School partnership a threat to local farmers

Editor: A story appeared in the March 14 edition of the Lodi News Sentinel about Lodi Unified School District (LUSD) workers getting trained in the “benefits of meatless menu options.”

What is truly disturbing is the source of this training. According to the article, the LUSD director of nutrition services “welcomed representatives” of Food Forward, a group sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). As some of your readers are well aware, the HSUS is an organization with the overriding goal of ending animal agriculture. Their efforts to promote meatless meals are not about offering choice, they are about ending a way of life for ranchers and dairy farmers, many of whom make their home right here in San Joaquin County and send their children to schools including those in LUSD.

According to the California Department of Agriculture (CDFA), both dairy and cattle/calves are in the top five agricultural commodities of this very agricultural county. As a cattle producer right here in Lodi, I am heartsick that our schools would partner with an organization like HSUS, deliberately hurting many people in the area who support these educational institutions. HSUS puts forward non-scientific claims about the sustainability of animal agriculture as one of their tactics, continuing to use refuted information as a means of forwarding their agenda hurting dairy farmers and cattle ranchers.

I’m not telling people they need to eat meat — what they eat is their choice. I support having vegetarian options on the school menu to accommodate requests from those students who choose a vegetarian diet. But meatless initiatives like that described in the article are not about choice, they are about taking away nutritious options for those students who do choose to eat meat. TYLER BLAGG Lodi