Acceptance Speech by Glenn Hickman, President and CEO of Hickman Family Farms at Arizona Farm Bureau’s 87th Annual Meeting in Carefree, Arizona November 6, 2008. The Hickman Family was honored as the 2008 Farmer of the Year Recipients
Thank you very much for this honor.
As I stand here before you and looking out at the audience, I want to assure you that nepotism is alive and well in Arizona agriculture.
It’s actually something we should all be proud of, these businesses and this industry is as challenging as anything out there.
I won’t bore you with a lot of factoids, but in an eggshell:
We started selling eggs off my grandma’s backyard porch to the neighbors in 1944. We will celebrate our 65th year in business next year
We will have about 5 million hens and pullets in Arizona by yearend, selling eggs in the corridor from Texas to Hawaii
We have several flavors of eggs: brown eggs, white eggs, cage free eggs, cooked eggs and pasteurized eggs.
We have 20 semi-tractors to deliver all those eggs and feed to the birds
We employ nearly 300 fulltime.
And yet, we do consider ourselves a family farming enterprise, utilizing cutting edge technology to bring food to the table in the most efficient, sanitary, safe means possible.
Agriculture in general is under assault in the United States. The row crop farmers must now be chemists to apply chemicals. The organic farmers must be enlightened to harvest their greens. Animal producers must now be psychiatrists in order to be in touch with our animals thoughts and feelings.
The cost of compliance has gotten out of hand. We spend more time filling out forms, performing audits, and generally documenting our every moving part of our business. All this to raise the bar on the most nutritious, safe, productive food and fiber supply in the history of the world.
The issue nearest and dearest to our hearts is the rising tide of anti-animal activists, who brand us with every disgusting and filthy description of care and atrocity they can come up with. In their de-ranged minds, they have confused their comfort animals, and the feelings they are perceived to have upon our animals that provide part of daily sustenance. They would like to legislate us out of business, in order to advance their corrupt agendas.
We participated in the attempt to stop Prop 204. Obviously we either didn’t do enough, and most certainly failed to convey the passion and care with which we treat our animals, because the public bought into the fallacies presented by the opposition. Our company felt we dodged a bullet, because the legislation did not address chickens.
Well, just a few days ago, in California, proposition #2 passed by an overwhelming majority. Our fellow egg producers in California did not fare as well as we did. Proposition #2 will give them until Jan 1, 2015 to abandon their cages. Today, California has almost 20 million birds in caged egg production. In 6 short years, they won’t have any. It is anticipated that Oregon and Washington and their 8 million birds will be targeted next. In all, 10% of the nation’s layer flocks may be legislated by citizen referendum out of business.
As citizens of the Ag community, we must redouble our efforts to communicate directly with the consumer that thinks milk comes from the stores. We cannot let others tar us with the brush of barbarism if we are going to be able to have the chance to pass our way of life to the next generation, much less make payroll in a year or two. We will need to get out of our collective comfort zones, get out in the community and tell our stories, openly and honestly, while we still have a chance.
Thank you again for this honor bestowed upon our family tonight. |
