• AWI Factory Farming Report, 1998
• Factory Farming: The Experiment That Failed
• Pictures of Factory Farms
• Comparison of Different Farming Systems

   

Last year the 15 Heads of government of the European Union (EU) agreed to a legally binding protocol that commits the EU and its member states to ""pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals."" When formulating and implementing community policies on agriculture, transport, research and internal trade, the EU is now formally committed to recognize that animals are living creatures capable of feeling pain and fear. They are fully capable, too, of enjoying themselves when well treated. Their well-being, therefore, is covered under the EU's sentient beings rubric.

This important protocol was not easily achieved. In 1991, the organization Compassion in World Farming presented a petition signed by a million people to the European Parliament. The signatures were gathered from all the member states. It called for animals to be given a new status in the Treaty of Rome as sentient beings. At that time, the Treaty, which forms the cornerstone of EU law, classified animals as goods or agricultural products. In 1994, the Parliament endorsed the petition, and in 1995 it called for the Treaty to be strengthened to make concern for animal welfare one of the fundamental principles of the EU. The Government of the United Kingdom led the EU in securing this important victory for sentient beings. The United States ought to be next to adopt this wise, humane foundation for the welfare of animals in agriculture, transport, research and interstate commerce.

Monsanto's "Posilac," the recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) which the giant transnational corporation has been pressing on dairy farmers, has met stiff resistance by Ben & Jerry's ice cream company. They had to go to court and win the case for honest labeling of their products. All Ben & Jerry's ice cream containers now state: "'The family farmers who supply our milk and cream pledge not to treat their cows with rBGH. This growth hormone makes such terrible demands on the unfortunate cows who are inoculated with it that painful mastitis affecting their udders and painful dislodging of calcium from their bones cause many to collapse and die prematurely.

Throughout the western United States, political battles are being waged against the giant hog factory farms that are using huge financial resources to mislead the public in their effort to proliferate and entrench themselves. Millions of sows are now confined to stalls so narrow that they can barely get up and lie down. The can never turn around . They gnaw their imprisoning bars in a vain effort to escape.

The waste coming from these incarcerated hogs, standing on bare concrete slats, frequently overflows from the "'lagoons" (open septic tanks), polluting rivers and streams, seeping even into the ground water and poisoning the wells used by rural communities. Colorado farmers and ranchers have joined together and formed an organization called STENCH which is pushing for a state-wide ballot initiative to regulate such farms and restrict the number of hogs they can house to 5,000*. Transnational corporations are counting on selling both the live pigs and the pork to China, Korea and other Asian nations.

Factory Farming: The Experiment That Failed.
A compilation of articles and photographs with contributions by Rachel Carson, Bernhard Grzimek, Ruth Harrison, Desmond Morris, George Wald (86 pages, 114 illustrations): This paperback book, published by AWI, documents current cruelty and available alternatives.

Excerpts from the introduction

Factory farming has held out a promise of profits to farmers and investors, but objective scientific analysis shows the pitfalls which have come about through failure to consider the nature, the feelings and the basic needs of the veal calves, the pigs and the hens severely deprived and confined for months in crates or cages so small they cannot even stretch out their limbs. Many small farmers have gone out of business when investment in expensive equipment they were led to believe would result in profits, led instead to bankruptcy.

Because too many animals are forced together it is necessary to dose them with a variety of drugs to keep disease from wiping them out. The yolks of eggs must rely on artificial dyes in the feed to give the illusion of eggs from free range hens. Residues of carcinogenic growth hormones have been repeatedly found in white veal.

This compilation of articles is intended to open the doors on the usually windowless factory farms so consumers can have a glimpse of what goes on inside and let the government and the press know how they feel about it. Only through determined public demand will changes take place.

They can change rapidly for the better because alternative methods, carefully worked out by humane scientists and humane farmers, can be substituted for the extreme overcrowding and close imprisonment now being forced on veal calves, laying hens and pigs.

These alternative methods, far from being old-fashioned, are the most modern and forward -looking. They take the feelings of the animals into account, and they take into account the normal behavior of each species, rather than attempting to make living, vertebrate, warm-blooded fellow creatures into machines for producing money for people who never even lay eyes on them, much less care for them.

The purpose of this small volume is to put before both farmers and consumers the possibilities now available. We urge the humanitarians in both groups to press for extensive voluntary change wherever severe deprivation is now occurring.

Factory farming has taken the joy out of the lives of millions of calves and pigs, and billions of hens; it has driven countless family farmers off the land; it has polluted streams and rivers; it has injected massive amounts of antibiotics and other drugs into the public food supply resulting in serious health risks. It has lowered food quality. Its chief beneficiaries have been people who have profited from "farming the tax code" and who already had so much money they were able to ride out losses till peak prices could be obtained. Others have been bankrupted. Hence the title, Factory Farming, The Experiment That Failed. But the vested interests and supporters in academia, funded by drug and equipment manufacturers, have not yet recognized the failure, so ordinary citizens have to take the matter into their own hands by rejection factory farm products.

The Water Keeper Alliance Institutes Legal Attack on Pig Factories - AWI Quarterly