The Battle To Do Good by Bob Langert

Author:Bob Langert
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781787568174
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Published: 2018-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Modern animal agriculture is portrayed by some vocal critics as bad for animals, the environment, and workers; yet without modern agriculture, our society wouldn’t have abundant and affordable plentiful meat products. Some advocates want animal agriculture to reflect the small, rural farming of the nineteenth century, when the population of the world hovered around 2 billion people. Now the planet’s population is 7.2 billion. A much larger good production system is needed to safely and affordably feed that many people.

I relished working on finding sustainable solutions for meat because of these multifold challenges. I was convinced that big was not necessarily bad and small was not necessarily good. Good and bad practices could come from both. Given all the baggage, with regulators, critics, and leading NGOs condemning Smithfield, Treacy needed to become the Houdini of sustainability in order to escape and transcend the horrible Smithfield reputation. He told me that he was wary when hired but excited about making a difference: “Man, I might work here a day or I might be here for 10 years,” said Treacy.99 He took a leap of faith that he could really change things for the better. But that is why he chose the position: As a consensus builder, he would listen and learn, understanding how to best proceed. Even so, I wasn’t certain he could make inroads with Smithfield, one of the leaders in a tough industry. John Hayes wasn’t certain, either, noting that: “I remembered they hired this attorney (Treacy) who initially turned me off big time, because he was such a polished shoe attorney. If you ever use the word ‘attorney’ with me, my first inclination is ‘this is a disaster.’”

Hayes had to eat his words when he saw Smithfield transform, admitting that, “I was completely wrong. Whether Treacy had the emotional or thoughtfulness for animals, or whether he was approaching it purely from, ‘Hey, I know about this, and I’m going to fix it whether I believe in it or not.’ Whatever his motivation was, he took it seriously.”

I, too, saw in Treacy strong resolve and grit and a wry and clever sense of humor able to draw friends and foes alike to him for whatever idea he was pitching. Indeed, Treacy ended up orchestrating one of the biggest sustainability turnarounds I’ve ever seen. His story is rare because most sustainability professionals develop ways to build upon an existing program or start one from scratch. Instead, Treacy was in a deep hole as he first walked into the office in 2002. He told me he was determined to make Smithfield an environmental and animal welfare leader in his industry. He did just that. Today, Smithfield is a leader in the meat industry on many issues:

First to announce moving away for gestation stalls for sows.

Made a groundbreaking move in 2007 to report antibiotics usage. In its 2013 sustainability report, Smithfield showed 151 milligrams of antibiotics used per pound in its hog operations.

Set specific targets across the scope of its operations, including

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