Last week I had the privilege to speak to the elite producer business conference - the annual meeting hosted by my colleagues at dairy today. it is always a learning experience for me as dairy is an industry constantly moving forward scientifically as well as continuously updating their business strategies.
I was deeply impressed by the efforts the entire industry, from producers to retailers, have undertaken to answer animal welfare concerns from consumers. Their concerns for profitability were genuine and strongly expressed, but I didn’t witness a lot of time wasted ranting against irrational consumers or complaining about unfair coverage by the media. These people were realists.
One thing they truly get is the power of video, and the experts I talked to were blunt in their assessment of so-called Ag gag laws as a poor defensive tactic. In fact, as technology gets ever-cheaper and smaller, one powerful answer to undercover videos is similar to what law enforcement agencies are pondering: routine, constant self-surveillance.
While the debate over body cams for police continues, many like me are reaching the conclusion that the only effective antidote to spy cameras is to make them redundant. If everything is recorded, transparency is no longer an issue.
The breakthrough for this idea will be when software engineers can create programs to scan the gigabytes of video rapidly for questionable conduct. I’m guessing it may already exist in some form at higher security levels, and in time this enormous data-crunching ability should be available for every level of production. This not only provides evidence for the defense, it strongly encourages correct actions in the first place.
What we see is a powerful influencer of what we think. It seems to me the plan to counter video with video has a lot of merit.
