Larson Dairy Inc. Animal Abuse Case

Sam Kroll - WRIT 118 - Vagnino

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Conclusion: Final Findings and Thoughts

Before I conclude my research I want to summarize what I’ve found out so far about the video released by the Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) revealing animal abuse apparently present on a Larson Dairy farm.

So, here’s what we currently know about the animal abuse investigation:

Animal abuse did indeed occur on a Larson Dairy farm (Andrews)

The animal welfare group, Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) captured the footage in mid-August and released it publicly earlier this month, 3 months after the abuse was captured on tape (ARM Investigations)

A report was written, and sent to various county, state and national agencies, including the Okeechobee County Sheriff's Department, along with still images from the video footage captured 

In the video, three different employees of Larson Dairy Inc. are shown abusing cows 

The grocery store chain, Publix, has “suspended raw milk deliveries” from Larson Dairy Inc.

The National Milk Producer’s Federation (NMPF) has placed Larson Dairy Inc. on probation

And here’s what I would like to answer with the conclusion of this research:

Who were the men featured in the video and what happened to them?

If they were charged, what were they charged with?

What is being done to prevent further abuse in the dairy industry?

According to a Sun-Sentinel article written by David Fleshler, in a statement made by Okeechobee Sheriff’s Office on Nov. 16th, one week after the video was made public, arrest warrants were issued for the people involved in the “punching, kicking and beating [of] cows with metal bars at [the] Larson Dairy Farm”. However, Fleshler notes that the statement did not say how many warrants were issued. 

Okay, so now we know warrants were issued. Consequences for this animal abuse are coming! But were they arrested?

BOOM. Well, at least one was! I found a WPTV West Palm Beach article dated Nov. 17th indicated that yes, an arrest has been made- 49 year-old Helias Cruz was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor of cruelty to animals (WPTV Webteam). This article also states that felony warrants are out for three other men involved in the animal abuse- 36 year-old Omar Jimenes Mendosa, 29 year-old Omar Guadalupe Mendosa, and a “17-year-old juvenile”. I cross referenced this news article with another West Palm Beach news article also published Nov. 17th. This article also stated Helias Cruz was arrested and warrants were out for Omar Jimenes Mendosa, Omar Gudalupe Mendosa and another, Roberto Relles, that I can assume is the “17-year-old juvenile” mentioned in the previous article. This article also states that two of these men were fired from the Larson Dairy farm, and two were suspended, one of which quit after being suspended, and ended with “officials don’t know where those men are.” 

As far as what is being done to prevent further mistreatment of cows on dairy farms, I found another WPTV article, published just 3 days ago on Nov. 27th, featuring Southeast Milk’s (Florida’s largest dairy cooperative) push for new and more extensive training requirements and better video surveillance on all parts of dairy farms. After a second video was released by ARM Investigations featuring abuse on yet another Ockeechobee county dairy farm (which I may research and potentially discuss in a later post!) CEO of Southeast Milk, Jim Sleper held a news conference to discuss the new measures (mentioned above) he is urging members of the cooperative to take. I have included the full 16 min video below! Sleper also assured the public that the owners of the farms, Jacob Larson included, were “ready to take action to remedy the problems” (Susskind, Hyman). Richard Couto, President of ARM Investigations, agreed that suggested changes “are a step in the right direction”, but that they “don’t go far enough.” He believes that major changes in the way things can and are done will relies heavily on legislative action (Susskind, Hyman).

Final thoughts: I am glad I chose this research topic and looked into what really happened on the Larson Dairy Farm. If you missed it, I found the original Animal Recovery Mission’s video while scrolling through Facebook. Many people, myself included, share videos, pictures and other posts without really knowing the facts or real story behind them. No one really digs deeper. After I shared the original abuse video on my own Facebook page, I had a couple people comment on how it seemed staged, and that it’s videos like this that ruin the farming industry as a whole. So with that, I decided to dig deeper. Unfortunately this abuse was REAL, and even though I believe that it does not represent the dairy industry or (hopefully) Larson Dairy Inc. as a whole, I am glad this abuse was brought to light because it has sparked the changes I touched on above. With the implementation of these preventative measures, I hope that fewer cows will be subjected to abuse by pieces of shit individuals like the one’s featured in the video footage.

Goodnight👋😴💤

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If cows aren’t cool, clean and comfortable, they’re not producing quality milk. So we gotta take excellent care of them.

Jacob Larson

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ARM: The Animal Recovery Mission

Before seeing this video, I had never really heard of the Animal Recovery Mission, also known as ARM Investigations. Everyone knows the stigma around the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an animal rights organization that is more commonly known as PETA. Even though, as an animal rights group, PETA has good intentions, some people believe that they are so desperate that they go the extra mile and actually stage the animal abuse seen in their videos. You’ve heard these rumors right?! With that being said, I wanted to find out more about the Animal Recovery Mission and their investigation into Larson Dairy Inc.

With this resource session, I went straight to the source, The Animal Recovery Mission’s website. On their ‘About’ tab I found out that this animal welfare organization was started in 2010 by founder, Chief Executive Director, and Lead Investigator, Richard Couto. In his bio, it states that Couto used to be a board member and investigator for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), another nationally known animal welfare group. While investigating an illegal slaughter farm he discovered a former thoroughbred race horse, ID’d as Freedom’s Flight by a tattoo on the inside of his upper lip. With a little research, Couto found out that Freedom’s Flight was a direct descendant of Secretariat, one of the most well-known race horses in history. After breaking his leg at a race in 2008, which ended his career, Freedoms was sold numerous times before eventually ending up at the illegal slaughter farm that Couto and the SPCA rescued him from. This experience, and numerous death and political threats from “high ranking officials” is what inspired Couto to organize the Animal Recovery Mission organization based out of Miami, Florida (ARM Investigations).

As you all know by now, ARM Investigations were the one’s who went undercover at a Larson Dairy farm, captured evidence of abuse by farm workers, and released it to the public. On their website, they have a whole page dedicated to the Larson Dairy undercover operation that the ran. You can find it here! At the bottom of the page, a link to a full PDF Report is provided. In this report, a list of 8 different local, state and national departments, agencies, and administrations that this report was sent to, various satellite or drone images (I’m not really sure which) depicting exactly where the farm and it’s buildings are located from a bird’s eye view. Also included are a few pages of Larson Dairy Inc. company information as well as 18 different Ockeechobee County Property Appraiser reports. The information included on them is beyond me, mostly because I’m not in the industry and am not entirely sure what each abbreviation included means. However, I believe they are just value reports for the land that Larson Dairy Inc. owns. I’m not entirely sure why these are relevant though. Also included in the report is a page from the 2017 Florida Statues, sections highlighted indicating the crimes that ARM Investigations accuses the employees and Jacob Larson of Larson Dairy of committing. Additionally, there are about 20 different still images from the video footage captured depicting the abuse that took place during ARM’s investigation with 10-15 bullet points near the end of the report describing said abuse. Finally there are also miscellaneous files such as a Code of Conduct (which explicitly lists “Abuse of livestock” at the top of the list of unacceptable behaviors in the workplace), and a few employee agreement forms that were signed and dated 8/16/2017 (indicating the beginning of the investigation).

While reading the summary of this report near the very beginning, I notice that the rhetoric used by the president of ARM Investigations, Richard Couto, seems to be targeting Jacob Larson directly, calling him out numerous times for violating the Code of Conduct including in his own hiring process. It is also disclosed that on top of not following his own Code of Conduct when it comes to animal mistreatment and abuse, Jacob Larson has also threatened to file a law suit against a former employee (another ARM Investigator) after trying to expose abuse taking place on the farm. Was this because Larson knew about the abuse on his farm and was trying to keep it quiet? However, this claim and incident is not backed up by evidence and is not explained further as to HOW exactly the former employee tried to expose the abuse. Was it formally brought up to Jacob Larson as directed in the employee handbook? Or immediately taken to the public? Possibly exaggerated? On that, I’m not really sure!

Quoted in the original Washington Post article that I came across, in response to the video and accusations made against him, Jacob Larson stated,

“The unusual use of force is simply unacceptable on out dairy or on any other far. We have strict protocols involving animal care and clearly the behavior shown in this video goes against everything we stand for and will not be tolerated.”

He also declared that they are “equally concerned about the manner in which this video was brought to out attention,” and insisted that had the abuse been brought to his attention sooner, he would have been able to do something about it much earlier (Andrews).And being that ARM Investigations called out and targeted Jacob Larson directly in their report that was sent out to numerous county, state and national agencies, yet never showed or talked about Jacob Larson being a perpetrator of the abuse, this leads me to speculate that maybe, just MAYBE, Jacob Larson really does have a passion and respect for his cows and truly didn’t know about the abuse going on on his farm. This makes me recall the very last seconds of the video in which ARM Investigations encourages people to “choose a dairy free plant based diet”. Could it be that this video was used as propaganda to perpetuate this sort of agenda to end dairy and meat consumption similar to what PETA has been accused of in the past? It could be a possibility! Why else would they target Jacob Larson directly in their report, and jump directly to encouraging a plant based diet instead of more humane and preventative measures to make sure food production animals, including dairy cows, are treated humanely and respectfully? Again, I am not really sure! All I know is that that videos and investigations like this can ruin business for a farm, especially when/IF exaggerated.

“If cows aren’t cool, clean and comfortable,t hey’re not producing quality milk. So we gotta take excellent care of them.”- Jacob Larson

Logic right? I’ll leave you all to answer that for yourselves.

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You don't get where you are without someone to push you along sometimes.

“Red” Larson

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The Larson Dairy: Origins

I know that when I originally started this blog I planned don focusing on the treatment of adult dairy cows on organic vs. conventional farms. However, my research has shown me there’s a little more left to discover in regards to the video I originally came across while scrolling through Facebook, Larson Dairy Inc., ARM, the animal welfare/activist group that released the video, and similar cases of abuse that have occurred. So, with that being said, from here on out I would like to focus on the things mentioned above and see what else I can dig up!

With this research session, I wanted to take a closer look at the Larson family dairy operation and find out how it all started. Read below to find out more!

In the article, “Larson Dairy: Almost 70 years in the making in south Florida”, written by Karen Lee, and published in February 2005 by the Progressive DairyMan Magazine, Lee provides a little background to the founder of Larson Dairy Inc., Louis E. Larson, a.k.a. “Red”. “Red” was born in South Dakota and his family relocated to Florida to live with their grandparents after going broke during the Dust Bowl. “Red” got a job on a dairy farm owned by a friend of his grandfathers and milked cows there for $2 a day (Lee). By investing his money back into purchasing cows, land, and dairy farms, “Red” combined 37 of his dairies into 3 dairy farms, with 6,000 cows, managed by 90 employees, and operated on 10,000 acres of land in Okeechobee county, Florida (Lee). The farms are now managed by his son’s John and Woody Larson, as well as his grandson’s including Jacob Larson, owner of the farm that was featured in the abuse video captured and released by the animal welfare organization, Animal Recovery Mission (ARM). Based on the quotes used in this article, I am assuming that the author, Lee, conducted an interview with “Red” Larson and a few of the others people she quoted in the article, However, these quotes are used sparingly (7 times total), and they were very short phrases. Looking further on in this article topics regarding breeding and environmental challenges are also discussed, but I didn’t think they were very relevant for my research. So with that being said, moving on!

Four years earlier, in 2005, “Red” Larson and the Larson Dairy Inc. won the Commissioner’s Agricultural Environmental Leadership Award. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’s website, this award “spotlights the environmentally innovative farming practices of the state’s growers and ranchers...” that “...all share a commitment to protect and preserve Florida’s resources while continuing to provide agricultural products for society” (Bronson). According to the feature published on their website in their magazine featuring other winners, “Red” Larson is praised by his son, John Larson, for his ability to adapt to change over the years, and considers that to be “one of his big secrets to success in business”. Changes and advancements that have been made include those within waste management, feeding, housing, genetics and milking. Although the Larson Dairy’s environmental innovation as one of the first dairy farmers to install a lagoon as a wastewater control system is probably (my best guess) one of the main reasons they received the Commissioner’s Agricultural Environmental Leadership Award, here are some examples of changes that “Red” has made over the years regarding the cows they care for:

When “Red” first started his fairy business, he used to milk cows by hand, and milk was collected in buckets. Now computerized milking machines, sensors and pipes and other technological advances have replaced the hands and buckets that were used so long ago. 

Cows also used to be kept in open pastures under the hot Florida sun. Now, at Larson Dairy Inc. cows are housed in barns with fans, water misters and lined stalls to ensure that they are comfortable. 

Feeding and nutrition has changed drastically as well. Instead of being “fed by the bucket”, as cows once were, nutritionists are employed to create balanced rations of food based on a cows current physical condition and their milk production level.

Overall these changes in animal care and management benefit both the cow and the farmer... “The cows are under less stress, which translates into better health and greater milk yield.”... Seems like a win-win to me!

Flash-forward to 4 days after the release of the abuse video on November 9th, by the animal welfare organization, Animal Recovery Mission (ARM). A CBS12 news article, “Veterinarian praises Larson Dairy Farm for past kindness”, written by Yaremi Farinas, and published on November 13th, 2017, features Dr. Glenn Gillard speaking out in defense of the Larson Dairy farm and it’s owner, Jacob Larson. Gillard is a local Okeechobee veterinarian and professor at the Florida Atlantic University, and his students have been visiting the Larson Dairy Farms for the past 5 years (Farinas).

“I know the man for five or six years and I can’t say enough about his integrity... His focus on the animal is most important. A happy content animal is a productive animal. I have seen other herdsmen who work for Larson Dairy and there is a compassion. They pet the animals gently. Move them around as they go through their routine. I’ve been in the business long enough to know if animals are stressed or not being treated properly you see it in their eyes and their body language and you don’t see it.” - Dr. Gillard

I think it’s great that this person stepped up and publicly supported Larson Dairy Inc. But being on sight, what seems like only a few, scheduled times out of the year doesn’t really make Dr. Gillard’s statements very trustworthy or credible. Good intended? Yes! Credible? Notttt really. I think that if this statement had come from the Larson Dairy’s actual veterinarian who has maybe spent at least a couple years or so as their veterinarian, it would have been a more reliable source and thus more valuable to my research.

To end this research session, i found a video sponsored by the Florida Dairy Farmer’s organization featuring “Red” Larson. This is a 4 minute long voice over interview accompanied by a slide-show of pictures throughout “Red” Larson’s life. Some of the information I talked about in the beginning of this post is reiterated in the video by “Red” Larson himself! It’s pretty cool, so you should check it out!

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In case my recent posts have been a bit sad, take a look at this cutie pie!

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“Somebody got paid off to do this because Mr. Larson and his family have built an empire in the diary industry. They’ve been credible stewards of these animals because they know their life and animals abused do not produce milk like animals that are cared for.

 Bryant Culpepper (Okeechobe County Commissioner)

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The Video: First Impressions

My research started with looking into the farm in the video, and whether or not this video was staged or not. With the direction I took with this research session, I analyzed three main things: the original website that I found this video on, other news sources this incident was reported by, and the dairy farm that this abuse took place on.

As originally stated in my first post, I found this video while scrolling through Facebook. This video, captured by the animal welfare organization, Animal Recovery Mission (ARM), surfaced November 9th, 2017 after still images from the video were mailed to the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s office. This video showcased three different men kicking, punching, and stabbing dairy cows on the Larson Dairy farm in Okeechobee county, Florida, back in August of 2017. I clicked a link associated with the video and was taken to this article by Travis M. Andrews published on The Washington Post on November 13th, 2017. According to a 2014 survey conducted by the American Trends Panel and documented by the Pew Research Center, The Washington Post has a majority audience that is considered mostly liberal and consistently liberal with a small proportion being mostly and consistently conservative. Even though The Washington Post is known as a national news outlet, the fact that a large percentage of it’s audience is liberal (American Trends Panel), and many liberals are known for supporting animal rights and animal welfare, could explain why the Washington Post decided to report on this incident.

In this Washington Post article, Andrews starts off by introducing Larson Dairy, out of Okeechobee county, as one of Florida’s largest milk suppliers. He moves on to quote the Okeechobee County Sheriff, Noel Stephens, who said “I believe there will be criminal charges forthcoming on the completion of this investigation,”, and also hyper-links the article where the quote came from, published by the Sun-Sentinel. However, I found out that the news outlet, Sun-Sentinel, is the daily newspaper for Broward County, Florida, which is two counties south of Okeechobee county. I am not exactly sure why he didn’t hyper-link this article by the Ockeechobee News, which is the county’s local news paper, which was also published the same day as the Sun-Sentinel article, on Nov. 9th. This would have connected the Washington Post directly with the most localized news source to report on the issue.

Andrew’s article published by The Washington Post moves on to claim that, “Publix -- a popular Florida-based supermarket chain with more than 1,000 locations in the Southern United States -- suspended its relationship with the farm, which supplied the grocer with raw milk”. However, the author provides no linked source to support this claim. So, I dug deeper to find out! With a simple google search, with the keywords “publix larson dairy”, 10+ Florida news sources came up claiming Publix has either stopped or suspended their business interactions with the Larson Dairy farm. The only thing I found confirming these claims was a small statement from them on Twitter. This “statement”, a.k.a. reply, was prompted by a tag by someone calling Publix to “Drop #LarsonFarms,” (@DRJACOBB) and included the a link to the Sun-Sentinel article that I previously mentioned being tagged in the Washington Post article that I had originally found. I have included a screenshot of the Twitter reply below, if you want to check it out! As far as official press releases or official statements go, I could not find anything from official Publix itself- even when I searched their other social media, website and blog pages. I found this to be interesting because, when I had previously conducted that simple google search, all the Florida news sources that I scanned through used the same basic phrasing when talking about what Publix had to say about the incident- That Publix was “shocked and disturbed by the cruelty...”. This tells me that the news stations too, were not able to get an official statement from Publix and thus resorted to using a twitter reply as such. This makes me wonder if other grocery chains have stayed completely quiet on this incident? I mean, as an average consumer, who shops at my local Woodman’s and Walmart, I don’t know exactly what farm my milk comes from, so maybe something like this is easy to keep quiet and not respond to? Larson Dairy was also dubbed one of Florida’s largest milk suppliers (Andrews)... and Publix does have 1,162 stores in 7 states, 776 of which are located in Florida alone (”Facts & Figures”) but there’s GOT to be other stores that the Larson’s supply milk to right?!

On the other-hand, Andrew’s provides a link to a statement made by the National Milk Producer’s Federation (NMPF), saying that the federation has place Larson Dairy on probation, and that an investigation will be conducted (Andrews). I’ll discuss the national federation NMPF, and the animal welfare group, ARM, in more detail later on in other posts; I don’t have a clear understanding on what these groups stand for yet, and maybe there are others like them here in Wisconsin? Not sure yet! But for now, let’s move on through this Washington Post article. Andrew’s also provides a statement made to the Associated Press from Jacob Larson, the owner of Larson Dairy farm, and provides a link to this statement which includes more from Larson as well. I will go into more detail on Jacob Larson, also in a later post, as I want to find out more about the Larson Dairy operation!

Andrew’s does a good job at acknowledging/providing various viewpoints in this Washington Post article. Not only does he provide statements and links to further statements by the owner of Larson Dairy, Jacob Larson; he also provides statements from a representative of ARM, Richard Couto; furthure counter statements from Larson used as counter arguments, and a supportive opinion of Keechobee County Commissioner Bryant Culpepper, who Andrew’s calls “a long-time friend of Larson’s”, and stated the following:

“Somebody got paid off to do this because Mr. Larson and his family have built an empire in the diary industry. They’ve been credible stewards of these animals because they know their life and animals abused do not produce milk like animals that are cared for.” - Bryant Culpepper

To end the article, a last opposition is quoted, Kayla Leaming, who is said to be a member of a group called the Okeechobee Animal Save, who stated: 

“If these people actually care about their animals they would keep better tabs on what’s going on. There wouldn’t be a chance for these cows to be beaten like that.”- Kayla Leaming

Over all, the various viewpoints and opinions that are included in this article, as well as the links to the original news sources that the quotes and supplemental information came from help me conclude that this article, written by Travis M. Andrew’s and published by The Washington Post is a very informative and fairly unbiased article, and therefore I think it was a good place to start my research because it provided me with various avenues to explore and questions to answer.

Well that’s all for now. I’m excited to continue this research and explore and more narrow topic to see what else I can dig up on this video, Larson Dairy, Publix, and the Animal Recovery Mission.

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Introduction

I’ve never blogged before, especially while discussing research, which most people would think is more formal like any other type of college paper, so we’ll see how this goes! I started off really struggling to choose a research but inadvertently stumbled upon this article and the video that goes with it while scrolling through Facebook, a.k.a. procrastinating. After watching this video, and simultaneously concluding that the men in this video were absolute pieces of shit, I decided to do a little digging... and that’s how “The Treatment of Cows on American Dairy Farms” became my research topic.

I would say, that when it comes to videos like this, everyone seems to think that this is why “factory farms are bad”, or this is why “organic, grass fed is better”. I, like everyone else, seemed to generally agree with these statements while actually being quite naive about the Organic vs. Conventional farming topic itself. As I watched the video linked above, as with many other videos I have watched of the horrors that go on inside “factory farms”, I subconsciously made the decision that this is why I would purchase organic meat, from a reputable farmer, when I am older and able to afford it. However, I realized that I had no evidence or argument to support logically support my decision besides the the general assumption that all conventional farms treat their animals as cruelly as the men treated the cows in this video. I am just a big supporter of animal well-being and I advocate for the proper treatment of all animals, even the one’s that are raised to end up on our dinner plate. 

With that being said, I am sure there are many others out there who share these same views, and most, like me, have probably assumed that a cow’s life in a large grassy field under the warm sun (a common stereotypical picture of an organic cow’s life) is faaaar better than crammed in a barn with millions of other cows, covered in their own feces (again, a stereotypical and over-exaggerated picture of a conventional cow’s life), right?!  Perhaps; but how different are they actually? That’s what I want to know. 

So, with this research I want to focus primarily on the differences between adult cows on organic and conventional farms in regards to dietary and shelter requirements, as well as basic medical treatment procedures or guidelines, as well as the potential effects on milk production and profitability that may be influenced by these differences.

So here goes nothing, wish me luck! And I hope these blog is interesting enough for you to tag along.

Video source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/13/undercover-video-shows-farmworkers-beating-cows-with-metal-rods/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.d45875c91429