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dun

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Animal agriculture in the spotlight
By Suzanne B. Bopp (Tuesday, August 15, 2006)


How is a calf different from a dog? It sounds like a riddle, but the cattle industry should be prepared to answer that question.

Before dismissing it, consider this: Donations to animal-rights groups increased 40 percent between 2003 and 2004, according to the Animal Agriculture Alliance. Those contributions in 2004 allowed groups to spend more than $290 million in efforts to combat animal agriculture.

It's a piece of the evidence suggesting that one of agriculture's biggest battles over the coming de-cades will be for the hearts of consumers. Interest in animals is a rapidly growing trend, and right now, "the movement is winning," says Wes Jamison, associate professor of agriculture at Dordt College in Iowa. "What they are succeeding at doing is guiding urban America's perception of animals and institutionalizing those changes."

The expansion of the movement coincides with the growing number of people who have no experience with agriculture. "As America becomes more and more distant from its agricultural roots, skewed messages are more likely to resonate," says Philip Lobo, communications director for the Animal Agriculture Alliance. "But it's a population we can't dismiss because it's so large."

Increasing urbanization is one of four societal changes that suggest it will continue to grow, Jamison says. The other three are the anthropomorphism of animals, an acceptance of evolution and the concept of equality, all of which encourage the conclusion that animals are like us, and we should protect things that are like us. After all, our history is one of an extension of equality and rights; think of women and African Americans. The idea of animals being equal is driven to a great extent by increasing pet ownership. For many people, pets function as surrogate family members. People look at their pets and ask why there is one set of rules for family pets and another set for farm animals.

The Holy Grail for animal-rights groups, Jamison says, would be to obtain standing to sue on behalf of animals.

Merging welfare and rights

Another trend showing up is a blurring of the line between animal-rights and animal-welfare groups. The Humane Society of the United States is one example: Traditionally an animal-welfare group, it is now more geared to animal rights. Paul Thompson, WK Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University, says HSUS has gone from a posture of trying to encourage animal welfare to a posture of bringing lawsuits. "It's a very noticeable change of MO," he says. "That's something industry is going to notice."

A number of books related to the subject have gotten press coverage recently, Thompson says, such as the release of Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which has brought the subject even more to public consciousness. "He doesn't think of himself as reflecting the animal-rights view, and he has been critical of it, but he's also critical of mainstream animal agriculture," Thompson says. A book by Matt Scully, a conservative Catholic speechwriter for George W. Bush and therefore not the typical animal activist, has also stirred the pot. The book, "Dominion," inspired George Will to write a Newsweek column about the treatment of farm animals.

All of this is part of the long-running rethinking of the relationship between humans and animals, which began, in some respects, with Darwin. "In the 19th century, there was a widespread belief that animals did not feel pain," Thompson says. "The philosophical root was ideas that came from Christian philosophical tradition. I don't think livestock producers ever thought that animals didn't feel pain, and no respected scientist today would say that." Instead, he says, science today is looking more seriously at subjects like animal intelligence, their ability to form attachments and feel boredom, in a way that goes far beyond popular books. "There's a very gradual sea change in the way people are looking at animals across society broadly, certainly across the sciences," Thompson says.

He also describes a pendulum swing in the way the general population looks at agriculture — specifically, there's more of an attempt to understand it. "They may want to recover some sense of the way food production was; sometimes it's naïve and not well-thought-out. Sometimes it's about aesthetics — the way it's shown in children's books is the way
it ought to be."

But that shows that conditions for farm animals don't square with mainstream ideals, says Gene Bauston, co-founder and president of Farm Sanctuary, which exists to change how society views and treats farm animals. That feeling is reflected in the business world, too, he says: Look at the 20-percent-a-year growth of Whole Foods. "That tells you that consumers are increasingly uncomfortable with the mass production of cheap food — the paradigm that has driven agriculture for decades." Now Whole Foods is developing animal-compassion standards.

Bauston says his organization is not against farmers. "We're against suffering for everybody, including farmers. We think farmers who take the concept of stewardship to heart and adopt sensible farming techniques can improve their lifestyle and ability to stay on the land."

So what is the difference between a calf and a dog — and why do we have different laws for their treatment? People in the animal movement argue that there is no difference. "There are also things such as prejudice and discrimination, and the reasons behind them are often economic," Bauston says. "In the 1980s and 1990s, animal-cruelty laws were amended to exempt farm animals, arbitrarily suggesting that harming them was acceptable. Now the animal movement is starting to pay attention."

Bauston, who studied agricultural economics at Cornell University, says his organization is looking for a different model of agriculture, one that treats animals as animals, not only production units — a return to being what he calls true agriculturists.

Industry response

Communication efforts are going to be ever more important for agriculture. "It's a new thing for farmers to have to be explaining themselves and communicating this way," Lobo says. He applauds positive efforts like http://www.bestfoodnation.com and the work of state groups such as Ag United for South Dakota and the Coalition to Support Iowa's Farmers. Steve Dick, executive director of Ag United for South Dakota, also advises animal agriculture to take an active role and let people know what they are doing. His group has used methods like television and radio ads highlighting producers and a Good Neighbor Award program.

Thompson suggests that industry could come forward with minimum standards for treatment of animals, maybe initiatives like certification programs led by producer groups. Certainly it would incur costs. "But too often, the polarization of extreme animal-rights views has led producers to say things that, to the average public, sound like they don't care about the animals, only the bottom line," he says. Another piece of advice he offers: Don't throw people like Michael Pollan, who have thoughtful criticisms, in with extreme animal-rights advocates who say we shouldn't be eating animals. The latter is not a view that most people agree with, and it leaves considerable room for middle ground for agriculture to occupy. "It will take some work to find the right position and articulate it, and the status quo may not be a position they want to defend," Thompson says. "But I would love to have more people in the industry appreciate the difficulty of these issues."

In approaching them, agriculture should stop acting defensive, Jamison says; he speaks of three aspects of a positive response. First is the economic argument: We have a healthy and healthful food supply and we pay low prices for it. The second would be a holistic science rationale, which could demonstrate that the animals' well-being, as far as the science we have is able to determine, is taken care of. "That's not just saying that happy animals produce more," he adds. "If that's the case, why don't we make them produce twice as much and they'll be twice as happy? The same argument was made for slaves. We've got to have science that supports it."

Lastly, there is the moral issue. This is where what Jamison calls the million-dollar question comes in: Why should society allow animal agriculture to do the things it does? That is the matter to contemplate, as the island of agriculture continues to shrink into an urban sea.
 
Interesting and true. Even they got it wrong about the HSUS, though. They were originally funded by PETA and have always been about animal rights. They played on the original American Humane Society name to get started and even these guys didn't note the difference. One of the sad things is they take money from groups that have animal welfare as their priority and use it to push their own agenda. Here's another link:

http://www.netcat.org/trojan.html
 
This is something were all going to have to think about. Thanks, Dun.
Had some folks over that I hadn't seen in awhile. Turned out they didn't eat meat anymore, thought it was cruel. Well with my wife giving me the eye, I opened my big mouth. Asked them if they ever heard a carrot scream when it was pulled out of the ground. They hadn't. So I went about explaining it to them. Roots breaking off and all. Wife was making a salad. I picked up a carrot and snapped it in half. Asked them if they didn't think that hurt like heck. Took them to see my happy cows out in the pasture living the good life. Showed them the happy chickens running around.
They ate some meat before they left.
After reading Dun's article not sure I went about it exactly the right way.
 

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