Summary of a speech from a University of Florida professor and public relations researcher entitled Public Relations Strategies for Dealing with the Animal Welfare Issues. The professor (Wes Jamison) stated that farmers should “come up with a moral basis of why what you do is the right thing to do, in the right way.”

This article addresses the image problem that farmers have with people who consume meat, but consider animals to be their companions as well. At the 88th Annual Michigan Farm Bureau convention, professor Wes Jamison addressed this dilemma and encouraged farmers to confront the issue.

Jamison outlined the growing conflict between farmers and animal rights activists regarding urbanization, anthropomorphism, the theory of evolution, and equal rights. “We’ve gradually taken away the distinction between humans and animals, and now, farm animals,” he said. And farmers, he said, are “in the middle of a hornet’s nest of contested meanings.”

Jamison recommends that the animal farming industry present the “truth” in a matter-of-fact way because “we intuitively know that society has changed, and we try to hide what we do from society.”