Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
“[I]f the public knew more about the way in
which agricultural and animal production
infringes on animal welfare, the outcry would
be louder. . . . [It is] more economically
efficient to put a greater number of birds into
each cage, accepting lower productivity per
bird but greater productivity per cage. . . .
[I]ndividual animals may 'produce,' for
example gain weight, in part because they
are immobile, yet suffer because of the
inability to move. . . . Chickens are cheap,
cages are expensive.”
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—Bernard E. Rollin, Ph.D., University Distinguished
Professor, professor of philosophy, professor of
animal sciences, professor of biomedical sciences,
and University Bioethicist at the University
of Colorado, and Commissioner of the Pew
Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production
These and other confinement systems have been shown time
and again—through scientific inquiry, investigative exposé, and
consumer polling—to be unacceptable, and citizens in Europe,
North America, and beyond are organizing to get them out of the
industry's playbook. The European Union has already voted to
phase out conventional battery cages, gestation crates, and veal
crates—the tiny stalls used to confine young male calves for veal.
As of this writing, in the United States, legislation to ban gesta-
tion crates has been signed into law in Arizona, California, Maine,
Michigan, Colorado, Florida, and Oregon.
In response, Smithfield Foods, the largest pig producer in the
United States and in fact the world, has pledged to phase out
