An Open Letter to My Alma Mater

Dear Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine,

 Thank you for the sound education you gave me regarding anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, dermatology, pharmacology, internal medicine, surgery, histopathology and any number of other 'ologies' that I am sure I have forgotten more of than I ever imagined I would learn.  I am, however, most unhappy with the status of education of production animal medicine. The thing that always sparks me off in this regard is typically a comment or article in the quarterly published Gentle Doctor magazine that I receive since I am supposed to be a happy alumna of the college. This month, it was one of the bullet points in the Dean's Letter p.3 (#4 to be exact)
     

 "Establishment of the Swine Medicine Education Center, a collaborative effort that provides unmatched access to a modern production system that includes 90,000 sows and nearly two million pigs and complements our swine, beef and dairy summer programs, and our rejuvenated food animal field services unit." [emphasis is my own] 

You are supposed to be perceived as the "leader in production medicine" also known as "food animal medicine" or to those lay people that may be reading this, "meat".  You are a land grant college in the very middle of the American Heartland, dedicated to the science an innovation involved in feeding the masses, and yet the system is terribly broken and you are all busy trying to fix the system using more of the same technology that broke it in the first place.  

 Stop.  Look around you. 

The world is slowly waking up to the food that they eat and what it is doing to us.  This is clearly evidenced by books like The Omnivore's Dilemma by Pollan and movies such as Food Inc.  You may have not read or watched them yourselves, but you should.  The research being expressed by these people is sound and, what's more important, makes good sense.  You taught me to look at research objectively and I have....theirs is better than yours.  It shouldn't take more antibiotics to grow our meat, it shouldn't take chemicals to sterilize our food, it shouldn't take people dying from food borne illnesses for you to wake up and realize that maybe nature might have a better way. 

Is it because the large pharmaceutical companies won't pump millions into the coffers that you so desperately need to keep going?  Is it because big businesses like Monsanto, Cargill and Pfizer will leave you high and dry if you actually do what is right and study the differences between organically grown, sustainably managed, pasture fed animals and the high stress, GMO corn-eating, pseudo-food animals that are currently being produced by IBP and Tyson?   For shame.

Well, just so we are clear, this is one veterinarian that you trained that will not be contributing to your college unless it is to train the next generation of veterinarians to think for themselves and wake up to what is happening to our animals.  We take an oath at the completion of our vet school education, an oath to protect the welfare of the animals we treat, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves and yet here we are locking them up in confinement operations that are clearly NOT in their best interest.  I would like to see any one of you live one day in a space confined such that you couldn't all lay down at the same time and there was so much fecal material in the air around you that it was difficult to breathe.  Or maybe you should all be housed over your own excrement for a while and in such a noisy environment that you can't sleep unless you are completely exhausted.  We have all heard what stress does to our own systems and yet we expect our animals - those that will give their lives so that we may eat - to endure such conditions so that our clients can make the most money per unit.  We have lost track of the fact that those units are, in fact, animals.  Veterinarians should be leaders in this area....we know better and yet we are following - following the big Ag money.   Being led along by our noses in the hopes that we, too, might make a bigger piece of the pie at the expense of all those that we are supposed to be minding the welfare of - the animals and, as a result of that, the people that eat them.

Take a stand.  Will it mean money lost? Probably! Will it mean healthier animals and people? Absolutely! And the people that are waking up to this monstrosity will flock to your doors and beg to learn what you can teach them, or beg for the services of the veterinarians that you graduate.  Be the leader again, please, so that I can once again feel pride at calling you my Alma mater rather than cringing when someone points out that, once again, there is a food recall or thousands of eggs that have been contaminated and the only option is to simply throw more antibiotics or more federal regulations at them. 

We need small farmers in Iowa - not corporate giants.  Iowa is a dying state.  Most of these students that you are teaching right now will likely flee these borders like so many rats from a sinking ship. Wonder why there are a dwindling number of food animal veterinarians? I don't. With corporate giants running the show, how many vets do they really need? There are more large production units and more CAFOs in Iowa than in several of the surrounding states, there is more transgenic corn and soybeans grown here than almost anywhere else.  We need to diversify. 



My own role in this has been to conduct some of my own experiments. Once again you taught me to pay attention and keep records and for this, I thank you.  I can honestly say that there is a clear, distinguishable difference between the eggs that are raised in confined "caged batteries of birds" vs those from my flock of free range hens. I also raise a few pigs, a dairy cow and we buy all our beef from a local farmer that raises them on pasture.  The differences in our food quality and thus our health are substantial. And by supporting local farmers I am helping to ensure that small town Iowa actually has a chance to survive.

I realize that I will very likely not be high on the list to win any of the prestigious awards distributed to the "good soldiers" of the veterinary profession, but it is my honest belief that if you don't periodically stir the pot, all the scum rises to the top. I feel it is my obligation, as outlined by the oath, to continue the improvement of my professional knowledge and competence and so I put this challenge to you as directly as possible.....Lead, don't cave into big agriculture corporations that threaten to undermine this profession and ruin the trust that the populace has previously had in the veterinary community.  Lead, find a better way, a more humane way, a more sustainable way to raise the food that we need to live on.  Lead, so that others will actually want to follow. 

The 4 - H Conundrum

Had an interesting discussion with my daughter the other day. She is very much into doing things that other people are doing (or have done) lately. I think she is trying to find her niche in the world.

The discussion of interest, however, happened while deciding which 4-H projects to tackle this year. They were due to turn in their enrolment forms and had to have their projects figured out. Food and Nutrition - check, Aerospace - check, Wood Working - check, Horticulture - check, Poultry - ......."what? you don't want to take the chickens again?"

No, .....she wants to take something bigger!

Bigger, as in something that she can "show" around a ring. Not just a simple chicken that you take in and out of its cage while talking to the judge.

She wanted to take a pig because that is what I had done in 4-H. Well, we will have pigs, so I could totally see how the idea crossed her mind, and they say that imitation is the best flattery, but I felt conflicted suddenly. Here is where we come to the conundrum.

4-H is a group that built out of the farmers of the community and as the farming practices started to change back in the 40s, 50s and 60s, so did 4-H. It is now very production oriented - the most animal units in the smallest space for the least amount of money. 4-H does focus on taking good care of these animals and some of the science behind the production is sound, but the bulk of the animals that go to the show are, sadly, raised in confinement type production systems.

We like to imagine that the problem isn't around here. It isn't our neighbors that do this horrible thing to animals, but when you peel off the denial....yeah it is. I drive by several confinement units on my way to work and there is one particular horrid cattle feedlot on the way to my parents with beef cattle piled nose to tail in muck up to their elbows and 6 foot fences all around their tiny enclosure while nice green fields stretch out in every direction for miles around them.

We grow pigs on this farm, but only two or three at a time and very slowly. We feed only organically grown feed and produce scraps from our garden.....well,.... and the occasional chicken that they corner and help themselves to. There is no possible way that a pig, grown in the way that we like to grow them, will gain enough, quickly enough to be shown at the fair. They would be close, but not quite.

Sometimes I wish 4-H went a little farther. Take those pigs on the hoof newly judged and then take them to the butcher and re-judge them based on meat quality and taste after they are butchered. Take it even further and judge them based on nutritional differences found in the meat. I would happily have Faye take a pig to the fair then.

So, how to change the system? This is what I contemplate as I drive by confinement units, hear the latest news on the farm bill, receive letters from my Alma mater vet school and cringe.

Speaking of Vet school....there, too, lies a problem. I cut my teeth in the production animal world in the very bosom of all farm animal knowledge....Iowa State. Did three years of an Animal Science degree and then launched into Vet school with the plan to become a mixed animal practitioner. I learned all the ins and outs of production animal medicine and surgery only to give it all up after I graduated. I started out at a mixed animal practice, but since I was 4 months pregnant with the daughter that now stood in the kitchen staring me down for a bigger animal to show at the fair, I had done only small animal work. Time, distance, and a lot of kids later I find myself where I am now - firmly entrenched in disliking my own industry for their narrow minded views on producing animals.

The AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) themselves are pro-confinement operations, pro-antibiotic use in the feed, pro-large scale production. I try to unravel the "why" behind their political stance on all of these issues and I honestly can't see it. Are they (and by they I mean the production animal vets that make up the AVMA) afraid of what might happen to their multi-million dollar money makers - essentially IBP and Tyson foods? Are they afraid of what those huge corporations might do to them? Personally, I say "who cares!" I am a scientist and I have to look at all the ways and means of raising an animal - which is best? Best for the animal and best for the people eating the animal? Becoming a scientist teaches you how to think critically and then becoming a veterinarian promptly brainwashes you into thinking that the large scale production method is the way to go. It would seem to me to be in the best interest of the veterinarians of the country to be the leaders in raising animals - dictating what truly is the best method of raising an animal. We are supposed to be the animal advocates.....or is it that we are supposed to be the large scale production owner's advocate.....I forget....the brainwashing makes my head hurt.

I distinctly remember one production class. The professor was talking about beef production - raising cattle to put on the most meat as fast as possible and what they need to be fed to do that. Silly me, I always thought that cows were supposed to eat grass - they are ruminants after all, designed by thousands of years of genetics to be able to eat the stuff that omnivores and carnivores can't eat and digest. But here was a professor giving us a recipe for what to feed to beef cattle to make them grow really fast....and it wasn't grass. Not only that, but he said....and I remember this almost word for word because it struck me as somehow very wrong, "their feces should be so "hot" they almost bubble" What this actually translates to in non-vet lingo is that they have very loose stools and you will sometimes see a little 'froth' or 'bubble' on the top of the cow pie that they leave. Apparently, that is a sign that they are getting a really high protein feed and laying down a lot of muscle. But then he went on to talk about the liver abscesses that this can lead to because when we feed cattle this unnatural "hot" feed it screws with the bacterial flora of their rumen and then essentially end up with what amount to ulcers in the gut. The bacteria cross from the intestines into the liver and set up shop. These cattle may be putting on a lot of weight, but they are miserable doing it. Imagine someone cramming those "high performance energy bars" down your throat when you have a constant case of severe heart burn and gastritis. What is the production professor's answer to this? Antibiotics in the feed to help keep those bacteria in check.

Wrong, this seems so wrong.

And how did this start? I have no flipping clue. Somewhere along the line the big became bigger and they started thinking of ways that they could produce more faster and make more money. And, as so often happens, overproduction happened and then you have to make a market and a reason - we have to "feed the masses" , have a marketing campaign - "Beef! It's what's for dinner!"....remember that one? The prices eventually fall and the little guys go bankrupt and the big just keep getting bigger and start having a lot more political clout because they have the money to control the legislation. This is all a very sick and twisted system that we live in. What is done to mass produce slowly becomes the norm to the point that veterinarians start learning how to deal with the mess that is the confinement raised beef cow, hog or poultry and accepting it as norm. The norm becomes what is pandered to and taught to the next crowd of young aspiring vets and what is sent down to the extension services in each county as "good production practices" and further taught to young 4-H members contemplating what to take for fair that year.

So, we have come full circle - from me, growing up taking pigs to fair, thinking that this is the best way to do things, to a full veterinary degree later realizing that maybe we should be raising our animals differently and trying to find a way to help my children realize that as well, while fighting a system that tries to teach them the exact opposite.

"Can't do pigs, Honey."

"But why not?"

To which I attempted to explain the above at an 11 year old level.

"Well, how about a cow? Can I take a cow?"

"Beef steer or dairy cow? Because you know that the beef steers don't come home, they eventually go to market and we are back to the production conundrum again."

"A dairy cow. They come home right? And we can raise them like we want to and still take them to show right?"

By God, I think she might just understand and have it figured out. And, she may have just put me over a barrel. Yes, we have talked about getting a cow at some point. Why not now? Why not for a 4-H project? That would give us two years to watch it grow, build what will, no doubt, need to be built to have a milk cow in residence and re-learn my dairy cow medicine that I might need to know.

Therefore, I am now in the market for one newly born Brown Swiss heifer calf. If anyone should know a local dairy that would be willing to sell me one, let me know.

Photo credit: Farmer's Daughter.....clearly another person after my own heart.