Meat Groups Blast Time Article

Meat industry groups are airing discontent with the Aug. 31 Time magazine cover story “The Real Cost of Cheap Food” that is loaded with inaccurate information and has no hint of objectivity.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the only meat industry group quoted in the article, lashed out with a press release outlining the steps it took to provide information to Bryan Walsh, the article’s writer. The vast majority of the information was not included in the final piece. The Cattlemen indicated they were called late in the reporting and writing process, and that the writer discussed the angle of his story only when pressed for details.

Patrick Boyle, president and CEO of the American Meat Institute, wrote a letter to the editor of Time. “In a world of 7 billion people and expanding, where malnutrition, hunger or outright famine are commonplace, it’s dumbfounding that Time magazine would take one of the great American success stories—the efficient agricultural production of an abundant variety of healthy, safe and affordable foods for consumers in the U.S. and throughout the world—and turn it into an unrecognizable story of exploitation, manipulation and greed,” Boyle wrote.

In AFBF President Bob Stallman’s letter to the editor of Time, he called the article “a vicious attack on modern farmers and the processes they use to care for the land, their animals, their neighbors and communities, all while producing safe, affordable, healthy and abundant food for consumers.”

Farm Bureau members are encouraged to write a letter to the editor by clicking here.