Lindsay's Lessons

It was hardly a shock on Friday morning when news broke that USDA has decided to scrap the National Animal ID system in favor of a new method of animal traceability. This new approach will shift the burden back to the states who will now be responsible for setting up their own systems.

I have long been in favor of animal ID, not because I enjoy government involvement in private enterprise or because I want Big Brother looking a little closer into my business. However, when I look at animal agriculture as a whole, it is very real to me that we are perhaps always just one devastating disease outbreak away from disaster. America's farmers do the absolute best job of caring for and protecting their livestock. And without question our confinement operations are superior in the protection of our herds against disease. Yet no matter how well we do our jobs, it can still happen. And should that day come, I want to know that we can respond immediately with no question of tracking and traceability.

My frustration with Friday's announcement is not that USDA is putting this back into the hands of state government. I find myself frustrated with the fact that it that it took millions of dollars of wasted money before they were able to realize that their initial approach wasn't working. Maybe it's because I tend to observe things through the lens of a small business owner, but when I invest money into something, you better believe that I'm keeping an eye on it to see if I'm getting any results. And if the results aren't there, I'd like to think that I'm going to figure that out long before millions of dollars have walked out the door.

In real world America, business owners don't have the luxury of staring at problems for a lengthy period of time. We must act decisively, and we must be held accountable for the resulting outcome whether good or bad.

To date, only 37 percent of premises across the country voluntarily registered for the National Animal ID program. In making the announcement about the decision to overhaul the program USDA cited that statistic in tandem with concerns shared by producers at recent listening sessions across the country. Those concerns included the cost of implementation on farms, the availability of technology and a general apprehension about a nationwide approach to animal tracking.

In my own experience of talking with producers across the country all of the above concerns are true. Yet they have been true since the very first day that the thought of a nationwide approach to animal identification first came to light. In other words, a few years and several million dollars later, nothing has changed.

So why is it that it took this long to change our approach? And more importantly, what happens next? USDA has promised that this new state mandate will not go unfunded. That would mean that more money from the national level is going to be transferred to states as they each begin their individualized effort of building a disease tracking system from the ground up. And, with the exception of a few certain standards, states will be given a great deal of flexibility in how they wish to establish their programs.

At the risk of sounding skeptical, I can't help but wonder if the potential establishment of 50 different animal disease tracking programs across the country is really an improvement. The little voice in the back of my head is telling me that while this has the potential to be a better approach, we may be looking at another incredibly flawed execution.

That being said, I wish our state leaders the best of luck in getting these programs in place because they are vital to the welfare of our animal agriculture industries. And, I hope that our future millions of dollars are used more wisely than those precious dollars already spent.

There is no doubt that one person I would not want to trade jobs with this week is the person who is responsible for public relations at Yellow Tail wines. Just one week ago it would have been easy to market Yellow Tail. After all, it's an appealing product that sells for a reasonable price and has found extreme success among American consumers.

One week later, the company's Facebook page is filled with entries by fans who joined merely to tell them they would no longer be consuming their products because earlier this week the company announced that they would be partnering with the anti-animal agriculture lobbying and activist group, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), on a special Tails for Tails campaign.

The idea was that by partnering with HSUS the makers of Yellow Tail could increase sales from consumers who might buy the wine knowing that their purchase would help fund a $100,000 donation by Yellow Tail to the HSUS in support of the group's highly proclaimed animal rescue programs.

What the company didn't take into consideration is that their product, like many, is derived from the hard work of farm families. Yes, the same farm families that HSUS has targeted and attacked in an attempt to rid the world of animal agriculture and encourage a vegan lifestyle. Whoops!

And agriculture has not taken the issue lightly, nor quietly. Already riled by recent announcements by HSUS to attempt ballot measures tied to animal welfare in Missouri, and in our Buckeye State, the farm community brought out the pitchforks and torches in an attempt to remind Yellow Tail of the importance of farmers to them as both producers and consumers of their products. A quick search of the internet will lead you to numerous blogs written by agricultural advocates looking to convince their peers to stay away from Yellow Tail products. On Facebook, a new page called Yellow Fail has emerged. Even on Twitter, everyone is chirping and tweeting about Yellow Tail's ill-advised move.

Yes. It's a tough day to be in public relations at Yellow Fail...I mean Tail. Perhaps the best news is that there should be plenty of bottles of wine in which to drown your sorrows as it looks like consumption is going to be down significantly this month.

And yes, I am proud of the ag community for standing up and saying enough is enough in an attempt to send both Yellow and HSUS home with their Tails between their legs.

I know you've all been waiting and wondering about my blog for awhile, so I'm going to make an attempt to get back in the action. For those of you who want to keep track of what I'm thinking on a more regular basis, I invite you to join me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.

A lot of basketball has been played so far this season, and I've clearly been on my best behavior. However, while sitting in the arena yesterday watching the 1960 NCAA Championship basketball Buckeyes being honored, I was really struck by the difference we see in our team 50 years later.

Let me preface this by saying that I wasn't around 60 years ago, so I certainly can't speak first hand about Coach Taylor and his legendary players. However, in what may be a little known piece of trivia for some of you - Ed Johnson, the founder of ABN, was a walk-on at Ohio State and played under Fred Taylor. So, while I didn't get to see Coach Taylor in action, I do know the level of respect EJ had for him. And, given the respect I have for EJ, that's all I need to know to be certain that Coach Taylor was more than deserving of the banner they unveiled for him in Schott during yesterday's game.

You see yesterday I witnessed a level of integrity and respect among coaches and teammates that I don't notice in our current program. Those men weren't just good players, but they each went on to have very successful careers, whether in sports or in their chosen professions. Please understand that I'm not saying that our current players won't go on to be successful, nor am I saying that they aren't perfectly wonderful young men.

However, I do observe things when I attend these games that causes me to question if Coach Taylor would think we were running a tight program. For example, have you noticed that when the team emerges from the locker room they are never in matching warm-ups? Some come out wearing their full warm-up, some in their shooting shirts, others in uniform and still others in just a plain t-shirt. Call me old school, but I think when you hit the floor looking like a team, you mentally become more of a team.

Or what about the fact that Minnesota Coach Tubby Smith and his coaching staff came out on the floor with their players. They came in together, and they walked out together. After all, they are in this together. Yet each game, we see our Buckeyes emerge from the locker room without their head coach. Eventually our team of assistant coaches will trickle out onto the court. And yet Coach Matta practically avoids the warmup altogether and makes his own entrance just before game time. I can't help but question what message that sends to the team about the importance of the warmup. If your coach isn't right there with you, are you really getting mentally prepared like you should during that time?

Last but not least, and probably my biggest incentive for sitting down at the keyboard again for this blog, Coach Matta has been coming under a bit of heat lately for his lack of rotation among players. The starting five has become the only five, and with the exception of the last-minute of the ball game, the rest of the team has been noticeably absent unless one of the starters gets in foul trouble or in the case of Dallas Lauderdale, just absolutely has to have a break. And that was no more clearly evidenced than in yesterday's rather easy victory over Minnesota. With a 27-point lead, one might have expected some rotation off the bench, but it didn't happen.

Now I ask you, if you are that kid who comes to practice everyday and works just as hard as every other member of the team, what message does that send to you? Particularly if you are a young man like P.J. Hill who had the unenviable role of stepping up to replace Evan Turner early in the season, has been a solid performer, and has shown some defensive moments of greatness. If I'm P.J. Hill, what is my incentive to keep putting in the time and giving it my all if I know that no matter what I do, I'll never play unless Evan Turner is out. It would seem to me that if we could trust P.J. enough to start in place of Evan when he was out with injury, we could certainly put him in during a game when we're up by 27 points.

How do we expect those players to improve if they don't get those precious game minutes? Take it one step further, and if I'm a high school student being recruited, aren't I going to think twice about coming to play under Matta knowing that if I don't make the starting five, I'll probably never see anything more than a minute of action when the outcome of the game is already decided? I believe I might think twice about it.

In our business, we call this concept "carrot and stick". You've got to give the proper motivation and incentive if you expect to increase performance. And that motivation can't be accomplished solely by beating someone into doing better. There has to be something positive as a reward. Translate that to basketball and if playing time is the carrot, then riding the bench is the stick. And right now, we're giving the better part of the team a beating with no carrot as a reward.

I can't help but wonder whether even if we max out our physical prowess and ability each year, if we won't always come up a little short unless we tighten the screws on in other areas.

Last but not least, I do want to offer a note of thanks to Jon Diebler. Jon was kind enough to stop and autograph my OSU basketball poster when he came through our offices a couple of weeks ago. While I wasn't there to meet him myself, our Gary Jackson tackled him in my absence and made the request, and Gary shares that Jon was most gracious about it. Thank you Jon!

Last week, the Baltimore City School System became the first in the country to adopt the Meatless Monday concept for school lunches. Henceforth, every Monday the more than 80,000 students who attend school in that district will be forced to accept vegetarian lunch options.

In an era where we proclaim the importance of our freedom of choice and liberties to live as we each choose, I find it completely unacceptable that a school would adopt such a practice. Shouldn't the school be looking to enhance the options for their students, rather than to limit them?

I have no problem with a school offering a vegetarian lunch selection for students who opt not to eat meat, or perhaps have been raised in vegetarian households. However, removing the option of meat from student menus one day every week works against everything we promote in terms of a healthy, balanced diet for young people, as meat is a wonderful source of protein.

From a consumer perspective, we want choices. And students, just like adults, should be given the freedom of choice of whether or not to consume meat. For producers, I can't help but think of the loss of potentially 80,000 servings of meat each week multiplied over the course of a school year. If schools across the country (especially large districts in urban areas) were to adopt this philosophy it could be devastating to livestock producers over time.

Per their own propaganda stated on their website:

Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. Our goal is to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.

If anyone were to ever question why we as a society should be concerned about the ever increasing gap between food producers and food consumers, the above-statement alone should remove all doubt as to why we should all be alarmed.

Our goal is to reduce meat consumption by 15%....Economics 101 tells us that if we reduce demand, eventually we're going to have to reduce supply and that means the cost of livestock production will increase, efficiency will decrease and ultimately consumers will end up spending more money at the grocery store.

to improve personal health...Allow me to remind you that there are no reputable and sound scientific studies that would indicate that consumption of lean meats is unhealthy. In fact, protein (such as that which can be found in such servings of meat), is vital to a well-balanced diet.

and the health of our planet.... These activists have gone so far as to try and draw a connection between being a vegetarian and saving the environment. This stems back to the argument that livestock, which produce methane through normal bodily functions, are causing serious harm to the environment. Again - facts will show that when you look at contributing factors to air quality and environmental degradation, livestock is about the least of our concerns. Trying to link being a vegetarian to saving the earth would be akin to me accusing vegetarians of harming the environment by eating all the plants that help to maintain balance in our ecosystem. In a word, it is ABSURD.

So what do you do if you are the parent of a student who is being forced to adhere to a vegetarian menu on Mondays? My suggestion would be to talk to all of the other parents in your school district who agree that just as it is fine to offer vegetarian options to students, the option of meat should also always remain available. And, until the school returns to those standards, I would encourage those same parents to pack their kids lunches every Monday and be sure to include a nice roast beef or turkey sandwich!

Think about it, knowing that the majority of the population does not choose to adopt a vegetarian diet, if even half of those 40,000 students packed their lunch, it would be a tremendous financial hit to the school lunch program, thus forcing the administration to immediately reconsider their decision.

Lest the animal rights activists who tend to come of the woodwork when I write on these topics decide to take aim, let me state once again that I have no problem with schools offering vegetarian options to students. Let's entitle those students to a freedom of choice. At the same time, there is no need to do so at the expense of students who opt to eat meat. It is unfair to limit the choices of the majority simply to satisfy the desires of the minority. The freedom of choice should be for everyone.

Yes - I am aware it's been awhile since I've posted. As if that fact wasn't obvious by the date on my last post, I became more painfully aware when I had to reach into the depths of my memory to remember my password! But alas...

The ABN County Fair and Festival Tour powered by Propane is in full swing, with five different county fairs on the agenda this week. This whirlwind of stops coming just on the heels of my home fair, the Logan County Fair in Bellefontaine, wrapping up it's run for 2009. While the tour only allows us to spend part of a day at most fairs across the state, Andy and I were able to spend the better part of two days in Logan County catching up with friends and acquaintances and enjoying some good (although not good for you) fair food.

In all of this time spent on the circuit, I can't but help but notice one thing that seems to be a trending habit among fairgoers is to degrade their county fairs. It seems that what used to be an attitude of pride in one pronouncing that one's fair is the best, has quickly turned to negative criticism and claims that things just aren't what they used to be. Well, I do agree with one part of that, things aren't what they used to be.

It's important to remember that while Americans are struggling with loss of jobs, debt and increasing costs of just about everything, that our county fair boards don't live in a bubble. They are also affected by those same economic challenges, while at the same time being challenged each year to produce more with less.

On the whole, society has become spoiled by the financial comfort to enjoy concerts, stage shows, rodeos, sporting events and much more from top name acts and star quality performers. And now that purse strings are a little tighter, there is an expectation that this same level of entertainment can be found within 15 minutes of home at our county fair. And while some fairs are still fortunate to be able to provide such top-notch entertainment, for others it just isn't in the cards.

I remember when I was younger that when local groups like Phil Dirt and the Dozers played at the county fair, everyone showed up, sang along and had a great time. We filled the grandstand for every event and were the first ones in the gate every morning and the last ones out each evening of the county fair. Yet now, when a county fair boasts entertainment that only has one chart-topping single in the infancy of their career, or while having had a great career, hasn't topped the charts recently, we look down the act and say we've got better things to do than to attend their show.

Again, why is that? It's because we have become spoiled. Our expectations have been raised because it's become common practice to drive farther distances, more often to seek entertainment. Now, when the local rodeo company sets up in a county fair grandstand, we take it for granted.

So why then does a classic tradition like the demolition derby still pack the grandstand at most fairs across the state? It never fails that as we travel about, we are told by fair organizers that they have added even more than one demolition derby because of the crowd it draws. How is it possible in today's society that the demolition derby maintains that level of popularity?

The demolition derby is a fair tradition that hasn't changed a bit in the past thirty years. Organizers haven't tried to modify or make major changes to the event to keep up with trends or societal changes. Quite simply, you know exactly what you're going to get, and what you're going to pay to get it. This keeps expectations reasonable, and thus in the eyes of attendees those expectations are usually met or exceeded. And to be clear, that's not a criticism of the event. In fact, it may be viewed as praise.

Unlike other fair acts that are rivaled by Las Vegas magicians, Grammy winning artists and Broadway talent, the demolition derby isn't competing against anything similar of greater acclaim.

Thus, I think it's important for fair-goers to remember that perhaps it's not the fairs that have changed. It is that attendees who have changed. And unfortunately, we've changed not just in our expectations, but also our attitudes.

After all, when you list the reasons that people attend the county fair, it usually boils down to about three things. We enjoy catching up with people we only see a few times a year. We want to support the Junior Fair by watching young people compete. And, we want to fulfill our annual need for deep fried veggies and an elephant ear. And, there's only one place we can do all of those things - the county fair.

So perhaps, instead of looking for everything wrong about our county fair, we need to appreciate the tradition and what it has to offer. Instead of listing the things we would change about our fair, maybe we need to stop and think for a moment what it would be like if it were no longer there. And maybe instead of pointing out what we aren't getting, we should appreciate these local events that offer family entertainment at relatively affordable costs.

When I visit fairs across the state, I want to hear people speak with pride and tell us what's great about their county fair. I want to learn about the young person who won a blue ribbon against all odds. Tell me about the 4-H adviser who is retiring after 50 years of volunteering with youth. Or, how about the family who has three generations serving together on the county fair board?

Let's take pride in our county fairs and appreciate the tradition that brings us together each summer.