Farmers Union Partners with HSUS in Nebraska

HSUS tries a new approach in Nebraska

October 18, 2011 By Ken Anderson 6 Comments

Is the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) changing its strategy in regards to state-by-state ballot initiatives?

At a news conference in Lincoln Tuesday, the HSUS joined the Nebraska Farmers Union (NeFU) in announcing the formation of an advisory body called the Nebraska Agriculture Council of The Humane Society of the United States.

Chief among the new council’s goals will be creating market opportunities for farmers and ranchers who want to market “humanely-raised” meat and poultry products.  Officials of both groups say the council will also “facilitate a dialogue with individual farmers, ranchers and the organizations that represent them.”

NeFU president John Hansen says that, as part of their agreement to work with HSUS on the project, the animal rights organization has assured him that it will not pursue an animal welfare ballot initiative in the state.

But other Nebraska ag and livestock groups, who have been girding for battle with HSUS, were not impressed with the announcement.  Pete McClymont of Nebraska Cattlemen, who is president of the We Support Agriculture coalition, says they are “shocked and disappointed that any Nebraska ag group would align itself with an extreme animal rights organization such as HSUS.

“It is disturbing that somebody would reach out to groups that want to eliminate, if not restrict, animal agriculture like the animal rights groups,” McClymont says.     Read More

It's hard to fathom that anyone in agriculture would be willing to trust what HSUS has to say.  It's also hard to understand why a group like Farmer's Union would turn against some family farmers by claiming that they don't raise their cattle humanely.  HSUS doesn't own the right to declare what is humane and what isn't and for a group like Farmers Union to sell their soul to work with them shows an incredible lack of leadership and backbone.  It's an apparent desperate attempt to legitimize themselves at the expense of their neighbors.  If they were truly interested in this subject they would have worked with the other ag groups in Nebraska rather than the group that has declared war on all types of animal agriculture.