Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
not a food public health risk. Typically, hens roaming free in the backyard are far health-
ier than several million debeaked, dewinged birds crammed into cages in close proxim-
ity to one another in a factory farm. I'd rather eat an egg from a hen that's been roaming
in the garden eating worms, insects, rotting fruits, and other items than from a poor bird
trapped in a confined cage with a so-called balanced ration in a trough in front of her.
Those of us who have long taken the freedom of raising a few hens in our backyard
for granted must be proactive. We must protect our right to produce our own food and
raise it the way we see fit. We must educate regulators and the public about the chal-
lenges involved in raising smaller flocks, and the health and environmental advantages
of raising poultry in fewer numbers. We must inform them that laws created with factory
farms in mind frequently aren't tenable for raisers of small flocks. If we sit calmly on
the sidelines while factory-farm-focused lawmakers transform the legislation that gov-
erns our lives, we may have no birds to care for someday.
Connection = Health = Safety
The less connected we are to our food supply, the more likely we are to pass laws that
are not based on good common sense. When we were primarily an agrarian society, most
everyone knew how to raise a garden; can garden produce; root-cellar food; smoke and
cure meat; and store eggs, milk, and butter.
Now, as we have become a more urban, industrialized society, we look to the govern-
ment to protect us and provide us with all the information that we no longer garner from
our day-to-day experience. When corporations, whose primary motive is to make money
and please stockholders, largely influence governmental decisions, the small backyard
producer is suddenly labeled an unsafe producer. The truth about safety is the exact op-
posite: The producer of 100 dozen or fewer eggs a week has far greater control over his
product than does a factory farm producing a million eggs a day. The small producer is
more involved and concerned about the health and welfare of his birds; he sees them all
each and every day.
Small fowl producers must unite our voices to protect and preserve small farms, and
we must educate the public about the pride we take in our poultry and the safe and hu-
mane methods used to raise them.
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