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Can a confined cow be happy? September 17, 2009

Posted by Angelique in Animal welfare.
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I toured an 8000-head cattle CAFO (for the uninitiated, Confined Animal Feeding Operation) in Illinois this Tuesday. Based on unflattering footage of such feedlots in Food Inc., PETA videos, etc. I was prepared for the worst. And I came away thinking… it really wasn’t cow hell after all. Yes, most of the cows were penned on concrete, not frolicking on sunlit pastures. Yes, cowshit covered the floors, and it stank; this offends humans, but perhaps not cows. Yes, there were a few lame cows awkwardly suspending one hoof in the air as they balanced their 1200 pounds on the other three, but the vast majority could walk around and lay down unimpeded. They had healthy-looking coats, seemed alert, could interact with each other, and had plenty of food and water. The people handling them seemed calm and reasonable folk, not electric prod-wielding sadists.

So, is a well-run CAFO where the employees don’t abuse the animals a decent place for cattle to live? Not being cows, we can’t know for certain that these animals are either happy or miserable. However, we do know that even in a well-managed, clean CAFO run by responsible people, the cows cannot engage in most of the activities they naturally would. They cannot graze, which is the defining activity of a cow if there ever was one. They cannot mate (unless they are part of a breeder operation, and then it’s often through artificial insemination) and they cannot bear or raise young. They cannot walk on grass or dirt, instead subsisting on concrete, which strains their hooves and joints. They cannot choose sun or shade. Without a lot of armchair bovine psychology, I think we can say that if there is anything that makes a cow’s life worth living, it’s these things. And even a well-run CAFO can’t provide them.

*Note that I use the term “cow” here in the layman’s sense, to cover all bovines, which really include heifers, cows, steers, and bulls.

Book review: Skinny Bitch September 13, 2009

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How far a good title will take you. Even when you disavow it in the last chapter, as Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin do in Skinny Bitch, their New York Times best-selling tirade against unhealthy food, animal cruelty, and the irresponsible government that lets it all happen. As Freedman and Barnouin state, despite repeated admonishments throughout the book to “Get Skinny” they only use the skinny thing as a ploy to get people to buy the book. They really want you to Get Vegan.

So if, as a reader, you can get over being suckered into buying a book you didn’t want to read, is it worth reading? Yes and no. If you like cardio classes taught by drill sergeant cut-the-crap types, you’ll probably like the tough-love writing style. Just be prepared that the content is entirely one-sided. The “facts” are not always facts. (For example, SB claims, “Half of all antibiotics made in the United States each year are administered to farm animals, causing antibiotic resistance in the humans who eat them.” But the link between animal antibiotic use and human resistance, though plausible, has never been proven.) The sources are too often secondary and have their own predictably extreme orientation (e.g., “Milk Sucks” from PETA.org).

Having said that, SB does effectively expose the machinations of the USDA, the EPA, and the FDA to keep the meat industry running at all costs. And the many quotes from the book Slaughterhouse are a grimly hard-hitting reminder of why this all matters in the first place. So SB may be worth a skim, with your BS radar on.

Does organic matter? September 3, 2009

Posted by Angelique in Animal welfare.
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Organic food might be better for your health (studies are trying to work that out) because it more or less prohibits pesticides from entering your food. But does it make a difference to the way animals are treated? Do animals used to make organic meat, milk, or eggs lead decent lives?

Here are the relevant conditions producers must provide to ensure animals’ health and welfare, from a summary of the USDA’s organic standards for livestock:

  • Conditions which allow for exercise, freedom of movement and reduction of stress appropriate to the species
  • Access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air and direct sunlight suitable to the species, its stage of production, the climate and the environment
  • Access to pasture for ruminants
  • Appropriate clean, dry bedding
  • Shelter designed to allow for natural maintenance, comfort behaviors and opportunity to exercise; temperature level, ventilation and air circulation suitable to the species; and reduction of potential for livestock injury
  • The producer of an organic livestock operation may provide temporary confinement for an animal because of: (1) inclement weather; (2) the animal’s stage of production

Which all sounds just peachy except for those modifiers “appropriate” and “suitable,” no doubt selected for their convenient indeterminacy. The USDA lets the producer decide what’s appropriate. Vague requirements like “access to” the outdoors and pasture mean that organic producers can (and do) raise chickens whose access to pasture consists of a shed door through which they never pass, and breeder pigs and dairy cows which are confined for most of their lives because their “stage of production” covers most of their lives. The National Organic Coalition itself has protested that the USDA standards are toothless. That pretty much says it.

Where are all the good men? August 29, 2009

Posted by Angelique in Animal welfare.
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Why can’t you ever find a good man? In the farm animal world, the answer is that they’re mostly dead. In the chicken industry, male chicks have little use except as breeders.[1] They don’t lay eggs, and their meat is tough and stringy, and therefore unpalatable to the US consumer. You need very few breeders – recommended levels are from 4 to 10 males per 100 females, depending on the age of the flock.[2] Therefore, at least 90 percent of male chicks are killed or left to die after birth. Similarly, the dairy industry has little use for male calves. Dairy calves are not bred for the same traits as meat calves, so male dairy calves are not suitable for beef production (and they obviously don’t produce milk). 75% of US male dairy calves are sold to the veal industry, where they are slaughtered by 20 weeks of age.[3] The remainder are either killed at birth, become breeders, or are raised for low-quality beef, especially if they are cross-bred dairy/beef calves.

So let’s say that you care enough about animal welfare to buy meat and dairy from farms that raise their animals humanely – that pasture their chickens and cows, allow them to engage in natural foraging and social behaviors, etc. Even these farms have no use for males, and so have no alternative but to participate in the industry practices described above. (I have met one farm family – the Yanishes at Silver Leaf Farms – who eat their own male chickens, but even in the world of sustainable, humane farming they are the exception.) What should you do? Is it OK to support these farms, or should you stop eating all poultry and dairy products?

[1] There is a small market for capon, which is meat from castrated male chickens. This market is classified by the National Chicken Council as “specialty” and they do not publish statistics on its size

[2] J. A. Ranson, “Troubleshooting Flock Fertility Problems,” Hubbard Technical Bulletin, Jan 2005

[3] USDA Economic Research Service, “Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook,” May 19, 2009

Movie review: Our Daily Bread August 20, 2009

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Don’t bother turning on the subtitles for the German-language food production documentary Our Daily Bread. Hardly anyone speaks, though the constant whirring, humming, drumming, droning, clanking, and whining of the outsized machines running the show make it anything but a silent film. The film is a tribute, for better or worse, to the mechanization and implied depersonalization of the work of growing and processing food. Just the vast scale of the “inputs” – land mass, machine size, number of animals processed – is both awe-inspiring and discomfiting.

Director and cinematographer Nikolaus Geyrhalter opens the doors to the meatlocker, the greenhouse, the fish farm, the slaughterhouse, and the spookily striking salt mine, and leaves it to us to judge what’s inside. It’s up to us to discern the irony that the eggs on the conveyor belts of the henhouses are handled far more gently than the baby chicks we see at the beginning of the film, who tumble through belted waterfalls and spew out of separator chutes like so many M&Ms. There is no gratuitous cruelty – you won’t see PETA-like footage of workers kicking downed cows here. There are just machines, and efficiency, and antiseptic cleanliness. Be warned if your stomach turns easily, however, because those machines do a lot of stripping, slicing, and gutting, and plenty of animal innards are in full view.

Geyrhalter was asked in an interview if he had a hard time getting into the animal raising or processing facilities. He answered that actually many of the farms and processors he contacted were eager to share what they were doing, and you can see why – if you judge the success of a farm in terms of maintaining a controlled environment, keeping food safe, and producing massive quantities of it, these farms seemingly excel. The question is whether that’s all there is to it.

Helpful sites August 18, 2009

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Take a look at my new links page to find the best web sources for level-headed journalism and unbiased facts about the food animal industry.

Movie review: King Corn August 18, 2009

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King Corn is a rollicking jaunt though the life of an acre of corn, or more specifically, an acre of yellow dent #2, one of the industrial varieties that make up the vast majority of the corn currently grown in the US. Aaron Woolf’s documentary kicks off with a pair of friends who are informed by a scientist at the University of Virginia that they have corn in their hair – literally, that the composition of their hair indicates that their diet is corn-based. They’re confused, because they hardly ever allow an actual vegetable to cross their plates. But what does cross their plates is lots of corn-fed hamburger meat, corn-syrup laden soda, corn-oil doused fries, etc. So Ian and Curtis plant an acre of yellow dent #2 to follow it in its journey to their stomachs, a journey which takes them from an Iowa cornfield through a Colorado cattle feedlot to a Brooklyn, NY convenience store.

Ian and Curtis are pretty laid-back protagonists, and they ensure that KC never gets preachy or depressing, even when they’re in the middle of a feedlot where the cows are sunk ankle-deep in their own shit. Their easy demeanor conceals two determined journalists, however, who score some thought-provoking interviews that are the opposite of dry documentary fodder. A couple of gems: Audrae Erickson, spokesperson for the Corn Refiners Association, whose polished and fluent explanation of why they can’t possibly visit the refinery – for their own good, of course – fits her right into the role of corporate stooge; and Earl Butz, the Nixon administration’s unapologetic driver of the current farm subsidy structure, whom you have a tough time villanizing as he powers himself down the hallway in his wheelchair, even as he praises the Age of Plenty (and plenty, and plenty more) that he ushered in.

At the end of it all, KC’s message is aptly captured by the sight of Iowa’s staggering corn mountains and the words of one of those interviewees: “We subsidize the Happy Meals, but we don’t subsidize the healthy ones.” Indeed.

Movie review: Food, Inc. August 18, 2009

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Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. could have been the Omnivore’s Dilemma of film – the authority on the reality of our modern food production system. Instead, Kenner engineered an endictment of Big Ag, Big Government, and Corporate America that alternately illuminates and excoriates the food industry. The overzealous bits unfortunately make FI the sort of movie that exactly those people most in need of illumination will refuse to see – and the sort of movie that detractors will find easy to attack.

The merit of FI is that it manages to get movie cameras and interviewers inside some of the parts of our food chain that we never glimpse: the harsh Confined Animal Feeding Operations, the nighttime police round-ups of immigrants working in slaughterhouses, and the halls of justice where lobbyists fight laws preventing food contamination. But then come vignettes that verge on the maudlin, like the extended home movie footage of a young boy who died from E. coli poisoning, and overzealous witch hunts like the one villanizing Monsanto (to which the company released a fair response).

Overall, FI is an informative introduction to our food system if you can get past the ham-fistedness. A better option: invest the time to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma and get a more thoughtful and even-handed point of view.

Book review: Dominion August 17, 2009

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Matthew Scully offers what is often termed “the Christian Right defense” of animal welfare in Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. Expecting to open the book to an account that, while perhaps academically interesting, would be irrelevant for a secularist like myself, I was surprised at how little Scully’s argument relies on Christian faith. He engages in a mere ten pages of biblical exegesis in a 400-page book, and that to refute Christians who conveniently interpret Genesis as an invitation to “go forth and subdue.” The rest of the book is relevant for any believer in the virtues of compassion and mercy.

In defending mercy toward animals, Scully shows none of it to those who exploit them: the game hunters, whalers, factory farmers, and scientists who have a deluded and self-interested vision of animal welfare if they have one at all. He is at his best exposing the idiocy of tired truisms so often trotted out to dismiss concern for animals, as in this rejoinder to those who think that concern for animal cruelty comes from a soft urban mindset that shrinks before the harsh reality of rural life: “Another way of looking at this is that the ‘urban’ types are not steeped in the ways of blood spilling and have no financial and emotional attachments to the practices in question. In other contexts, that’s usually called objectivity.” And responding to the criticism that people who care about animals don’t care about people: “…as if for every dolphin spared from the net a homeless person must go unfed, or as if the people who make such accusations are themselves to be found devoting every spare moment to the uplift of their fellow man.” The sarcasm doesn’t drip, it courses from the page.

He is less convincing when addressing the question of cruelty in the natural world. Rightly pointing out that the fact of cruelty between animals does not justify similar behavior from rational, reflective humans, he fails to consider the possibility that some human use of animals for food or sport hunting may be a less cruel fate for them than what would lie in wait in the natural world. He dismisses the possibility of raising the world’s supply of livestock humanely in one sentence. He rejects the potential solution to protecting endangered species offered by making their protection profitable for, say, game parks in South Africa. Granting his point that it would be better if people just protected animals out of the goodness of their hearts, we probably need to realize that not everyone will have enough goodness to work with, and give them other incentives.

Finally, Scully does not tend to brevity, making Dominion at times a bit of a slog. Ultimately it’s worth the effort, though, to relish his biting wit and no-holds-barred argumentation.

Book review: The Omnivore’s Dilemma August 17, 2009

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If you haven’t yet read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (aka the Foodie Bible), get your nose out of your bag of Kettle Chips and go pick it up. Books like this are made for people like you.

Pollan’s project is to trace the food chains behind four meals: the fast-food meal, the “big organic” meal, the grass-fed pastoral meal, and the hunted/gathered meal. In the process he fascinates us with descriptions of corn sex and cowpatties in a way that only someone truly in thrall to the natural world could. We shake our heads at the immense impact on our food of the minor players in the story: Fritz Haber (who invented the process for fixing nitrogen in fertilizer), Baron Justus von Liebig (who simplified soil fertility into three little letters, NPK), and Earl Butz (Nixon’s second Secretary of Agriculture, who set up the modern farm subsidy framework that enables us to eat so cheaply). We live the food chain side-by-side with Joel Salatin, hero of grass-based rotational grazing; Angelo Garro, hunter, wine-maker, and foodie extraordinaire; and #534, a steer Pollan bought to gain insight into Confined Animal Feeding Operations. To Pollan’s credit, not a single anecdote is superfluous; every character and subplot both engages and informs.

However, OD is much more than just a vivid representation of food production from many different perspectives. It is a call to action – to wake up and educate ourselves about the food we eat. Further, while Pollan refrains from urging us to use our newfound knowledge to drop our Chicken McNuggets in favor of delicacies like the Wild East Bay Yeast Levain in his hunted/gathered dinner, it’s pretty clear that he thinks that’s what anyone with any real gustatory sensibility or social conscience would do. Some call that foodie elitism; others call it good taste or good sense. A more serious critique often voiced against Pollan is that even if everyone wanted to heed his advice, only he and his Slow Food friends could afford to. And even if everyone could, does the earth have enough resources to produce food without the space-saving advantages of conventional agriculture? Pollan only lightly touches on these issues, but the virtue of OD is that it has succeeded in sparking this vital debate.

Similarly, Pollan is more suggestive than definitive when addressing the animal welfare concerns and environmental consequences of the food systems he investigates. He openly rejects utilitarianism, so he’s not in the business of meticulously weighing the costs and benefits of alternatives. This leaves the reader a bit vague about what values he’s relying on to make the judgment that we should change the way we eat. His tone hints at a mishmash of pastoral idealism, skepticism about corporate America and even capitalism itself, and (despite his disavowal) utilitarianism. If you’re looking for a more rigorous analysis of the issues that follows a strictly utilitarian calculus, Singer and Mason’s The Way We Eat, published the same year as OD, would be a better choice.

What makes OD still worth the read is precisely that Pollan is not a philosopher like Singer (or a PETA advocate, or a health nut). He’s an omnivore like most of us – who even occasionally gives in to fast food! – who has just thought a little more deeply about what we’re doing when we eat.