“I don’t want anyone to have to go through what we went through,” said David Fuhrmann, the president of Foremost Farms, the largest dairy cooperative in Wisconsin, to an audience of dairy cooperative members in Seattle, Washington, just a few weeks ago.

Ironically, that statement was the same as the one I had heard just a few days earlier from the farm manager at Weise Brothers Dairy, just outside Green Bay, Wisconsin.

If you recall, both Foremost Farms and Wiese Brothers Dairy made headlines in December 2013 when Mercy for Animals (MFA) released an undercover video targeting the dairy and implicating brand-name DiGiorno Pizza in the process with a campaign that they catch-ily named “Disgusting DiGiorno.”

According to MFA and its campaign, “Every DiGiorno pizza comes with a slice of cruelty.”

While I won’t give the campaign more airtime by linking to the video, you can check it out simply by googling “disgusting DiGiorno.”

Of course, it’s clear from the typical animal rights rhetoric that, as usual, MFA and other animal rights groups are not most concerned with animal welfare. What they are concerned with is spreading a vegan agenda (evidenced by the “goveg” promo ad displayed prominently on their page) and also with fundraising.

After all, MFA’s own founder, Nathan Runkle, once said that “undercover investigations are the lifeblood” of his organization. Undercover videos equal big bucks for activist organizations – and they know it. Just recently, in fact, we came across an advertisement on the Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) homepage asking for donations to support these illicit activities.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know; you know that the likes of HSUS, MFA and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) aren’t on agriculture’s side and that they’re no friends to the hardworking farmers and ranchers like yourselves.

But I’d be willing to guess that many of you glossed over my introductory explanation to this piece, arguing in your head that you could never hire an activist and/or be the subject of an undercover video.

You check references and do everything correctly on your farm. You’ve YouTube proofed yourself. You’re golden – nothing to see here. Nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, we at the Alliance get a lot of calls and have a lot of meetings with farmers or co-op owners or even brand-name companies who thought that they were safe from undercover videos and extreme animal rights activists. They thought that they had done everything right – and in many cases they had.

But the activists struck anyway. Not to give them too much credit, but these groups are nothing if not strategic. They know where they want to go, what farms they want to target and how to accomplish the goal of getting someone hired and finding that “money shot.”

We’ve heard from countless victims how the activists encouraged long-time, good employees to take the easy way out, do the wrong thing – often contrary to employee agreements and animal care procedures – or even participated in abuse themselves. Yet, as we all know, none of that comes to light when that video is cut and edited, and released to the evening news.

As a born and bred Wisconsin gal (and die-hard Packer fan), it hit me especially hard when a dairy in my own backyard and a co-op whose milk I grew up drinking were affected by the disingenuous agenda of MFA.

Since the video came out, both Fuhrmann and folks from Wiese Brothers Dairy have been on the speaking circuit, touring the country and sharing their words of wisdom and cautionary tales.

Interestingly, Furhmann and I ended up on the same panel in Seattle just a few weeks ago. He was a tough act to follow and truly shared with the audience – all dairy farmers and members of one of Washington’s largest co-ops – his experience as the crisis unfolded, day-by-day.

What struck me as most interesting about Fuhrmann’s speech was when he discussed the two sides of the crisis chasm – the brand-name company that was implicated by MFA and the members of Foremost’s dairy co-op.

Animal rights activists know that brand-name companies are going to do anything to protect that brand name and avoid a scandal. Tying a video to a brand name company all but guarantees that the brand will put pressure on the co-op to drop that farmer as a supplier.

It has happened as a result of countless videos, and it happened to Foremost. Even though an infinitesimal, teeny-tiny amount of Wiese Brothers’ milk ultimately ended up in cheese that became the topping of Nestle’s DiGiorno pizza, the damage had already been done, and Nestle didn't want to be guilty by association.

But at the same time, after Foremost dropped Wiese Brothers Dairy from the co-op, other dairy farmers were pressuring Foremost for answers and wondering if the same thing would happen to them and their farm – if they became the next victims of an undercover video and push came to shove.

Many of the farmers were calling upon Foremost for some formalized agreement of “due process.” The farmers wanted to know that if there was an allegation levied against them, that they would have the opportunity to be heard before any actions were taken.

Furhmann told the audience that one of Foremost’s co-op members even went so far as to draw up a contract basically stating just that – formalizing a due process agreement. But the farmer also laid it on the line and said, “Look, if there’s abuse found, then I fully understand and expect to be removed from the co-op.”

It’s hard to communicate such agreements up the food chain, but it’s a necessary step if we ever want to reach equilibrium and start to stand up to the animal rights activists.

Activists count on brands to engage their crisis communications plans and to try and do anything to distance themselves from scandal. But that knee-jerk reaction leaves the co-op and farmer in the lurch – when in many cases there might not even be legitimate abuse found and the animal rights activists are just causing a ruckus to further advance their vegan agenda.

It’s certainly legitimate for a brand to expect and demand that its suppliers, whether that be a co-op or an individual farmer or rancher, do the best for their animals and adhere to a stringent animal care plan and enforce that plan with all the farm employees.

But at the same time, those same co-ops, farmers and ranchers should expect that a brand will ultimately have their backs. We need to be united along the food chain, from farm to fork. None of us can afford to allow animal rights groups and undercover activists to hold us hostage.

It could happen to you, and we need to be there for each other if, or rather when, it does. PD

Emily Metz Meredith
Communications Director
Animal Agriculture Alliance