FOOD FUR FARMING
Throughout history, animals have been used in ways that have resulted in the worst forms of killing, abuse, torment, torture, mass slaughter, humiliation, frivolous entertainment, and fun killing (killing for no legitimate reason or gain). All's not bad, however. Animals have also been used for beneficial purposes, and thankfully there are many people who love and care about animals.
This book is tilted towards the animal welfare perspective, not animal rights.
The animal welfare perspective proposes the humane use of animals for beneficial purposes. Brutality, sadism, abuse use for unnatural purposes and humiliation of animals is not tolerated. This is not speceism, it is realism. Humans have used animals and they will continue using them indefinitely.
There are a plethora of uses for animals and an even greater number of websites about animals including but not limited to animal rights, animal welfare, animal use, animal abuse, entertainment, social work, social studies, human services, consumption, war, history, criminal justice, criminology, breeding, trafficking, work, clothing, killing, hunting and trapping, trading, medicine (medication, anatomy, physiology, vivisection), pharmacology, health, psychology (behaviour, vivisection), academics, display, food (pet food, animals as food), etc.
There are an estimated 80 million cats and over 70 million dogs living in American households. This does not include the unknown number of strays. Between 5 and 7 millions cats and dogs are euthanized in animal shelters annually.
Animal activism is prevalent throughout much of the world.
In addition to this, we need animal studies courses in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, and social work. Further on, if possible, our colleges and universities need to incorporate degree programs in Animal Welfare. One university in India has already done this.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs should be "academically extended" to companion animals. What does your dog or cat need to attain self-actualization?
Companion animals that are treated with love, kindness, and compassion, by their owners should be ever so thankful. Companion animals, like babies, cannot speak. As such, acts of abuse and neglect may go unnoticed, except by caring visitors to homes. Worse yet, sadism and brutality against companion animals are often hidden from the public's eye.
Animals have been our companions, guards, slaves, entertainers (cinema, fighting and display), objects of vivisection (animal experimentation), non-paid soldiers, traction workers (pulling), worship, toys, objects of displaced aggression, hoarding, consumption, aphrodisiacs (by-products).
Humans have literally conquered the "animal world".
Countless deep sea creatures cannot evade the human pollution of the oceans. In addition, discovered and undiscovered animal species in remaining forests are on borrowed time. Wildlife can neither run humanity. Our weapons can take down anything that is alive. _
Ten billion animals area slaughtered annually for food in the U.S. This does not include what is taken from the water. Over 90 percent of slaughtered animals are from the poultry sector.
Worldwide, over fifty billion animals are slaughtered each year for food. Furthermore, billions of animals are extracted from oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and ponds. Much of what is extracted from the oceans is by-catch (non-intended catches; usually tossed back into the sea).
Tuna nets are responsible for the killing of countless dolphins every year. Thankfully, new and improved dolphin safe nets are on the market. However, this new discovery is not universal. The shrimp industry is responsible for the most by- catch killings.
Large-scale meat eating in what was to later become the U.S. began in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Salted pork was placed in large barrels for storage and sale.
In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted the first animal cruelty statute. Article 92, called the "Body of Liberties". This law forbade any person from exercising cruelty or tyranny unto an animal that is used by "man".
This law, incredible for its time, was enacted only two decades after the Mayflower landed on Plymouth Rock.
This however, did not stop the large-scale trail drives pr the establishment of the gigantic slaughtering facilities. The most famous of which was the Chicago Union Stockyards.
Factory farms carry the highest number of food animals. The future may see multi-level factory farms. Larger areas of land cost more; this is a big business.
"AGRIBIGNESS" is in the business of making money. Factory farms hold units, or 'singular-stocks" not living creatures.
In addition to meat, humans use the skins, eggs, milk, fat, enzymes, hair, fur, teeth, eyes, testicles, bones, bone marrow, tongues, entrails, brains, heart, blood, fecal matter, urine and semen of animals.
Regarding factory farms, the sheer quantity of output makesit quite difficult to go slow and easy with each and every slaughtering (workers can't take their time).
Many people still believe that factory farm animals live normal animal lives. People need to know the truth. It's the consumer who brings in the money.
Factory farmed animals end up nicely packaged into "pretty"pink-red, red, or white slabs that can be cooked into edible food. We prefer to see the "packaged version" of the slaughtered animals._
The Chicago Union Stockyards (CUSY) was established in 1865 to feed millions of Americans. Even then, America was a powerful nation with a growing population.
The CUSY encompassed nearly one square mile. In the CUSY, labourers unloaded animals directly into the facility for slaughtering, canning and then packing.
Over twenty five thousand people were employed in Chicago's meatpacking industry. It would eventually reach forty five thousand.
The CUSY was responsible for "meat-feeding" eighty percent of America. Americans as a whole still love meat.
Rapid technological advances during the 1870's helped to bring forth refrigerated transport. We can thank a genius named Gustav Swift for developing the first refrigerated railroad car. Processed meat could be shipped long distances. Prior to this remarkable invention, animals were transported live. Meat producers now had a choice.
Refrigerated freight cars could be "parked" at loading docks to be filled with meats to be transported vast distances.
Although the CUSY improved the assembly line system of processing, it was in Cincinnati that this process was first used. The famed Henry Ford discovered the use of the assembly line of production from the slaughterhouse operations.
In the CUSY many thousands of carcasses (regardless of shape, weight, or size) could be processed quickly. Overhead rails were used to move large carcasses from station to station. This method is still being used in many slaughterhouses.
Not surprisingly, work in this environment is potentially harmful to labourers and seriously compromises animal welfare protections of animals. CUSY labourers had to work 'too fast". Brutality to animals was the norm.
Knockers used sledge hammers to smash the heads of large animals. Sometimes, several blows were needed to knock out or kill an animal. The knocker had to hit a homerun on the first blow.
Women at the CSU comprised twenty percent of the labour force. They performed jobs that required dexterity (canning, packaging and cleaning the entrails). These women had to work at lightning speed.
Accidents during canning, cutting, and cleaning were commonplace. The repetitive motions on their hands and fingers resulted in pain; sometimes lifetime injuries.
In order to induce the women workers to work harder and faster, bonuses were given for extra canning. _
CUSY labourers were hard-working individuals who fed millions of people. Many of the workers had no alternative job offers. It was a tough period for many of America's new desperate immigrants.
Soon afterwards, ethnic tensions at the CUSY and nearby Chicago neighbourhoods reached a boiling point.
Ethnic groups at the CUSY were stereotyped. Members of a 'specific" ethnic group were assigned to work at a designated station. This is sometimes referred to as 'ethnic compartmentalization".
Today, many Latino migrants (Mexicans and Central Americans) are moving to small town America. Desperate for work, these Latino migrants end up working in slaughterhouses, factory farms or as farm labourers. Work conditions are usually deplorable. With no medical care, systemic racism, discrimination and no benefits they are at the mercy of employers. Regardless of what we think of their work; they are hard-working, performing duties that almost none of us would consider doing.
At the CUSY seniority meant nothing and re-instatement after a layoff was never assured. Foremen held incredible leverage over their workers. Foremen could, and often did, abuse their workers. The atmosphere lacked mercy and compassion for labourers and animals alike.
CUSY labourers worked in and around blood, sweat, stench, maggots, rats, animal droppings, shrieks, and brutality. The 'slaughterhouse stench" could"ve killed a lion. The stench extended into the surrounding neighbourhood.
Cold Chicago winters, hot and humid summers, increased the difficulty of working in the CUSY. Employees worked up to twelve hours a day with inadequate rest periods.
Slaughterhouse workers at the CUSY included Germans, Slavs, visible minorities (blacks and Hispanics).
Because of a continuous supply of new immigrants to the Chicago area, CUSY slaughterhouse workers were disposable.
This caused ferocious power struggles between the workers and management, ethnic groups, and strike breakers.
Conditions for the CUSY labourers improved with the passing of the National Labour Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA). In theory, this act enabled labourers to form and join unions without being unjustly persecuted, intimidated, or otherwise harmed by the management.
The National Labour Relations Board (1935) was formed by Congress to direct the NLRA. Although this was a step forward for the protection of labourers and their right to form unions, there were subsequent attempts by management to weaken it.
The CUSY labourers were better off with the NLRA. Not well off though, only better off.
Corporate giants often use vertical integration to ensure bigger profits and expanded control over the process. In vertical integration large corporations provide their own feed, land space, cleanup, and distribution (delivery). In horizontal integration there are other players in the system. The latter is the essence of the old time family farm.
Corporate food giants move into an area then eliminate or reduce small family farming. The system can be somewhat cold and impersonal.
Working in a hectic-paced meat packing plant is very difficult, even in today's world. Get the job done, over and over again.
Today many illegal or ethnic slaughterhouse workers are intimidated; sometimes even having to hold back their urge to urinate or defecate while working. Some workers have had to "do it" in their pants. Externally, line workers may be sprinkled with blood, poop, and sweat.
Other problems include cuts, abrasions, over-exhaustion, generalized anxiety, racism, discrimination, little or no legal recrimination, little or no worker's compensation, frustration, ambivalence, confusion, apathy, anger, fear of deportation (illegal aliens), language barrier, cultural barrier, and a general public that doesn't know the truth, and often doesn't want to either.
The southern American States are presently the most popular destination for Latino factory farm workers. Chicken catchers must be fast, hard-working, alert at all times, and can be speckled or smeared with dirt, feathers, dust, chemicals, squashed maggots and insects, fecal matter (bird and rodent), larvae, feed, blood, and other gooey stuff.
At work, a cutting instrument must be the correct sharpness and the handle must be firmly grasped.
Unfortunately this is not always the case. Cutting instruments are sometimes too sharp or too dull. Finger and hand accidents result in serious lacerations or horrible amputations. Furthermore, the fast-paced repetitive motions of the cutting, hoisting, pulling, twisting, chopping, and yanking can cause wrist or wrist and hand problems. Most North Americans would never do this kind of work.
The late Upton Sinclair a once well-known novelist visited the CUSY. He saw, smelled, and noted the horrors in the CUSY. Later, Sinclair wrote a "fictionalized version" of the CUSY and general slaughterhouse conditions of the United States. His book, 'the Jungle" was a smashing hit. The American public reacted with shock and outrage at how 'gruesome' meat could be processed, then packaged and sold to them._
Much of the meat sold at the time was infested and contaminated. Rat droppings, fecal matter, and other disgusting matter was in the meat supply.
The U.S. Government was 'pressured" into passing the Pure Food and Drug Act (PFDA), and the Beef Inspection Act (BIA). Without the public outcry, there would have been no government action; at least not then and there.
The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 paved the way to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA is responsible with testing foods and drugs.
Prescriptions were required for the purchase of what was later to be called 'prescription medication" or "prescription drugs".
The physician prescribing the medication had to be licensed. In addition, addictive drugs had to be labelled as such. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (MIA), set required standards for animals before slaughter. Any animal that was slaughtered could be inspected by government workers post mortem. Slaughterhouses and processing plants were required to maintain an acceptable level of cleanliness. In theory it was the government that decided the acceptable standard.
Contemporary slaughterhouses are killing more animals at higher speeds. In effect, less humane measures and occasional abbreviated inspections are commonplace.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), under the Reagan Administration, granted factory farm owners and administrators "increased self-inspection" rights. In effect, they were given more "freedom" to violate slaughterhouse animals' rights and process polluted meat.
Today's food giants include Tyson Foods, Maple Leaf Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, Smithfield Foods, Iowa Beef Products, and Wayne Farms LLC.
Organizations that espouse either a "no animal use" or a "humane animal use" philosophy include animal rights and animal welfare organizations.
Animal rights activists (ARAs) and organizations may espouse a vegan, vegetarian, lacto vegetarian (dairy and vegetables), or lacto-ovo-vegetarian (dairy, fish, vegetables) diets. The most liberal animal rightists espouse a no animal use philosophy.
The Vegetarian Society based in the UK is the oldest recorded vegetarian organization in the world.
Animal welfare organizations, in general, espouse a humane use of animals, including legislation and enforcement.
Individuals and organizations may use morality, ethics, health, empathy, personal philosophy, and/or religion as a grid in determining where they stand regarding animal use.
On the far left of the Animal rights sector total animal liberation is espoused. The Animal Liberation Front is a good example of this movement.
Richard Ryder, a notable psychologist, coined the term 'speciesism" to describe our 'superiority feelings" and "attitudes" towards the animal kingdom.
The distinguished Australian philosopher and animal protectionist, Peter Singer, helped to spread the term of 'speceism". Singer's book Animal Liberation was a big hit. It helped to re-invigorate the animal protectionist movement.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a department within the USDA is assigned to ensure that America's meat, poultry, and egg products are safe and wholesome enough for the public to consume. Wholesomeness inspection is mandatory while quality grading is voluntary.
The FSIS employs nearly 9,400 full-time career employees. Whatever it costs to sustain this department is well-worth it in tax dollars. Helping to assure a safe meat and poultry supply is mandatory for any nation.
The entry-level inspectors are responsible for inspecting the animals before and after slaughter. But there are too many slaughterhouses, too many animals and too many violations and not enough funding. In defence of the USDA and FSIS America's meat and egg supply has been relatively safe. If you take into consideration the magnanimous levels of meat and egg consumption you'll agree with my statement.
Plant operations work at a hectic pace. Inspectors are sometimes reluctant to stop the operation if they see a violation. It takes time to analyze the violation and file the official report.
Depending on the plant, workers and supervisors may not take too kindly to inspectors who hold-up the operations. There have been cases of inspectors being intimidated. Inspectors should be given more authority. Plant operators must respect FSIS inspectors, so that these same inspectors can do their job without any obstacles.
On January 28, 2008, Ed Schafer was officially sworn in as the new Secretary of the USDA.
On May 15, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln established a Department of Agriculture.
In creating the USDA President Lincoln had good intent and foresight. America was rapidly expanding in population and size.
The pilgrims had a strong appetite for meat, milk, and eggs. They were no different than much of the world. In those days, there was no assembly-line-style of animal slaughter or meatpacking on a grand scale. Animals were generally slaughtered one at a time. It all came down to the sharpness of the instrument, the talent of the butcher, and the luck of the animal.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is the Canadian counterpart to the USDA. There are over 6,000 employees stationed in field offices, laboratories, and processing facilities.
The CFIA is assigned the duty of safeguarding food, animals, and plants that improve the health and well-being of Canadians.
On a positive note, the USDA and the CFIA have comprehensive websites. "Polite inquiries" are answered politely. Their British counterpart is The U.K. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
Worst case scenarios for food animals in factory farms or slaughterhouses includes kicking, beating, tossing, throwing (poultry industry), de-horning, skinning (sometimes while the animal is still conscious), amputation (blunt or sharp instrument, sometimes while the animal is still alive), ear or tail twisting, scalding, or castration (without anaesthesia).
"Chicken eating" in America got a big boost with Herbert Hoover's 1928 campaign promise of having a chicken in every pot.
Today, processed chicken has engulfed North America.
Popular foods like chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, breasts, paddies, wings, thighs, steak, filets, broth, strips, soup, stir-fry, hot dogs, gravy, chicken pot pie, salami, bologna, salad, and burgers can be found in supermarkets across North America.
During the Second World War, The War Food Administration did not ration chicken. Their "brethren" the pigeons, immensely aided the Allied War effort, especially for the British who sent messages across the English Channel.
Fast food chicken products are usually loaded with fat and salt. Never mind the fries, mayo, sauce, and other garnish.
Still, most fast food chicken products are very tasty.
Manufacturers understand the consumers" palate. Chickens set for transfer to a slaughtering facility may be yanked from their cages. Often, the chicken 'inadvertently' leaves part of its body behind, like a toe or more. Afterwards, these chickens are manhandled then tossed into a box or cage inside the transport vehicle.
Larger animals, like steer, can be enticed to move along by being kicked and/or prodded. They're too big and heavy to be snatched, hoisted, or thrown by a human.
Bovine Spongiform Encaphalopy (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease is a communicable brain disease (in cattle) that causes degeneration and is fatal. BSE has an incubation period of up to 5 years in cattle; longer for humans. An infected animal can transmit BSE to others. Potential for a wide-scale catastrophe is there. Thus far, we"ve been lucky.
BSE first appeared in the United Kingdom, in 1986. Infected feed (containing brain, spinal cord) was the avenue of transmission. Feed should never contain rendered meat or any other product animals shouldn't eat. People who eat BSE contaminated meat are at risk of acquiring Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Windowless poultry sheds can contain over 100,000 chickens. The chickens receive no rest breaks, natural sunshine, freedom to move about, forage, or dust-bathe. Chickens expectedly go nuts in these hell holes. Contrast this with the turn of the 20th century where farm chickens in the U.S. were free-roaming.
Chickens were first domesticated 9,000 years ago in China and India. Intensive farming of chickens saw a major upswing in the late 1950's. Large chicken farms began to spring-up in the U.S. Although factory farming of chickens began in the 1930s the 1950's was when the number of chickens in chicken farmsexploded.
Chickens could no longer be personalized. The pace of operations accelerated considerably. Chickens in factory farms were routinely brutally snatched from their cages, tossed, thrown, kicked, and chocked. In addition, transport distances were lengthened; no food, water, veterinary care, or temperature regulation.
The broiler chicken industry first took hold in the Delamar Region (Delaware, Virginia, Maryland), during the 1950's. Broilers are housed for up to 7 weeks, before slaughter. Broilers" cages or enclosures are tiny; leaving each chicken trapped, unable to stretch its wings.
Because broilers are raised to attain "extreme size", they're too big to move around. Chickens need to move around, spread their wings, dust bathe, and eat whenever and whereverthey need to.
Broilers are raised for meat, not for eggs. Housed in window-less sheds, surrounded by filth, chemicals, death, disease, and ammonia from dried up urine.
The horrible conditions result in immense pain, agony, and torment for every single live broiler. Many go mad.
The system is fast-paced, cruel, and automated. Everything is regulated; food, water, temperature, waste disposal, chemicals, lighting, life, antibiotics, and ventilation.
Broilers legs are too weak to sustain their unnaturally large bodies. Imagine trying to walk around with the legs of a stork. Also, imagine being forced to stand up day and night.
Broilers" legs become deformed.
Broilers who can't sustain their own weight simply collapse. Unnatural weight causes many broilers to die of heart attacks.
Dead chickens are callously taken away by farm workers to be tossed away or used as low grade food; maybe soup, or rendered (recycled as chicken feed).
In order to prevent chicken-to-chicken aggression roosters have their soft, tender beaks sliced off with a hot blade. This ensures that they don't peck at each other.
If the blade isn't hot enough or the slice isn't perfect, the broiler is assured increased pain. The hectic pace makes the use of pain killers non-viable. Bulbous swellings and infections are common. Antibiotics are used to help prevent infection.
This hectic pace of the poultry industry doesn't permit slow calculated movements by the line workers. One ailing chicken will never stop the process.
Chickens may have their claws or part of their toes sliced off to inhibit aggression. If part of the toe of a chicken 'encrusts' itself on the wiring, it poses another problem.
When these chickens are yanked out of their cages, the encrusted flesh stays put.
Chickens in the wild live according to a pecking order. In cramped cages, social behaviour becomes twisted, and extremely brutal.
'Recessive chickens' can't run or hide. This category of chickens ends up being brutalized by cage mates. Also, they tend to occupy the worst part of the cage, smothered, or unable to eat and drink enough to stay alive. Stronger and larger chickens don't have mercy on their weaker cage mates; the strong live, while the weak die.
Chickens are cheaper than the cages they"re put in. Therefore, the system can sacrifice many lives, because many more will survive. The surviving ones will bring in most of the money. As stated earlier, even the dead ones can also bring in money.
Breeding roosters live their lives in a state of hunger. They peck excessively at anything they can and to try to get something into their empty stomachs.
A device called a NOZBONZ is used by some poultry farms. This device is shoved into roosters' noses (without anaesthesia) from one side to the other then left there. The purpose of the NOZBONZ is to stop roosters from sticking their heads into the cages or feeding troughs of other chickens. In essence, they"re being prevented and punished for behaving like roosters.
Poultry farms housing egg producing chickens have no need for the male chicks. Male chicks" flesh is of lower quality.
Upon birth, the male chicks are tossed into a bag, where they"re suffocated. Or they can be thrown into a chicken grinder. Either way, they"re treated as disposable chickens.
Chickens in overcrowded sheds endure extreme thirst. Owners want to save on water bills and cleaning times. More water means increased watery stools.
Lights in chicken sheds are turned on 23 hours a day. When the lights are on the chickens are in "production mode". The one hour or so of no lighting is not for the chickens" benefit. It's a safety precaution in case there's a sudden blackout.
Chickens that have never been in the dark will go berserk during a sudden blackout.
Countless chickens that are taken to the slaughterhouse suffer from broken bones and severe bruises. They're routinely manhandled, tossed into tiny, filthy, boxes for transport.
Right before slaughter ch