|
"Some people think that the
companies producing products with
alternative labels are heroically
defying factory farming norms and
are the saviors of our food
supply. The disheartening truth
is that there is little
distinction; the similarities far
outweigh the differences. Most of
the other horrors a farmed animal
endures in animal agriculture
still apply to any of these
alternative labels."
March 6, 2014
Factory Farming vs.
Alternative Farming: The Humane
Hoax
Read the whole article
here:
- See more at:
http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/factory-farming-alternative-farming#sthash.TZIjuBYZ.dpuf
By Hope Bohanec
The Emergence of the Factory
Farming
“Alternative”
For most of my adult life, I
have been engaging in
conversations about animals
raised and killed for their meat,
milk and eggs. These
conversations haven’t
changed much over the last 25
years. I get the same, tired
questions about protein and
desert islands and plants feeling
pain.
But recently, something has
shifted. In the last few years,
people have started to say things
like, “Oh, but I buy
free-range eggs!” or
“My meat isn’t from a
factory farm, my meat is
local.” It’s almost as
if all concern about the
treatment of animals has been
pacified by these new and
improved “alternative”
animal products. By purchasing
these “humane” products
people feel absolved from the
cruelty inherent in the animal
agriculture industry. They feel
that there is an alternative now
at the farmer’s markets and
in the “slow food”
movement and if they just pay a
little extra money, they can
“have their meat and eat it
too.” Consumers are being
lulled into a complacency where
they think the animals are now
happy and this new way of farming
is actually beneficial to the
environment. They have been led
to believe that all is well in
the mythical world of humane
animal agriculture; and that is
exactly what the producers of
these products want them to
believe.
The fact that people are
becoming aware of the misery that
farmed animals endure, and of the
devastating impact of livestock
on the planet, is a good thing. A
growing number of consumers want
to “know where their food
comes from” and are willing
to pay more money for
alternatives to conventional
animal products. This is a
positive progression away from
industrialized food production,
so there is a hopeful side to
this new industry reaction.
However, there is a dark side as
well.
Is the “Alternative”
Encouraging a Return to Meat
Eating?
The trend is quite popular in
my little liberal community of
beautiful Sonoma County,
California just north of the
Golden Gate Bridge. We were lucky
enough to have a good size, all
vegetarian natural foods store
that has been a haven for
vegetarians and vegans since the
70’s. It was a joy to shop
there and not have to avert your
eyes from bloody muscles on
display or wince at the pungent
odor of dead marine life. Many of
us went out of our way and would
pass up one or two Whole Foods
just to shop there.
- See more at:
http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/factory-farming-alternative-farming#sthash.nPDmUjkM.dpuf
The Emergence of the Factory
Farming
“Alternative”
For most of my adult life, I
have been engaging in
conversations about animals
raised and killed for their meat,
milk and eggs. These
conversations haven’t
changed much over the last 25
years. I get the same, tired
questions about protein and
desert islands and plants feeling
pain.
But recently, something has
shifted. In the last few years,
people have started to say things
like, “Oh, but I buy
free-range eggs!” or
“My meat isn’t from a
factory farm, my meat is
local.” It’s almost as
if all concern about the
treatment of animals has been
pacified by these new and
improved “alternative”
animal products. By purchasing
these “humane” products
people feel absolved from the
cruelty inherent in the animal
agriculture industry. They feel
that there is an alternative now
at the farmer’s markets and
in the “slow food”
movement and if they just pay a
little extra money, they can
“have their meat and eat it
too.” Consumers are being
lulled into a complacency where
they think the animals are now
happy and this new way of farming
is actually beneficial to the
environment. They have been led
to believe that all is well in
the mythical world of humane
animal agriculture; and that is
exactly what the producers of
these products want them to
believe.
The fact that people are
becoming aware of the misery that
farmed animals endure, and of the
devastating impact of livestock
on the planet, is a good thing. A
growing number of consumers want
to “know where their food
comes from” and are willing
to pay more money for
alternatives to conventional
animal products. This is a
positive progression away from
industrialized food production,
so there is a hopeful side to
this new industry reaction.
However, there is a dark side as
well.
Is the “Alternative”
Encouraging a Return to Meat
Eating?
The trend is quite popular in
my little liberal community of
beautiful Sonoma County,
California just north of the
Golden Gate Bridge. We were lucky
enough to have a good size, all
vegetarian natural foods store
that has been a haven for
vegetarians and vegans since the
70’s. It was a joy to shop
there and not have to avert your
eyes from bloody muscles on
display or wince at the pungent
odor of dead marine life. Many of
us went out of our way and would
pass up one or two Whole Foods
just to shop there.
Recently, while humming around
the store for my organic veggies
and vegan ice cream, an
enthusiastic employee told me
that they were opening a second
store. I was thrilled at first,
but the excitement soon took an
unexpected turn when I learned
that there would be a meat
counter. How could this be? The
4th word of the Market’s
mission statement was
“vegetarian”. I learned
that because they were able to
source “local, humane”
meats, and there was such a high
demand for these products, they
had changed their mission
statement and after almost four
decades of vegetarianism, had
decided to sell meat. The
vegetarian community felt
completely betrayed.
But we are not the only ones
being betrayed. The farmed
animals caught in this changing
industry are the true victims. It
is not the few differences
between alternative production
and factory farming that matter,
but the startling
similarities.
What Exactly is The
Alternative to Factory
Farming?
When we see a product with one
of these new labels: humane,
free-range, grass-fed,
sustainable, etc. there is
probably little difference
between this operation and a
conventional producer.
Here’s what may be
different. The scale of the
operation is likely smaller and
the animals are perhaps not in
intensive confinement, i.e,
cages, and may have some access
to the outdoors. For a more
detailed examination and
definition of each label, and
what they mean for the animals,
please read The Ultimate
Betrayal: Is There Happy
Meat?
Some people think that the
companies producing products with
alternative labels are heroically
defying factory farming norms and
are the saviors of our food
supply. The disheartening truth
is that there is little
distinction; the similarities far
outweigh the differences. Most of
the other horrors a farmed animal
endures in animal agriculture
still apply to any of these
alternative labels.
For example, when someone buys
eggs labeled
“cage-free” or
“free-range,” although
they likely came from hens who
aren’t in battery cages,
these birds nevertheless are
still overcrowded in miserable,
windowless warehouses where the
stench of ammonia is
overwhelming. They are still
painfully debeaked, brutally
handled, and they still go to a
terrifying slaughter at a young
age. It is not cost effective for
any egg operation to hatch their
own chicks, so the babies still
come from the harsh and heartless
hatcheries where all male chicks
are cruelly killed by the
millions soon after hatching, as
they are considered a waste
product of the egg industry.
When someone buys dairy
products with an
“organic” or
“humane” label, the
cows were perhaps able to go
outside for some of their life,
but they were still artificially
inseminated, kept pregnant their
entire short lives, and were
milked well beyond what was ever
intended for their bodies
naturally. Their calves were
still taken away soon after
birth, never to nuzzle their
mothers or drink from their
udders, or to frolic in a field.
If the calves born to dairy cows
are male, they are worthless to
the dairy industry, and are sold
at auction to be killed for veal,
or perhaps for meat. If the
operation is organic, sick and
diseased cows languish untreated
so the milk is not
“tainted” with needed
medications.
Animals raised for meat with a
feel-good label have a similar
story, frequently subjected to
overcrowding and painful bodily
mutilations: debeaking, tail
cutting, ear notching, tooth
filing or clipping, castration,
and de-horning, all without pain
medications. And they are all
sent to a sickening slaughter in
the very beginning of their
lives.
No matter the label, no matter
the scale, commercially
“farming” an animal for
her meat, milk or eggs is factory
farming. If an animal is hatched
into this world in a sterile
metal drawer without the comfort
of her mother and a soft nest
– that is factory farming.
If a calf is ripped from his
mother at birth, and is kept
separate from her and other cows,
alone and frightened, chained and
unloved – that is factory
farming. If an animal has her
beak burned off, her tail cut
off, his genitals ripped out
– that is factory farming.
If an animal is hung upside down
with his throat slit open –
that is factory farming.
Indeed, I would encourage the
animal activist community not to
use the term “factory
farming” anymore because it
implies that there is some
“humane” farming
alterative somewhere that
counters the large-scale,
industrial operations. By using
the term “factory
farming” animal activists
have inadvertently contributed to
a demand for
“alternative” animal
products. This is what we have
been hearing in the shifting
rhetoric of apologists for the
animal agricultural industry when
they say “I only
buy…”
There are inherent cruelties
in any kind of animal agriculture
that cannot be eliminated with
feel-good labels or descriptions
of joyful animals who are
supposedly happy till that
“one bad day.” It is an
industry-wide lie. Small or
large-scale, the animals are
never happy to be killed. There
is no such thing as “happy
meat.”
Is Anti Factory Farming Really
Pro Environment?
In these more recent
conversations, I’m also
hearing people say, “but
it’s better for the
environment” or
“it’s more
sustainable” as if the
ecological concerns trump the
ethical. People believe that a
smaller operation or an animal
having a little more living space
is somehow better for the planet.
However, this is a case of
green-washing labeling a product
to make the consumer believe that
it’s better for the
environment when in fact there is
little or no difference from its
conventional counterpart. In
fact, some cases of alternative
labels are even worse.
People choose grass-fed beef
because they believe it has a
lighter ecological-hoofprint, but
actually, grass-fed animals can
produce 50 to 60 percent more
greenhouse gas emissions than
their grain-eating cousins. They
can also use more water as their
activity level is higher,
especially in hot, summer
months.
Free-range or pasture-raised
animals are no greener. Most
free-range situations, especially
with poultry, are just a building
packed with thousands of animals,
with an opening the size of a cat
door sometimes providing access
to a small, unappealing concrete
or muddy patio onto which no bird
would want to venture. The
environmental impact is
unchanged.
However, if there is a
transition to a truly
pasture-based system, the same
amount of animals will now use
several more acres of land. At
any given time, there are 100
million head of cattle and 70
million pigs alive in the U.S.
Currently, only about 9 percent
of all livestock is pasture
raised. How would we ever have
the land to pasture raise them
all? To give all farmed animals
the space they need to have even
a semblance of a natural life, we
would have to destroy millions
more acres of wild areas,
forests, prairies, and wetlands
to accommodate them. There is not
enough land on the planet, or
even two planets, to free-range
all the billions of pigs, sheep,
turkeys, ducks, and chickens. We
would need closer to five planet
Earths. It simply cannot be done.
Free-ranging animals for food can
never be more than a specialty
market for a few elite
buyers.
We must end the
commercialization of
animals’ bodies, for the
health of the planet, our own
health and especially for the
sake of the animals. When animals
are still enduring such misery
and sadness and have their lives
taken at a fraction of their
lifespan, “a little
better” isn’t good
enough. When animal agriculture
is causing 51 percent of our
human caused greenhouse gas
emissions, wasting vital fresh
water and polluting what is left,
“a little less impact”
isn’t good enough. No label
will ever make it right to
exploit, manipulate and rob
animals of their right to live
free of human imposed suffering
and killing.
Here in Sonoma County, I have
witnessed the supposedly
“best of the best”
operations with a range of
feel-good labels and websites
proclaiming theirs are the
“happiest” animals. At
these farms I have seen dairy
cows in manure and muck up to
their bellies staring out over a
fence at green grass where they
will never graze. I have seen the
sterile rows of calf hutches
where the baby females with
wobbly legs are taken from their
mothers with the area where their
umbilical cord was cut still wet,
separated and chained to what
look like rows of white dog
houses, frightened, sad and
alone. I have seen over-crowed,
debeaked chickens touted as
“free-range” standing
in a mud hole with green grass
just over the fence. All these
animals have a death sentence
that will come much too soon. All
animal farming is factory
farming.
The Emergence of the Factory
Farming
“Alternative”
For most of my adult life, I
have been engaging in
conversations about animals
raised and killed for their meat,
milk and eggs. These
conversations haven’t
changed much over the last 25
years. I get the same, tired
questions about protein and
desert islands and plants feeling
pain.
But recently, something has
shifted. In the last few years,
people have started to say things
like, “Oh, but I buy
free-range eggs!” or
“My meat isn’t from a
factory farm, my meat is
local.” It’s almost as
if all concern about the
treatment of animals has been
pacified by these new and
improved “alternative”
animal products. By purchasing
these “humane” products
people feel absolved from the
cruelty inherent in the animal
agriculture industry. They feel
that there is an alternative now
at the farmer’s markets and
in the “slow food”
movement and if they just pay a
little extra money, they can
“have their meat and eat it
too.” Consumers are being
lulled into a complacency where
they think the animals are now
happy and this new way of farming
is actually beneficial to the
environment. They have been led
to believe that all is well in
the mythical world of humane
animal agriculture; and that is
exactly what the producers of
these products want them to
believe.
The fact that people are
becoming aware of the misery that
farmed animals endure, and of the
devastating impact of livestock
on the planet, is a good thing. A
growing number of consumers want
to “know where their food
comes from” and are willing
to pay more money for
alternatives to conventional
animal products. This is a
positive progression away from
industrialized food production,
so there is a hopeful side to
this new industry reaction.
However, there is a dark side as
well.
Is the “Alternative”
Encouraging a Return to Meat
Eating?
The trend is quite popular in
my little liberal community of
beautiful Sonoma County,
California just north of the
Golden Gate Bridge. We were lucky
enough to have a good size, all
vegetarian natural foods store
that has been a haven for
vegetarians and vegans since the
70’s. It was a joy to shop
there and not have to avert your
eyes from bloody muscles on
display or wince at the pungent
odor of dead marine life. Many of
us went out of our way and would
pass up one or two Whole Foods
just to shop there.
- See more at:
http://freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-ethics/factory-farming-alternative-farming#sthash.nPDmUjkM.dpuf
|
