All together now: Booooooooo!
Pfffffft!
That’s what the cattle industry rightfully says to radical
animal rights groups like PETA and the Humane Society of the
United States (HSUS).
There’s PETA with its naked celebrities shedding their furs, the
inflammatory PR campaigns aimed at everything from the
exploitation of tadpoles, to animals used for recreation and
entertainment, to mainstream livestock production and on and on.
There’s Ingrid Newkirk, PETA
president and co-founder, saying on a CNN newscast, as Great
Britain was being rocked by Foot and Mouth Disease in 2001, “I
openly hope that it comes here. It will bring economic harm only
for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving
animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good
for animals, good for human health and good for the
environment.”
Then there’s the more refined
Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) with its undercover
videos, massive budget and political savvy, petitioning
producers into corners, while parading itself as a true animal
welfare organization.
According to a profile from the
Center for Consumer Freedom, “The Humane Society of the United
States (HSUS) is a humane society in name only, since it doesn’t
operate a single pet shelter or pet adoption facility anywhere
in the United States. During 2007, HSUS contributed only 3.64
percent of its budget to organizations that operate hands-on dog
and cat shelters. In reality, HSUS is a wealthy animal-rights
lobbying organization (the largest and richest on earth) that
agitates for the same goals as PETA and other radical groups.”
The unhidden agenda, of course, for organizations like these is
to rid the world of meat consumption. So far, they’ve offered no
alternative solutions to the protein void were they to be
successful.
Enough of that. It’s too easy to
get mad at such groups and overlook the mainstream debate they
bastardize to fill their coffers from the unknowing.
Defend This
Never listen to Bernie Rollin unless you’re prepared to have
you’re comfortable world of black and white smudged up a bit.
He’s the world-renowned expert on veterinary medical ethics.
He’s a professor of both philosophy and animal science at
Colorado State University.
At December’s Beef Range Beef Cow
Symposium, Rollin presented a paper entitled, Animal Rights as a
Mainstream Phenomenon. In it he outlines the ethical revolutions
in Western society for the past 50 years. Think here of
everything from feminism and the Civil Rights Movement, to
animal welfare.
For virtually all of human
history, Rollin says animal agriculture was based on animal
husbandry. That term still gets bandied about, but Rollin uses
the term specifically.
“Husbandry, derived from the old
Norse word “hus/band,” bonded to the household, meant taking
great pains to put one’s animals into the best possible
environment one could find to meet their physical and
psychological natures…” Rollin explains. “In husbandry, a
producer did well if and only if the animals did well, so
productivity was tied to welfare. No social ethic was thus
needed to ensure proper animal treatment; only the anti-cruelty
(laws) designed to deal with sadists and psychopaths was needed
to augment husbandry. Self-interest virtually assured good
treatment.”
Yes, producers worth their salt
still go above and beyond in caring for their livestock. Rollin
recognizes that. But he also points out the basic relationship
between livestock and their stewards changed in the wake of WW
II. That’s when the U.S. government and its society wanted to
ensure there would be plenty of affordable food. The Great
Depression was still a close memory, after all.
Consequently, producers began
utilizing new technology and management to produce more with
fewer acres, fewer head of livestock for the same or less money.
Looking over today’s shoulder, that wasn’t a conscious decision;
instead it was the slow deliberate reaction of producers to
evolving farm policy and the markets.
In doing so, Rollin says, “With
technological sanders—hormones, vaccines, antibiotics,
air-handling systems, mechanization—we could force square pegs
into round holes, and place animals into environments where they
suffered in ways irrelevant to productivity.”
Now, think back to the ethical
revolutions Rollin mentioned. For more than 50 years he explains
Western society has continued to extend its moral categories for
humans to people previously morally ignored by society, such as
women, ethnic minorities, the handicapped and so on.
“So a plausible and obvious move
is for society to continue in its tendency and attempt to extend
the moral machinery it has developed for dealing with people,
appropriately modified, to animals. And this is precisely what
has occurred. Society has taken elements of the moral categories
it uses for assessing the treatment of people and is in
the process of modifying these concepts to make them appropriate
for dealing with new issues in the treatment of animals,
especially their use in science and confinement agriculture.”
It’s about ethics, not science
This has nothing to do with science. Rollin serves on the
National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (Pew
Commission), which is a dirty word for many livestock producers.
A few years back, the Pew
Commission was charged with studying intensive animal
agriculture in the U.S. In the process, Rollin says in his paper
that one livestock industry representative testifying before the
Commission said it could allay the industry’s anxiety about the
study if the industry knew the Commission’s conclusions and
recommendations would be based on science.
Rollin explains, “Hoping to
rectify the error in that comment, as well as educate the
numerous industry representatives present, I responded to her as
follows: ‘Madame, if we on the Commission were asking the
question of how to raise swine in confinement, science could
certainly answer that question for us. But that is not the
question the Commission, or society, is asking. What we are
asking is, ought we raise swine in confinement?’”
The Pew Commission report—Putting
Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production (IFAP) in
America—has this to say about animal welfare: “IFAP methods for
raising food animals have generated concern and debate over just
what constitutes a reasonable life for animals and what kind of
quality of life we owe the animals in our care. It is an ethical
dilemma that transcends objective scientific measures, and
incorporates value-based concerns. Physical health as measured
by absence of some diseases or predation, for example, may be
enhanced through confinement since the animals may not be
exposed to certain infectious agents or sources of injury that
would be encountered if the animals were raised outside of
confinement. It is clear, however, that good animal welfare can
no longer be assumed based only on the absence of disease or
productivity outcomes. Intensive confinement (e.g. gestation
crates for swine, battery cages for laying hens) often so
severely restricts movement and natural behaviors, such as the
ability to walk or lie on natural materials, having enough floor
space to move with some freedom, and rooting for pigs, that it
increases the likelihood that the animals suffer severe
distress.”
Among the animal welfare
recommendations made in the Pew Commission report: “Phase out
the most intensive and inhumane production practices within a
decade to reduce IFAP risks to public health and improve animal
well being.” Of the seven practices cited, sow gestation crates,
dairy cattle tail docking and poultry battery cages have become
illegal in some states or are in the process of becoming so.
When considered through the
lenses of science and production these recommendations can seem
both ignorant and arrogant. But when you pose the same
question—Ought we?—that Rollin did to the aforementioned
industry representative worried about the science, it’s easier
to understand the conclusions.
Last November, the American
Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) issued a point by point
response to the Pew Commission IFAP report.
Broadly, in the executive summary
of the response, AVMA says, “In our analysis of the Pew
Commission’s report, we found several areas of concern,
beginning with the technical assemblage of academics to research
and review the report. The Pew Commission purports to have
utilized a process that melds the thoughts of top academics and
diverse stakeholders into its grandiose examination of food
animal production. However, the Pew Commission’s process for
gaining technical expertise in the technical reports was biased
and did not incorporate the findings and suggestions of a
significant number of participating academicians. We caution
readers that we found disparities within the report, potentially
due to the lack of incorporation of differing interpretations
and conclusions offered by subject matter experts.”
In the area of IFAP animal
welfare recommendations, the AVMA says in part, “While we
believe there is value in some of the recommendations offered by
the Pew Commission, we assert that many of the Commission’s
sub-points have significant shortfalls and lack in comprehensive
idea development or in how the Commission would execute a new
plan or program…its recommendations inappropriately assume that
intensive methods of farmed animal production are patently
inhumane.” AVMA goes on to list several misconceptions, such as
the assertion that increased living space for livestock results
in improved welfare.
“A complete assessment of welfare
requires consideration of animals’ physiological and
psychological needs. In general, intensive animal production
systems better satisfy the physiological and health needs of
animals, whereas extensive animal production systems better
satisfy the behavioral needs. Because the advantages and
disadvantages of farmed animal production systems for animal
welfare are qualitatively different, there is no simple or
objective way to rank systems for overall welfare,” explains the
AVMA response. “Maintaining good welfare within production
systems involves trade-offs. For example, production systems
that allow animals to perform natural behaviors (e.g., providing
substrates that permit swine to root) may present more
challenges for disease and injury control. Conversely, using
intensive confinement to improve disease and injury control
often limits animals’ ability to engage in normal behaviors.”
In the case of the beef cattle,
Rollin believes the practices the industry must get away from
are hot iron branding, dehorning without anesthesia and
castration without anesthesia.
All of this only skims the surface of Rollin’s insightful and
eloquent case in logic, but it gets at what’s behind the
mainstream animal welfare groups’ concerns. It explains why
otherwise intelligent seeming folks can throw out notions that
are anathema to efficient mainstream production.
Agree or disagree with Rollin’s
points, but understand this is the psyche behind the mainstream
animal welfare debate, not the lamebrain issues tossed around by
the radial groups like PETA and HSUS in the name of fun-raising.
For Rollins paper, see (http://www.rangebeefcow.com/2009/documents/Rollin-Bernard_E.pdf).
For the Pew Commission report see
http://www.ncifap.org/bin/e/j/PCIFAPFin.pdf
For the AVMA response, see
http://www.avma.org/advocacy/PEWresponse/PEW_report_response.pdf
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