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1.
AFBF/OSU FARMED ANIMAL WELFARE SURVEY
The results of a farmed animal welfare
survey commissioned by the American Farm Bureau Federation
were recently released. Conducted last summer by Oklahoma
State University’s department of agricultural
economics, the nationwide telephone survey consisted
of 48 questions put to some 1,000 consumers. Respondents
rated the importance of farm animal welfare last in
comparison to poverty, health care, food safety, the
environment, the financial well-being of U.S. farmers,
and food prices. However, 95% said it was important
to them that animals on farms are well cared for (81%
agreed that farmed animals have roughly the same ability
to feel pain and discomfort as humans), and 76% disagreed
that low meat prices are more important than the well-being
of these animals. While the majority believed their
personal food choices have a large impact on farmed
animal well-being, 68% responded that government should
take an active role in promoting farm animal welfare
and 75% said they would vote for a law in their state
requiring farmers to treat animals better. When asked
if keeping chickens in cages or pregnant pigs in crates
is humane, 55% and 64% respectively disagreed that
it is. The full report can be accessed at: http://tinyurl.com/2z72k4
"It was a little surprising the
extent to which the issue of humane treatment of animals
is ingrained and widespread in our society,"
Don Lipton, director of public relations for the Farm
Bureau, told Meat & Poultry (see: http://tinyurl.com/3deadw
), "There’s a lot of interest in this."
In another industry publication, the researchers remarked:
One [“innovative”] question attempted
to measure the value of farm animals relative to a
human. If a technology were developed that could either
eliminate the suffering of one human or more than
11,500 farm animals, most respondents said it should
reduce the suffering of the farm animals. Conversely,
if the technology could address the suffering of one
human or fewer than 11,500 farm animals, most respondents
chose to reduce the suffering of the one human. What
does this imply? Simply that for the average American,
the suffering of one human is equivalent to the suffering
of 11,500 farm animals.
CONSUMERS EXPRESS VIEWS ON FARM ANIMAL
WELFARE
Feedstuffs Foodlink; Bailey Norwood, Jayson Lusk and
Robert Prickett; Oct. 8, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2cn5cb
2.
FARMERS ADVISED TO FIND MORAL BASIS, CONFRONT ACTIVISTS
Most consumers are profound hypocrites,"
said Wes Jamison, "They want to have their meat
and take it to the vet, too." Jamison, a University
of Florida public relations researcher and professor,
was referring to the inconsistent ways in which consumers
consider animals (see: http://tinyurl.com/39wmul
). His presentation, entitled "Public Relations
Strategies for Dealing with the Animal Welfare Issue,"
was delivered to an estimated 200 people gathered
this week for the Michigan Farm Bureau convention.
He offered a single strategy: that farmers "come
up with a moral basis of why what you do is the right
thing to do, in the right way." Jamison attributed
the growing clash between animal agriculture and animal
advocacy to urbanization, anthropomorphism, the theory
of evolution and equal rights. Using class trips as
an example, he noted that children may visit farms
but not slaughterplants. “Why?” he said:
“Because we intuitively know society has changed,
and we try to hide what we do from society.”
Jamison advised presenting the actuality of the industry
in a proud and matter-of-fact way: “We need
to say 'You know what? It takes the death of something
for you to live, and we are unashamed.’”
Also this week, Steve Kopperud told
attendees at the Arkansas Farm Bureau convention that
farmers and ranchers need to directly confront animal-welfare
activists. Kopperud, an executive with the lobbying
firm Policy Directions, is also affiliated with other
organizations that promote animal agriculture entities.
He urged that different species production groups
unite: “If it walks, bleats, clucks, we kill
it and we eat it, it has to be part of the alliance.”
Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society
of the U.S. (HSUS) is the “greatest threat”
to animal agriculture, according to Kopperud. Pacelle
disagrees, explaining: “To us it’s not
about animal rights, it’s about human responsibility.
These animals are killed for human consumption, and
the least we can do is give them a decent life and
not subject them to torment and privation that causes
them enormous distress.” In particular, he said
HSUS is concerned about the use of battery cages,
pig gestation crates, and the crates used to house
calves raised for veal. Pacelle mentioned that HSUS
has also filed suit to have poultry covered by the
Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. Kopperud counters
that their exclusion from it is sound. “We are
critical to everybody’s quality of life, and
we have no record of abuse or neglect that is sufficient
to warrant federal intervention in what we do and
how well we do it,” he said.
FARMERS FACE DILEMMA: ANIMALS AS MEAT
OR PETS?
The Grand Rapids Press, Morgan Jarema, November 29,
2007
http://tinyurl.com/ythhu7
LOBBYIST TELLS FARMERS TO FIGHT ABUSE CLAIMS
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Nancy Cole, November 30,
2007
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/209226
3.
MORE ON MORALITY
“The deeper that science drills
into the substrata of behavior, the harder it becomes
to preserve the vanity that we are unique among Earth's
creatures,” states Jeffrey Kluger in a Time
magazine cover story entitled What Makes Us Moral.
What does or should separate humans from other animals
is a highly developed sense of morality, with empathy
being the deepest basis of it, Kluger writes. He goes
on to note, however, that empathy is an attribute
also present in other species. The human paradox,
according to Kluger, is that while humans are “the
highest, wisest, most principled species the planet
has produced…we're also the lowest, cruelest,
most blood-drenched species…” He claims
that our biggest challenges are when we are in a position
to behave morally toward others as we would toward
members of “our tribe.” Kluger concludes:
“For grossly imperfect creatures like us, morality
may be the steepest of all developmental mountains.
Our opposable thumbs and big brains gave us the tools
to dominate the planet, but wisdom comes more slowly
than physical hardware. We surely have a lot of killing
and savagery ahead of us before we fully civilize
ourselves…”
WHAT MAKES US MORAL
Time, Jeffrey Kluger with Tiffany Sharples and Alexandra
Silver, Nov. 21, 2007
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1685055_1685076_1686619,00.html
4.
PARTICIPATING IN KOSHER SLAUGHTER
Popular books about the safety and humaneness
of the food supply, and, in particular, controversies
over the nation’s largest kosher slaughterplant
(see: http://tinyurl.com/2qvpqn
), have generated interest among the Jewish community
in organic and free-range kosher products. Simon Feil,
founder of New York’s Kosher Conscience, recently
“cradled” the first turkey killed for
the new kosher meat cooperative. “You really
watch something that is a living creature turn into
meat,” he remarked. The personal involvement
in slaughtering animals is raising thorny questions.
“‘Meat’ is a word we use to partially
shield ourselves from the fact that we are eating
a dead animal,” said Nigel Savage, who received
one of the turkeys from the cooperative. Savage is
the founder of Hazon, an organization dedicated to
examining Judaism and food. Prior to reading Michael
Pollan’s writings (see item #5),
Savage believed that eating meat was wrong. At a Hazon
conference this December, three goats are to be slaughtered
to show attendees where meat comes from (see: http://tinyurl.com/37ndj4
). Hazon organizers are attempting to deal with the
tense controversy over animal slaughter. Meanwhile,
the founder of Kosher Organic Local Foods had her
children participate in the slaughter of sixty chickens
for Thanksgiving.
See also: ECO-KASHRUT TURNS ITS ATTENTION TO MEAT
JTA, Sue Fishkoff, Nov. 27, 2007
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20071127112607koshermeat.html
KOSHER ACTIVISTS STRIVE TO SLAUGHTER
WITH A CONSCIENCE
The Jewish Daily Forward, Nathaniel Popper, Nov. 21, 2007
http://www.forward.com/articles/12083/
5.
TO KILL A TURKEY
“If you cause the death of animals
through your dietary choices, you ought to be willing
to pull the trigger…There's a reason people
like me let others do their killing for them. We're
cowards and hypocrites. Not to mention fools,”
states writer Bill Lueders, who, inspired by Michael
Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma
(see: http://tinyurl.com/3cvluo
), sought to “know” and slaughter a turkey
for Thanksgiving. He details why, in the process,
he found that “for most turkeys and chickens
raised in America, there are worse things than death.”
Regarding slaughter, he quotes Pollan: "No other
country raises and slaughters its food animals quite
as intensively or as brutally as we do…The industrial
animal factory offers a nightmarish glimpse of what
capitalism is capable of in the absence of any moral
or regulatory constraint."
Lueders enlists a Wisconsin organic
farmer, Ken Wulf (article includes photo), who obtains
free-range turkeys from an Amish farmer to help him
fulfill his quest. The pertinent background and current
circumstances of both men are elaborated. Visiting
the Amish operation (see also: http://tinyurl.com/2qvd58
), Lueders observes: “Turkeys are friendly and
social. In nature, they'll spend their first five
months — longer than most of those raised for
meat are allowed to live — glued to their moms.
They have distinct personalities and can recognize
human faces.”
Subsequently, they prepare to kill one of the birds:
“Wulf grabbed the turkey by the neck and it
reacted violently, thrashing its wings and jabbing
its legs in all directions. He set it on the ground,
holding down its neck with his hand and its body with
his knee. He called me over to take his place. The
bird tried to push upward and I was astounded by its
strength. I had to squat on top of it to keep it still.
A moment later, Wulf was back with the paring knife.
Lueders had been told what to expect: “I'd hold
my bird's head and body down to the ground. I'd put
a paring knife in its mouth and cut the back of its
throat. Then I'd hang on…while its lifeblood
spurted out. ‘You'll be able to feel it,"
Wulf said. ‘When the last heartbeat goes, you'll
know it's dead.’”
Lueders continues: “But could
I really kill this animal? And for what? So I could
have a tasty meal? My son is a vegetarian; so are
some of my friends. They manage to eat without animals
dying. Why can't I? None of these thoughts occurred
to me. There wasn't time. I started inserting the
knife, then hesitated. ‘Ken?’ He took
the knife from my hand and plunged it in, severing
the arteries at the back of the throat. ‘I don't
want the animal to suffer,’ he said, by way
of explanation.” Examining the organs as they
eviscerate the turkey, Wulf notes that he had been
“just a young boy.” Later, viewing photographs
he had taken, Lueders comments: “…the
experience left me neither pleased nor proud. And
when I saw the photos I took of the prostrate bird,
blood dripping from its mouth, I felt sickened, and
ashamed.”
TO KILL A TURKEY
The Daily Page, Bill Lueders, Nov. 21, 2007
http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=14621_
6.
ANOTHER RECALL FOR E.COLI
Nearly 96,000 pounds of ground beef
were recalled after two people were sickened, possibly
by E. coli, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced
over the Thanksgiving weekend. It is but one in a
series of recent such recalls (see: http://tinyurl.com/2jdulx
). American Foods Group voluntarily recalled the beef,
which had been distributed for further processing
and for repackaging without the company’s identification
number. The meat, distributed in seven states, was
made on October 10th. By the time of the recall, some
of the recommended “use-by” dates had
already expired.
COMPANY
RECALLS 96,000 POUNDS OF GROUND BEEF
Associated Press, Nov. 25, 2007
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/11/25/beef.recall.ap/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
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7.
FEDERAL INSPECTION'S UNCERTAIN MARK
“What does the federal mark of
meat and poultry inspection really mean?” asks
industry publication Meat & Poultry’s Steve
Krut, “…for the small plant, retailer,
wholesaler or grinder that receives [meat], it means
that if a problem is detected with this product once
it is in their shop or after they sell it, they will
be held responsible and suffer the consequences.”
Krut says that even when E. coli or Salmonella is
found, FSIS has made this its starting point and too
often its resolution point “[e]ven though it
is unreasonable to assume that the enteric problem
originated in a facility that does not slaughter.”
Krut states that “For more than a decade, FSIS
[the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service]
has played the eunuch in such instances,” noting
that this approach wastes time and allows more potentially
contaminated product to be consumed.
Krut says the agency claims its officials
are not adequately trained to trace problems back
to their source, and that it may waste months avoiding
the likely truth. “Train the officials,”
he says, advising that “…it will be only
slower line speeds, closer physical inspection, new
technology and serious, prompt tracebacks” that
will improve the matter.” Krut concludes: “But
until animal science develops a foolproof way of eliminating
these pathogens from the livestock as they are raised,
as much as we hate to admit it, the label may state
that it is ‘inspected and passed’ but
the realists will continue to read between the lines.
Emperor still wears no clothes and the truth is still
bare on this controversy.”
******
Meat & Poultry contributor Temple
Grandin (see: http://www.grandin.com
) tells that on a recent trip to New Zealand she saw
remarkably healthier cows than are in the U.K. or
the U.S. There, she explains, the majority of dairies
do not house cows in stalls or dirt lots but instead
allow them to graze on green grass. Many cattle raised
for the beef trade are also fattened on grass there.
THE 'FOGGY MARK' OF INSPECTION
Meat & Poultry, (Opinion), Steve Krut, November
29, 2007
http://www.meatpoultry.com/news/headline_stories.asp?ArticleID=89752
WHERE THE GRASS IS GREENER
Meat & Poultry, Temple Grandin, November 16, 2007
http://test.meatpoultry.com/feature_stories_print.asp?ArticleID=89560
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