| Pigs, Chickens, Cows Take a Stand in California |
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| Written by Heather McKee | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 11 April 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Over 800,000 California residents signed a petition to require that livestock raised in their state have the ability to stand and turn around in their cages. The Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act is now set to be voted on in November. The measure would mandate “stretching room” for all chickens, pigs and cattle. Can’t really imagine how they determine how much that is, but the idea of animals having “stretching room” certainly seems better than the common practice of stuffing as many animals as can possibly fit into a cage. If the Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act is approved, we hope that the costs of increasingly ethical animal husbandry aren’t dumped on the producers. Ideally, costs associated with the increased space for animals would be transferred to the consumer, and then directed back to the producers improving their practices. But usually there’s this middle man, a meat giant (you know who they are), who determines prices all too often for their producers, forcing producers to cut corners to give what they promised, at the price the meat giant will buy. It’s possible the meat giants will just gobble up all the profits from having this new, value-added, “ethical” product. Of course consumers can always choose to skip the middle man and support smaller-scale local meat producers. In lieu of a state mandate, some states have in place voluntary, nonprofit certifying agencies for “humanely raised meat.” Either way, we’re glad that folks are questioning and pushing the industrial model of agriculture, even if right now it’s only about the few inches a chicken needs to spread its wings. Via Sacramento Business Journal Photo of happy, organically raised pigs from Tastes Like Chicken Farm
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