GRACE Audio Podcast Andrew Gunther, Animal Welfare Approved

Transcription

1 Welcome to the GRACE Podcast. I m Kyle Rabin, Program Director at GRACE and I m talking with Andrew Gunther, Program Director for Animal Welfare Approved. The Animal Welfare Approved program audits and certifies family farms raising their animals humanely, outdoors on pasture or range. Andrew joins us today by phone. Hi Andrew, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Kyle, thank you for taking the time to call me. Q: When did you first become interested in the subject of animals welfare? Were there any specific instances that led to your awareness? I think growing up as a country boy at heart and farming all of my life it was an easy transition to see that some of the things we were doing seemed normal, routine, but for some reason didn t seem right. And then I got the opportunity to convert the farm into an alternative system, working on how I could make a smaller farm profitable, and I discovered organics. And in Europe the organic system is somewhat different than the American system, insomuch as it requires pastoral access; it requires genetics that are appropriate to health and welfare; and it has a lot more to do with connection to the soil. And as part of that process I started to understand that some of the reasons the guy walked up your drive to promote an antibiotic or to promote a hormone or to promote whatever it was he was selling, had less to do with improving what you were doing on your farm and more to do with making sure they earned a living. And I can t say there was a light bulb that went off, I just more and more found myself seeing the interaction with the ground, the interaction with the planet being represented in the methodology of farming. I think simply it s a matter of evolution. The European system has had so many years to evolve in its pastoral systems, it s used to smaller pastures, it s used to having to 1

2 maximize and even optimize its resources. I think in America we ve been able to design systems that have used vast tracks of resources because when we started this process following the World War, our resources seemed endless, nobody could see the end of oil or at least very few people could see the end of oil. Nobody could see that our rivers would become contaminated with arsenic, could become polluted with algae blooms, that some of our water systems could have birth control and anti-depressant drugs within them. So I think there s a history in America of a brave new world, an almost indestructible world. And I think there is a realization, certainly amongst the colleagues that I m working with who are fantastic people, that we may have run some of our resources into overdraft. We may be in a position where we can no longer find clean land and we have to look to going back to some of our land that, sadly, we ve contaminated. Q: So tell me a little bit about your family farming history. I don t have a family farm in America; I m an ex-family farmer. Yeah, we produced an awful lot of organic chickens; some 30,000 a week that flood out into an organic system. Uniquely, we set up the world s first organic broiler breeder flock, which meant it was a breeder flock that was kept outside on pasture and fed organic ration and not restricted feeding. But notice, I m saying the connection to the pasture. Notice that I m saying that this is a breeder flock that has genetics that are appropriate to the system. And I think that was part of the unique systems within Europe. They are slightly more advanced in what their definitions of organic might be because certainly in the U.S. you can take an industrial conventional chick whose parents have had antibiotics and then feed them some organic food inside for three to four weeks, show them a door for a couple of weeks and then call them organic. Q: How did you get involved with Animal Welfare Approved? Following an outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth and they re well aware of this in the United Kingdom, we had to cease farming. All of our animals were destroyed by order of the 2

3 government. I have various personal opinions about that whole situation. But it opened a new door for me, which left me with space to look to where I could best use some of the skillset I had been evolving and developing during my period of time, my personal transition from what was a conventional system into an alternative system, and my relationship with organizations like Compassionate World Farming and the Animal Welfare Institute. In terms of high welfare farming, rather than farming that could be perceived as humane and I think the humanity of farming is a moral issue. I think the ability to attest to welfare is a scientific issue. I was offered the opportunity to compete for posts within Whole Foods Market, and I took that opportunity and they brought me to the U.S. to roll out their local producer program. Q: AWA has the most rigorous standards for farm animal welfare currently in use by any U.S. organization. Please tell our listeners about these standards and the research these standards are based upon. That s very kind of you to say so. We re extremely proud that WSPA [World Society for the Protection of Animals], more recently the Consumers Union, acknowledged that we are the most transparent program, not just in the U.S., but potentially across the globe. And WSPA confirmed that we have the highest standard of any welfare organization in the U.S. And by default, potentially they are the highest standards in the world. What we did when we were developing and evolving these standards is take, accepted scientific welfare best practices, rather than the compromise that, for instance, that deal with clipping the beak of chickens. The end of a chicken s beak is extremely sensitive and it s full of nerves. If you take it off, there s some science that suggests that the chicken can have some kind of ghost feeling, it also prohibits a number of natural behaviors. The reason chickens need to have their top beak trimmed in an industrial system is the system design. The poultry system in today s farming system in the United States of America and the rest of the world is designed to keep vast numbers of animals who have sentience in a space where they become frustrated and bored. A chicken has an 3

4 innate behavior, that s a behavior that it must practice, of curiosity. So if it can see things it starts to peck them. So it will peck initially out of interest. Once that interest is going, it will peck a bit more. If it happens to peck a little bit hard and some blood comes out it is an omnivore. It doesn t really care that the blood is coming from something else that s sentient and alive, it will start to keep going. And then you have something called injurious feather pecking. So the industry decided rather than change the system, they d just chop the top of the beak off, which is, in some cases, described as taking the tip of your finger off. Rather than redesign the system and say actually the system is wrong, the genetics are wrong, if we put the birds in this system they don t do it, therefore we don t need to mutilate the chicken. An AWA stamp is based absolutely on that premise. What is the optimum welfare position of the animal within the farming system? It s perfectly possible to take a sentient being through life, having a positive life, lead it to the point of death without it not knowing about it, and achieve death instantaneously all without a negative welfare input to the animal. Whether at that point, somebody wants to consume that dead animal, is the position of morality. And I think from my point of view, AWA stands in that space. We re not going to get involved into the ethical argument of whether it s right or wrong to eat an animal. There are far greater experts in the world than me at that. What we are going to do is promote the ability to produce that animal in an environment that is not stressful, not threatening, not fearful, not dangerous, not injurious, and in a way that doesn t pollute the planet, increase antimicrobial or antibiotic resistance, and achieve the products at a price the consumer can afford to pay. Because I think the argument beyond that is something I m not particularly versed, and I think it s left for far more educated people than me. Q: Thank you. That was a great answer to cover that issue of the standards that AWA has. The misuse of antibiotics in intensive livestock farming systems is an issue of grave concern to you. Can you please tell us what is at stake here and why this is such a problem? 4

5 Antibiotics and the issues around antibiotics have been on the radar for a long, long time, since the 50s I think, when the first doctor suggested that the use of antibiotics in food animal production could lead to resistance. But I think we come back to this same position in system design. And the analogy I use is one I m sensitive to, but I think it s an appropriate analogy. Following Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, they opened the Saints Stadium as a point of refuge. And tens of thousands of people went to that stadium. They were all very healthy people, somewhat stressed, naturally so, and unhappy. Within days there were bouts of bacterial infection breaking out. And the outcome was that a lot of people became ill and the discovery was that you couldn t put that many people together with different bacterial profiles without them becoming sick. That s exactly what we ve done with our systems for chickens, pigs, and cattle. We ve put them in positions where they are stressed; we ve put them into positions where the bacterial loads are so high they cannot help becoming sick. In order to do that, we have to treat the bacterial infections. What we just discovered from some extinct DNA, that bacterial mutation has been going on since the beginning of time. Bacteria mutate in some cases every 30 minutes or so. The bacteria are just like we are. They want to survive, they strive to survive, so they adapt and mold themselves to survival. So each time we treat an animal against the bacteria it has, the bacteria mutates to defend against itself and the strong survive. Darwin s theory of evolution is no more obvious than in bacterial resistance. The net result is, we ve designed systems that only stand up if you use antibiotics. If you take the antibiotics out of the system, the system starts to fall down. And in some of the systems we re seeing where they ve removed antibiotics they are now having to rely on copper sulfate. Copper sulfate has an antimicrobial activity. The net result of using copper sulfate is we re also now encouraging bacteria to mutate in a different direction. Sadly, the systems we ve designed will only stand up with industrial supports. So this 5

6 antimicrobial or antibiotic resistance will continue to grow and evolve until we absolutely change the system. Q: Thank you. I know another key issue, I ve heard you speak to this at times, is that large-scale agriculture doesn t necessarily have to be seen as bad, that bigger doesn t necessarily mean bad. So can large-scale agriculture be sustainable? That s a fantastic question because one of my major concerns, certainly when I looked at Animal Welfare Approved and we worked with the Food Bank in New York City, is the very people that need high quality proteins, whether that be, in fact, from an animal or, indeed, a vegetable, because there is some argument as to how much meat protein we should be eating as a nation. The challenge is going to be getting that product to the people who need it. I m often heard to describe sustainable agriculture, high welfare food as the bastion of the middle aged white guy. That s myself. I think I m right. In order to get this product that the people need, the planet needs, the environment needs, and the animals need into the right space we have to have scale, because we re no longer a planet of 2 billion people where you could walk from your house to a green field. Lots of people, it takes them 20 miles to find a green field. So we have to find a way to cooperate, consolidate, and indeed, if we need to be quite large in order to fill the needs of the people that live on the planet. We could argue it isn t necessary to have 9 billion people on the planet, but that is not my argument to have. My job is to change the way people farm in the world and to provide clean, healthy, nonpolluting food to the masses. We have to have scale, whether it be cooperative, consolidative in order to make that happen. Q: How can corporations better support pastured animal farmers? You raise an interesting point and I m about to use the devil s name in two contexts. I m quite outspoken against your Smithfield s, your Tysons and your Cargills. But all they ve got to do is see this as a market, apply their expertise to it, and they could change what 6

7 they are doing overnight. The challenge for them is their reliance on quarterly profits. Their reliance on systems that are broken and an accounting system that means they have to have 30 years use out of something. We need to engage with those organizations, we need to make them understand that what they are doing now is not sustainable, but not just on an environmental basis, not just on a social basis, not just on an animal welfare basis. It s not sustainable financially. At some point you cannot outsource, resource, downgrade, upgrade, in-source: there is no room to do it. We are coming to a point where the planet is saturated with people. And we can t keep making our financial profit on a quarterly basis. These companies have to understand clean water is a definition of profit, clean air is a definition of profit, a healthy populace is a definition of profit, not how many billions of dollars they pay their executives on an annual basis. Q: Well said, and I agree. You spoke to this a little bit already, but can sustainable agriculture feed the world? Without a doubt. I mean, I think the challenge is, does the world recognize that it needs sustainable agriculture. What we re finding more and more is there will be a group of people who will listen to this and will either agree or disagree with my opinions, and that s absolutely fantastic. But there will be 98 percent of the population probably aren t aware of the size of the challenge. They are probably not aware that their drinking water is contaminated. They are not aware that the air they breathe is full of pollutants. And I think, I don t think the world knows it needs sustainable agriculture. Because the moment the world knows it needs it, we can do it. We need to feed herbivores. We need to feed our cattle. We need to feed our sheep, and we need it to feed our goats on marginal land. What we shouldn t be doing is growing grain to feed the chickens, which they then turn into protein less efficiently than I can. We ve got some massive challenges on how we eat as a nation. And as you know, Kyle, I carry a few pounds more than I should because I eat too much, but I eat in restaurants and bars and hotels and airports because I travel. That s an excuse, but it is the reality. We have huge portions. If you sit down to dinner at an American restaurant, the expectation is you get 20 ounces of food put on your plate. 7

8 Q: When it comes to animal welfare and sustainable agriculture, there are probably a number of model farms that you can point to, but there s one, in particular, that I know you are quite fond of, Shire Gate Farm, a subject of one of your recent blog posts. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about it? I can and it s a really unique space. Shire Gate is owned by a guy called Will Witherspoon, who is number 92 of the Tennessee Titans. And when I first met Will two and a half years ago, I was a naïve Brit finding my way through America. I had no clue what an NFL football player was. They just seemed like folks who played football and whatever. So Will, as part of his own personal journey, discovered food he was eating wasn t really doing his body any good. And this is a guy who has a degree in agriculture, he was educated at Georgia Tech, he s an immensely fit human being, but he understands the correlation between what he puts in his body and his athletic ability. So Will and I have become friends, which is kind of curious because it doesn t make a lot of sense. You ve got a sort of welfare sustainable liberal guy who wears sandals and the fairly dedicated NFL football player. But the net result is we both have a love of the planet, we both have a love of the ground that Will farms. And we both have a love of sustainable food. And I think what is so enlightening for me is the way Will will help others understand, in a way that I can t, the importance of what they eat and what they put into their body. And there are a number of projects we ll be working with with Will over the next year or so, to help promote sustainable and let me just phrase this appropriately: to help promote high welfare sustainable production in the United States of America available to all. And I think one of the key issues for me is this definition of sustainable. Sustainable is a tri-factor. Sustainable is a word that has meanings within it, because if you are sustainable it means you need to continue, you need to be there in years to come. And in order to do that you need to respect three key things. You need to respect the animals that you re working with that provide you the proteins you eat. You need to respect the planet 8

9 from which the nutrition from those animals derives, because then you eat the nutrition that s derived from those animals. And then you need to respect the society within which that particular business operates. So this whole definition of sustainable is more encompassing than just whether you pollute the water. It s multi-factorial. To be sustainable you must not abuse the planet, you must not abuse your local community. You must not abuse those who work within your agricultural operation, and you must not abuse the animals that are the profit center of that agricultural operation. Because unless you have that synergy, you are not sustainable, because you won t be there in 20 years time because one of those will have broken. Your animals will have become sick and you won t make a profit. Your ground will have become sick and you can t feed your animals. Your local community will become bankrupt and the workers that worked for you would have left and gone to work for somebody else. So sustainability is such a big, big picture, and it s all encompassing. And I think one of the challenges that AWA has and I think a lot of the NGOs working in this sector, is to bring that knowledge together, that this is a multi-factorial project, it s not stand-alone. So welfarists must work with environmentalists, they both must work with social changes. And that way we ll have a planet that is truly sustainable. Q: Excellent. Thank you. Is your family onboard with eating only pasture-raised meat, do they ever find it challenging? My oldest son hasn t eaten a McDonald s in nine years, ever since he was given a copy of Eric Schlosser s book. My wife, she s not a great eater of meat on the basis of taste, no more, no less. And my youngest son has only ever been engaged in pasture-raised products. Q: That s really good to hear. How has your job and the related experiences changed you as a person? 9

10 Oh, that s a toughy you see because I want to say I ve become more depressed and frustrated because I hear more stories of fear, I hear more watersheds are becoming polluted, I hear air is becoming more polluted, I hear that children are becoming ever more obese. And then you meet people like Will, and you go to places like Aspen where there s clearly this understanding of the challenge. So I think it s changed me in a way that I can see a huge challenge, not see that challenge as overwhelming, and try to bite off chunks of that challenge to tackle, focus on, and engage with experts across the sector. My job is clearly about promoting high welfare farming. I get up every morning to do it; I go to bed having done it. And that encompasses so much more about sustainable change. It encompasses so much more than just how you treat an animal on a daily basis. It encompasses how that animal lives, where it lives, and how it interacts with the planet. I mean, I was privileged to spend some time with Barton Seaver and I always give him credit for this statement, and his statement is this: Farming is the way that the human race interacts with the planet. We are not doing a very good job, are we? Q: For our listeners, can you mention who Barton Seaver is? Oh, I do apologize. Barton Seaver, he s a seafood chef in sustainable seafood. He s a young man who I met at Aspen. He s written a number of books and I ve had the privilege to spend some time with him. But most of all Barton focuses on commercial solutions to some of the sustainability and environmental issues that fish cause. Q: Thank you, and you kind of hit upon this already. What brings you hope for the future, of animal welfare and sustainable agriculture? I think the first time I met you, Kyle, when we were across at Aspen, and we were sitting in a room and there was an acknowledgement that agriculture, food animal farming, had an impact on environmental issues. And by default, confinement feeding was one of the biggest challenges to environmentally positive farming. The nitrous oxide oozing out of these confinement feeding operations is polluting our rivers, it s polluting our land and 10

11 it s polluting our atmosphere. We know that nitrous oxide is tens of times more toxic to the ozone layer than methane, for instance. So when I sit in the room of complete genius and this conversation is happening, and it s happening not just there, but it s happening everywhere, people are joining the dots. High welfare, sustainable meat animal production is inexorably linked to the destiny of the planet, and that gives me great hope for the future, great hope for my grandchildren to walk in a green field where their feet aren t being burned by phosphorous or nitrogen from an intensive chicken house because they can t get rid of it any other way. Q: It s critical, really, to see the big picture, to see the interconnection between all of these issues, in particular, food, water and energy. I can t agree with you more. There is this massive interdependence on food, water and energy. My physics at school I was never the best physicist. And I never could quite understand why X could equal Y. But if you ve only got a hundred units of energy, and you need a hundred units of energy out, you can t afford to waste any of them. And if we ve got energy going into pollution and we ve got energy going into misuse food, it s to me, 2 and 2 make 4. It s almost a duh moment. It s almost one of those moments where it s like, really? Do we need to understand that connection? Because it exists. It s an absolute, it s a given. Q: Just to wrap up, what support does AWA need and how can people help? I d be foolish if I was to say, Give me money. I mean, I have so many projects, needy projects that could do with funding. We re a 501c3. We have an A+ rating in terms of our charitable status. So money and kindred spirits, but most of all, spread the message. Buy products from AWA certified farmers. If you can t find them from AWA certified farmers, ask your farmer if they d comply with our standards. Ask your supplier, would you meet our standards? Because the horrid thing of a market-driven society is not everybody has the same amount of honesty and integrity as some of the others. So you 11

12 are going to get people who are going to turn up at farmers markets with signs on their meat and signs on their produce and maybe some of them might not be what you think you re buying. Q: Andrew, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. It was a great honor to talk with you. Kyle, I can only appreciate everything you guys do at GRACE with your communication strategies and your education of folks, in terms of this whole correlation between food, water and energy. And the feeling is mutual. I just appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak with you. End 12