Ben Franklin’s observation that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” came to mind when I read that five U.S. Senators have filed a bill to block California Proposition 12 from taking effect in January. The bill is a pure last-minute symbolic move. Given the current political makeup in Congress, they might as well have filed it in the trash can.

Prop 12, written and funded by animals activists and passed by unsuspecting voters in 2018, will ban the sale of pork, eggs and veal produced using conventional animal husbandry. As the Associated Press recently put it, “Bacon may disappear in California.”

The best hope the industry and consumers have at this point is a Hail Mary pass to the Supreme Court, hoping they will step in and overturn the measure after lower courts declined to do so. Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy.

For years, former Rep. Steve King diligently tried to insert a provision into the Farm Bill that would have prevented California from banning the sale of agricultural products made in other states. Additionally, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner introduced a bill in Congress that would have done the same.

The Republicans had control of Congress and the White House for two years from 2017-2019. If Congress had acted when they had the chance, previous activist laws would have been defanged and Prop 12 never would have happened. Did the industry anticipate and then engage a serious offense to get these ideas realized? Apparently not. And here we are.

When it comes to activist-driven challenges, too often industries — not just agriculture — are late to react. A “failure to imagine” is endemic.

With few business or trade associations actively tracking fringe groups, activist agendas first appear as a nuisance. And too many execs dismiss them. With no one person responsible for tracking these groups, their agenda is disregarded. Besides, why spend money fighting a flea when you’re the much larger elephant?

That mindset may have been acceptable before the Internet. Historically, ragtag activist groups like PETA couldn’t raise much money or gain momentum unless they had an angel investor.

Today, marketing for membership or developing a grassroots following through the Internet is free. Those nuisance groups and their agendas can morph into difficult problems rapidly. Every cancer starts as one cell. Fail to address them and they grow.

When “too early” becomes an excuse for non-engagement, it is often followed by concession and a realization it is “too late.” Suddenly, meetings are convened. Hand-wringing and finger-pointing exercises accompany commentary about who’s culpable. The targeted industry or company finds itself playing defense.

It doesn’t take a lot of vision to see what is newly developing. We’re surrounded by anti-meat propaganda at every turn. Professors at major universities, including Harvard, warn meat consumption is bad for personal health. Streaming services including Netflix and Amazon Prime are saturated with anti-meat documentaries including "Forks Over Knives," "Takeout," "Cowspiracy" and "Meat Me Halfway."

It’s an “echo chamber” from the vegan universe. Industry opponents are using exaggeration, cherry-picked science and medical “evidence” coupled to various doomsday projections to generate guilt or fear through social media.

It’s easy to retreat from this reality. You could reflect that the vast majority of people eat meat and think that everything’s A-OK. It’s the Matrix blue pill.

However, there’s no reason the meat production industry cannot rise to the challenge. It is full of smart people and great marketers. They must embrace early engagement on the big issues like fake meat and the environment.

These are just two examples where we let bad science and statistics crowd out the truth. It was Pogo who famously cautioned, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” It’s a lesson learned too often in hindsight.

The best defense is offense

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