Beef association opposes mandate on animal agriculture

'Pandora's Box' was opened long ago when you folks decided to plop livestock onto assembly lines as if they were Toyotas or lawn mowers.
And as for trying to get all those horrors back in the box?.
How's that workin' for 'ya?

Unfortunately, Mr. Cattleman, public perception is that animal farmers use industry-commissioned, industry-purchased, and industry-accepted "science" that is geared toward the fastest growth of the animals in the least amount of space for the greatest amount of profit. Your "science" does not protect or even consider an animal's emotional or psychological well-being. The animals-for-profit industry has proven time and time again, through undercover investigation after investigation, that it is incapable of policing itself and providing animals with decent, morally acceptable lives before they are summarily slaughtered.

The public has seen your drugged chickens crammed 6 to 8 birds into cages so small the hens can't stretch even one wing, stacked one atop the other, row after row, in bleak, fetid, windowless sheds, standing on feces- and dead-bird encrusted wire their entire lives, never seeing or feeling the sun, scratching the earth, or foraging for seeds and bugs. The public has seen your drugged sows enduring pregnancy after pregnancy in their own filth in gestation crates barely larger than their bodies, never able to escape, breathe fresh air, turn around, lie down comfortably, and certainly never able to nurture or protect their young. We've seen the bars of their cages red with blood where the animals have chewed their mouths raw out of sheer boredom and learned despair. The public has also seen how you treat newborn calves, dragging them away from their drugged mothers with their umbilical cords still attached, mothers mooing in anguish and distress. The babies, if allowed to live, are raised artificially by humans--not their own mothers. Heaven forbid the babies should ever taste the milk their mothers produced just for them.

These are but a few examples of what we've seen, and they do not include the many body mutilations animal farmers perform on young animals without any pain relief or anesthesia. We've seen the cruelty your "science" inflicts on innocent, young creatures and we're appalled and outraged. That is why in 2008, 63% of California voters voted in favor of Prop. 2, the Protection of Farmed Animal Cruelty Act. All of these practices need changing and not for maximum profit. They need changing because it's the right thing to do. It is morally unacceptable to treat living, feeling beings as production units, the way "modern" animal agriculture, more commonly known as factory farming, treat them.

http://youtu.be/THIODWTqx5E

These are but a few examples of what we've seen, and they do not include the many body mutilations animal farmers perform on young animals without any pain relief or anesthesia. We've seen the cruelty your "science" inflicts on innocent, young creatures and we're appalled and outraged. That is why in 2008, 63% of California voters voted in favor of Prop. 2, the Prevention of Farmed Animal Cruelty Act. All of these practices need changing and not for maximum profit. They need changing because it's the right thing to do. It is morally unacceptable to treat living, feeling beings as production units, the way "modern" animal agriculture, more commonly known as factory farming, treat them.

http://youtu.be/THIODWTqx5E

It is the dairy industry that is disgusting, not the beef cattle producer who is trying to grow cattle in open spaces. Could we please separate the beef industry from the dairy industry ? While Janet Weeks sounds unhinged, she is correct about the abhorrent practices going on right now in Central California for example. Anyone who has visited a dairy there and has any compassion at all would be disgusted. But the grossly obese American consumer wants food , and they want it now and they want it cheap and they dont want to get off their sizeable rear ends to grow it or produce it. We have created a situation in this country where confined agriculture is the only option. Environmentalists have made many lands off limits so they can control it and they alone can use it, greedy developers only care about converting arable land to houses or shopping centers, politicians only want to stay in office and will sell their souls and the new progressive "green" industries take away needed foodstuffs. Then you have the, yes ... greedy farmers and ranchers waiting for the next government check. We have met the enemy and they are us. Since we apparently cannot control ourselves, someone, the government, will step in and do it. We are to blame for not policing our own industries. Where is the Milk Board in sanctioning it s members for cruel practices, where is the NCBA in sanctioning its members for cattle starvation, neglect and mistreatment? If we don't do it, someone else will. So stop complaining.