sentence out of a long speech." HSUS supports changes to the federal Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), which some farm groups espouse.

"Divide and conquer" is not a new tactic for HSUS, says Crystal Mackay, executive director of Farm & Food Care (the amalgamated Ontario Farm Animal Council and AgCare). "Their words at industry meetings and their actions and their words at activist meetings don't mesh."

Mackay says representatives of its affiliate Humane Society International Canada spoke to the National Farmers Union in Stratford 10 years ago in opposition to "'factory farming,' whatever that is." At an activist conference in Toronto in 2004, Mackay says, HSUS promised it was going after egg production first and it wouldn't fund research to make production better.

Mackay says HSUS is feeling the effects of a campaign by critic humanewatch.org, which charges that HSUS raised US$131 million from the public in 2009 using "deceptive ads chock full of cats and dogs" and which shares only one per cent of its donations with animal shelters. BF