Rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman Talks Ethics Of Producing Meat on Monday at MV Center for Performing Arts

Author, attorney and cattle rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman will talk about the ethics of producing meat on Monday evening -- April 28 -- at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. 

Her appearance is the second public presentation in this year’s Wallace Stegner Lectures, offered annually by Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST). Lectures begin at 8:00 p.m., with a book-signing and reception for the audience afterward.

Niman became an environmental icon when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. invited her to lead his campaign against factory-farmed meat. From 2000 to 2002 she squared off against corporate establishments while investigating in detail efforts to produce meat in ethical, sustainable, cost-effective ways. 

The experience led Niman, a vegetarian, to write the book Righteous Porkchop: Finding Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms. The experience also led to her marrying rancher Bill Niman and moving to California.

Niman and her husband own BN Ranch in Bolinas. 

Though his name is attached to nationally distributed Niman Ranch meats, he severed connections with that company in 2007. Beef from BN Ranch is grass-fed and free of drugs and hormones. The Nimans record a life history of each animal, including federal inspections during slaughter.

The Nimans made national headlines last month when federal authorities opened a criminal investigation into practices at the Petaluma slaughterhouse where their animals are slaughtered. 

Authorities made no distinction between animals processed under careful scrutiny by small ranch owners and federal inspectors and other animals brought to the plant by commodity producers. BN Ranch lost more than 100,000 pounds of humanely produced beef. 

The April 28 audience will hear first-hand about the implications of these events on the Bay Area’s sustainable food system.

Single tickets are $22 and can be ordered by calling the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts at (650) 903-6000 or visiting www.mvcpa.com. 

For more information about POST’s Wallace Stegner Lectures, visit www.openspacetrust.org/lectures.

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POST is a leading private, nonprofit land trust that protects and cares for open space, farms and parkland in and around Silicon Valley. Since its founding in 1977, POST has been responsible for saving more than 70,000 acres as permanently protected land in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. On the Web at www.openspacetrust.org.