Recent Article Investigates "The Truth About Turkey"

Kristin Wartman, a food writer, posted an article on the Huffington Post this month titled, "The Truth About Turkey". In this article Wartman investigates how a typical turkey lives before it's served for Thanksgiving dinner, and discusses the impacts that industrial turkey farms have on the environment.
Wartman starts my explaining that approximately 46 million turkeys consumed each year come from factory farms. These birds are raised on a diet of corn and antibiotics. Since turkeys do not naturally eat corn, they must also be fed antibiotics to keep from getting sick. (See my previous post exploring the problems associated with antibiotic use on farms). Industrial turkeys are housed in confined spaces with barely any room to move around. Breeding has also rendered them so top heavy that they usually can barely stand, let alone fly.

Wartman then goes on to describe the environmental impacts of industrial turkey farms. She explains that factory farms produce around 61 million tons of waste a year, and this waste is the biggest source of water pollution in the U.S. Another issue, that Wartman doesn't mention, is the problems associated with feeding corn to farm animals. Growing corn is an incredibly unsustainable practice. It requires the use of large amounts of pesticides and herbicides, it depletes the soil it grows in, and it diverts energy from the growth of food for human consumption. (A documentary titled King Corn explores these issues in more depth and is definitely worth watching.)

Next, Wartman discusses the human health risks associated with factory farmed turkey. She explains the dangers of Salmonella contamination, the risks of antibiotic resistance, and the poor nutritional value associated with these turkeys.

Wartman's article is clearly an opinion piece with a strong bias against factory farms. She gives a lot of strong and concise arguments, and I think her methods are very effective. She also ends her article by providing links to resources for finding pasture-raised and heritage breed turkeys. It's refreshing to see someone provide a more viable alternative, instead of pushing a vegetarian agenda. Consumers can exercise a lot more power by purchasing sustainably produced animal products than they can by simply opting out. If we want to make the shift towards farming that is better for the animals, humans, and the environment, we must support the farmers who are working towards that goal.

image credits:
http://easychickenrecipee.com/
http://www.climateark.org/
http://www.bobatkins.com/

Foie Gras Sales Banned in California

Starting July 2012 the sale of foie gras will be illegal in California. Foie gras, french for “fatty liver”, is a kind of fattened duck liver considered a delicacy by many. It has been banned in many countries around the world because of the process required to make it. Ducks and geese that are raised for foie gras are force fed multiple times a day so that their liver swells up to 10 times its normal size.

The New York Times published an article last month describing a protest dinner that occurred in Los Angeles. The dinner, served at the restaurant Animal, consisted of eight courses, all featuring a different form of foie gras, and cost $175 a head. There were 320 available spots that sold out in 16 minutes.

Various animal rights activists showed up to protest outside the restaurant, but most viewed the dinner as a harmless motion. One of the owners of Animal is quoted in the article as saying, “This ban has already gone into effect. Our one dinner is not going to make it turn around.” The dinner was more intended as a last effort to enjoy the delicacy before it becomes illegal.

Paul Shapiro, senior director of farm animal protection for the Humane Society, recently posted an article on The Atlantic’s website attacking the New York Times article. Shapiro’s pieced was titled “The Animals that Love Pain: How Factory Farming Explains Abuse”, and in it he criticizes the New York Times article for claiming that the ducks and geese actually enjoy being force fed. He posts a link to a video of ducks on a foie gras farm running from their feeders and quotes a worker from a foie gras farm as describing the birds as “huddled in the corner of the pen”. He also notes that multiple other countries have banned the food because of the inhumanity involved in its production.


I think Shapiro’s piece is a bit of an overreaction. He is only responding to one quote in the New York Times article and he takes it out of its broader context. He is also very biased in his argument. This isn’t surprising, given his background, but it does weaken his credibility.

In another article posted on the Huffington Post, Brad Haskel defends foie gras. He explains that ducks and geese naturally have livers that are prone to expansion, and that their throats are not damaged at all by force feeding. He also notes that, just like any other type of animal product, its important to buy foie gras from ethical and responsible producers. It may have been better to create a law regulating the treatment of geese and ducks, rather than banning foie gras completely. Shapiro should have taken these arguments into account when writing his article. Instead, his article is easily dismissed as an extremist rant.

Regardless of these arguments, however, the ban in California will go into effect in July. Historically, California has been more progressive than other states in regulating meat products. A law was signed recently banning the sale of shark fin soup, and a Santa Monica restaurant was shut down over the summer for serving whale meat. Given this history, the decision to ban foie gras is not surprising. It could also be a step in the direction of setting higher animal welfare standards. It will be interesting to see whether California moves on to regulating the treatment of other farms animals as well.


image credits:
www.flickr.com
www.adrants.com
www.concierge.com
foodsnob.wordpress.com

SeaWorld Lawsuit Could Impact Factory Farming Practices

An article was recently published in the Atlantic Weekly titled, “How PETA’s Lawsuit Against Sea World Could End Factory Farming”. The article, written by James McWilliams, explains how a recent lawsuit, filed by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) against SeaWorld for their treatment of orca whales, could set a legal precedent to end factory farming.

PETA is claiming that the five orca whales living and working at SeaWorld are being held in involuntary servitude. Involuntary servitude is a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, but up until now has only been applied to humans. The validity of PETA’s lawsuit has been dismissed by many, but McWilliams argues that it raises an important question: “Does a non-human animal with obvious intelligence, emotional capacity, social skills, and personal interest warrant protection under the U.S. Constitution?” If constitutional rights were to be extended to SeaWorld’s orca whales, then they could be extended to factory farm animals next. This is an interesting possibility to consider, but it seems highly unlikely that it will hold up in court.

Along with PETA, the orcas are being represented in the suit by Ric O’Barry (activist and star of The Cove), a renowned marine biologist, the founder of the Orca Network, and two former SeaWorld trainers. Multiple celebrities, including Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, Matt Damon, and Hayden Panettiere, have also publicly spoken out against SeaWorld. A TV spot (which can be viewed here) aired over the summer featuring Bob Barker criticizing SeaWorld’s treatment of orcas and asking viewers to reconsider visiting the park. On a less supportive note, Stephen Colbert poked fun at PETA on his show the Colbert Report. He jokingly asked, "How many slaves got to hang out all day at a water park?" and said, "I am incensed every time PETA speaks for the animals. They can speak for themselves." Many major news sources, including CNN, ABC, the Huffington Post, and the LA times, have also covered the lawsuit.

This kind of widespread media attention has not been given to any issues related to factory farming. This contrast in media coverage highlights an interesting aspect of American culture. Whales and dolphins have always been held in high esteem by the American public, while farm animals like cows and chickens have been largely ignored or viewed as expendable. Issues like Native American whaling rights, Japanese dolphin killings, and now orcas at SeaWorld have received extensive media coverage and celebrity support (remember this video?), but there's very little public discourse surrounding factory farming.

Though PETA has expressed opposition to both issues, the American public has, for the most part, shown little concern over the treatment of farm animals. It's interesting to consider, if PETA were to win this lawsuit, would the public push for the extension of constitutional rights to farm animals? Or are we more comfortable not talking about where our meat comes from?

image credits:
http://www.dwarforca.com/
http://www.npma-fuelnet.org/
http://dp.dealpepper.com/
http://www.buildaroo.com/

Is Factory Farming Creating a Human Health Threat?

At the end of October, the European Union Parliament voted to ban all prophylactic uses of antibiotics on factory farms. The EU banned the practice of using antibiotics to enhance livestock growth back in 2006, but this decision would put an end to all prophylactic antibiotic use. The European Commission has recently responded the the Parliament’s vote by creating a five-year action plan on antimicrobial resistance that proposes massive cutbacks in antibiotic use on EU farms.

The concern with widespread antibiotic use on factory farms is that it creates to antibiotic-resistant superbugs. These superbugs can be transmitted to humans and create outbreaks of untreatable diseases. In the long run, overuse of antibiotics could lead to them becoming completely ineffective. We would find ourselves in a post-antibiotic world in which common infections are fatal.

On November 4th Maryn McKenna published an article on the Wired Science blogs titled, “Government Health Agency Agrees Mega-Farms are a Health Risk (In the UK)”. In the article McKenna discusses the how the Health Protection Agency in England recently rejected the zoning application for a factory hog farm because it would put humans at risk due to exposure to drug-resistant organisms. (More specific information on this proposed farm, along with the arguments expressed against it, can be found here.) McKenna points out that it’s surprising and refreshing to hear the issue laid down in such clear terms by a government agency, though this information should be obvious considering the large amounts of research supporting it. (McKenna attached this PDF to her article as proof.)

Another article on this same subject was published in the Farmer’s Guardian titled “Antimicrobials: Is intensive farming fueling a health crisis?”. This article discusses a new report done by the Soil Association, Compassion in World Farming, and Sustain. This report links antimicrobial resistance to factory farming and proposes huge reductions in antibiotic usage on farms. The article acknowledges the growing concern from medical professionals about drug-resistant bacteria, but questions the study’s claim that factory farming is to blame. The study notes that a lot of antibiotic resistance is caused by human antibiotic use, and the article uses this to discredit the evidence pointing to factory farming. The article also points out that the authors of the study all had anti-factory farming agendas. The author speculated that these agendas could have skewed the results.

The Farmer’s Guardian article appears to be biased in favor of factory farms. The author does a good job of objectively describing the dangers of antibiotic resistant diseases and the results of the study, but they then go on to discredit or downplay a lot of the information. They describe the evidence as being relatively limited, and question the credibility of the findings. Most of the quotations they cite against the study, however, come from people in farming organizations.

The Wired Science article was more objective, but still appeared to be biased against factory farming. The author used strong language and bold claims to get her point across. She only discussed the opposing argument briefly at the end of her article, and did so in way that made critics appear uneducated.

It is difficult to find unbiased articles discussing issues related to factory farming. Major news sources don’t generally cover these issues and the people who do cover them often have specific agendas. The people writing about factory farming issues are, for the most part, either strongly for or strongly against factory farming, and these biases are clearly expressed in their writing.

image credit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk

Mass Livestock Deaths on Factory Farms

Factory farming is a term used to describe the process of raising livestock in high densities over a short amount of time. Farms act as factories, whose goals are to raise the most amount of animals possible in the shortest amount of time for the least amount of money. It is a cost-effective way of producing large amounts of meat.

The downside of factory farming is the conditions it creates for the animals to live in. They are kept in crowded, confined areas often times without enough space to walk or even lay down. The climate in the buildings that house the animals is often controlled specifically to induce fast growth. Cattle are the only animals usually kept in outdoor lots, and the conditions in these lots are still abysmal.

There is usually very limited media coverage of conditions in feedlots, because access to them is extremely limited and farmers aren’t required to divulge much information about what goes on on their feedlots. The severe heat waves in the Midwest this summer, however, seriously impacted feedlot animals and garnered some media attention.

On September 25 the Kansas City Star published a story titled “Experts Split whether factory farming led to livestock heat deaths”. The author, Karen Dillon, describes how an extreme heat wave caused the power to go out at a hog farm near Kirksville, Mo. this summer. The power outage caused the fans circulating air in barn holding around 5,000 hogs to stop. Half of the hogs died as a result. It also discusses how 4,000 turkeys died on another Kansas farm during another heat wave, and thousands of cattle in crowded outdoor pens died in several states.

Dillon makes sure to shed light on both sides of the story. She interviews Paul Shapiro, senior director of farm animal protection with the Humane Society of the United States, who describes the events as “Horrible” and “...an unimaginable way to die”. He then goes on to explain the the conditions in feedlots lead directly to mass deaths like the ones this summer. The Humane Society has been active in the effort to reduce suffering of animals raised on factory farms.

Dillon also interviews John Anderson of the American Farm Bureau. He doesn’t feel that mass feedlot deaths are out of the ordinary. He explains that the actual percentage of animals that died compared to how many were being raised is fairly low, and that incidences like these tend to be isolated. Dillon notes that it’s difficult to discern how common mass livestock deaths are, because farmers aren’t required to report livestock deaths and the statistics that do exist are not available to the public.

The article goes on to quote farmers who were clearly upset about this summer’s mass deaths. They describe the measures that some farmers went to to try to save the animals, like calling in firetrucks to hose down cattle. These accounts help portray farmers as more than just heartless businessmen, and prove that this is not a black and white issue. These farmers don’t necessarily have a choice in how they raise their livestock. In order to stay in business they must operate in the most economically efficient way possible, and that usually results in factory farm conditions.

Towards the end of the article Dillon interviews two traditional farmers, Tim Gibbons and Kevin Fulton. They argue that factory farming has always led to mass deaths, they just haven’t been reported until recently. Fulton explains that animals are meant to experience natural conditions, as opposed to the temperature-controlled environments found in feedlots. These conditions make the animals extremely sensitive to any accidental changes that might occur. Mass deaths don’t occur on traditional farms because the animals have been raised to withstand fluctuations in temperature and climate.

Dillon’s article does a good job of remaining unbiased and reporting the story as accurately as possible. Factory farming is a difficult issue to report on because there is such limited information available. Farmers aren’t very willing to disclose information about their farms. It’s also difficult to remain unbiased when discussing the deaths of thousands of animals.

The conditions on feedlots are horrific and animal suffering is inevitable. It is clearly not the most humane way of raising livestock. It’s also important to keep in mind, however, that it’s often the only way for farmers to stay in business. Until it becomes economically viable to raise animals in a more natural way, factory farming and it's negative consequences may be unavoidable.

image credits:
http://livestockandenvironment.org
http://www.veganoutreach.org