Should Factory Farming Be Banned?

[Prophet 451]

Something a little more controversial than my other poll. Should the USA ban factory farming of meat? That is, should the law require that all animals intended for consumption are raised in a cage-free situation?

Also included an option where the suffering of animals is included in teh price of meat. So there's an extra charge on buying caged meat.

14 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, cage-free only
	11 (79%)
	No, leave it to the market
	1 (7%)
	Include a surcharge consumerate with the animal's suffering
	0 (0%)
	Something else
	2 (14%)
	I want the boys!
	0 (0%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[easychoice]

1. Check the pork industry -- horrible

chickens are even worse.

[Arcanetrance]

2. I honestly don't know how to answer this question

I'm a fan of the idea of getting rid of factory farming and making any meat sold for consumption cage free. But I'm not sure how that would raise the prices of it and put it out of the reach of poorer families who are already struggling to put food on the table and I also don't like the surcharge on non cage free meat which would also raise the prices itself.

[Prophet 451]

3. Well, the idea was to make people think

I would imagine that the price difference would be minimal, maybe a couple of dollars.

[Arcanetrance]

4. You definitely got me to think I'll admit that

Probably the best I could come up with is eliminate factory farming and maybe force a cut back in how much meat based meals one would eat. Which is basically what I do now only eat meat 2 or 3 times a week and substitute other types of proteins when I make certain dishes.

[DonCoquixote]

5. a couple of dollars

is a lot to the poor

[Prophet 451]

8. Yes, it is

[Recursion]

6. Too vague to say. I do support a packer ban

So did Obama in the primaries, come to think of it...

[Prophet 451]

7. Packer ban?

[Recursion]

9. Prevent meat packers from owning livestock being raised on farms and ranches

Basically a kind of "sharecropping" for ranchers that packers have been pushing for.

GIPSA (the part of USDA that would rule/enforce this) has been walking the fence on this question for a while now.

[Prophet 451]

13. I had never heard of that

Can you explain (or link if you prefer) why this would be a bad thing?

[Recursion]

18. Sorry: the ban is an attempt to require that ranchers own rather than rent their cows

I've probably not been clear. The "packer ban" is shorthand for having USDA rule that the cows have to be owned by the ranchers until they are delivered to the slaughterhouse. This gives them some leverage over the meat packers. It would be a good thing for the rule to codify existing industry practice, which is that ranchers own the cows while raising them (some packers are trying to get ranchers to "rent" cows from them each season; a packer ban would forbid that).

It would be good to forbid meat packers from owning cattle because the fact that the ranchers own the cows and can choose packers is the only negotiating power ranchers have with the packers.

[Prophet 451]

20. Wow!

That's, I don't even know how to describe that. Thanks for the info.

[flvegan]

10. No.

At least, not as posed in the question. Cage-free doesn't mean cruelty-free or free from suffering. Sorry, pet peeve of mine.

I also don't think buying a pass for cruelty is someplace we should go.

With that, the immediate response to such a suggestion in the OP would be alarmist, and so I still have to say no.

I think I still stand as the most hardcore vegan animal rights asshole here, my resume speaks for itself. "Factory farming" has its own definition right now. I'd rather see more stringent and ENFORCED guidelines on cruelty. I defintely don't want to see selfish assholes with money paying more for meat in a mindless fashion. My first thought on that was canned hunting. Well, you can shoot that animal in a cage as a "hunter" but it'll cost ya.

I don't think a ban on a term is the right way to go. What is cruel? What is suffering? Come up with a genuine, non-corporate driven take on that, run with that and enforce it, and we're on the right track for now.

[Prophet 451]

14. OK

The intention was to give an option for saying that all meat should be raised free-range and organic. "Cage-free" was just the shortest way I could think of putting that.

Paying extra for caged meat is an idea which was suggested here (UK) before we banned battery farming.

[olddots]

11. our country could stand to eat like the rest of the world

It won'be easy at first but it will be better for everyone in the long run .

[nationalize the fed]

12. Cage Free is a start

but soon plant protein will be made such that it will be indistinguishable from animal protein- it already is in many cases- and then the killing of animals for food or anything else should become a crime, because it will be totally unnecessary.

and plant protein is better anyway.

Many people aren't realizing that they aren't just eating the meat, they are eating everything these animals are being fed and injected with.

[Prophet 451]

16. Plant protein isn't better

Protein is protein, your body doesn't distinguish one form from another. That's all of a school with the idea that eating any amount of animal fat is suicidal. It's bullshit alarmism. Protein is protein, fats are fats, your body doesn't care about the source.

Now, what I think will become more useful will be the consumption of vat-grown meat. This is something I read about a couple of years ago. Essentially, it cultures meat artifically. Real meat that tastes exactly the same but doesn't involve an animal.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

15. I think it would significanly increase the price. Free range chickens aren't what many people think.

Thousands of chickens could be stored inside a warehouse of several thousand square feet with a small opening to the outside with only enough room for a handful at a time to enter the space. That qualifies as free range and those are more costly. It's not much better than the other farmed chickens have it. There are free range grass feed cattle available, but the prices I have seen are much higher. These products already exist but are out of reach of the average consumer. We have limited resources and a growing population. There must be some solution, but it needs to be one that doesn't make meat more costly for the middle and lower class.

[LeftyMom]

17. I would argue that the larger problem is capitalism.

The same system that uses animals as widgets to produce profit at the least cost without regard for their welfare or happiness uses human beings as widgets to produce profit without regard for their welfare or happiness.

You can maintain some veneer of free range happy meat bullshit with regulation, but the fundamental cruelties of the system are unchanged: you're still dealing with animals bred into inherently unhealthy extremes ( "layer" hens that produce 30x more eggs than wild ancestors and wind up crippled by bone loss to fuel it, cows that are impregnated and their young killed so people can take the milk from enormous, mastitis-plagued udders...) to maximize profit. That's as true for pastured/organic/free range/blah blah production as for the cheapest shit at the cheapest grocery store.

[Prophet 451]

21. And that's just extremism

You are not going to be able to change the fact that humans are omnivores, are designed to be omnivores and have been omnivores for at least six thousand years. The best you can do is minimize the suffering of the animal.

[LeftyMom]

23. That doesn't change what I'm saying about making a life into a profit center.

A laying hen is a good example of this: a jungle fowl lays about an egg a month. A laying hen bred from those jungle fowl lays one a day and is killed after a year or two when that production slacks off slightly, to be replaced by another hen who turns feed into eggs slightly more efficiently. Her natural lifespan is of course much, much longer than this.

In that year or so she's a sick, malnourished creature, because her body has been bred to prioritize making eggs at 30x the natural rate over making her a healthy chicken.

There is no way to make that not cruel, because the point of it is to produce not a healthy chicken but a biological machine that converts (generally dubious) food inputs into eggs at maximum efficiency.

If somebody bred a chicken tomorrow that laid three eggs a day, was spectacularly deformed because of the mineral loss and died of malnutrition at six months, every big egg farm would switch to that breed immediately. Because capitalism. Their investors could sue them if they didn't, because they'd be shirking their legal responsibility to maximize profits.

edit: I neglected to mention that this is only true if the layer breed chicken is female. If it's male he goes straight out of his egg and into a trash bin or grinder, often to be fed to his growing sisters. He's not a potential egg machine (and not an efficient enough converter of food into flesh to be used for the production of meat: that's what "broiler" breeds are for) so he's literally garbage. And again that's just as true in cage free/organic/pastured/humane certified/blah blah operations.

[NCarolinawoman]

25. You've got it right, sadly. Thanks.

[burrowowl]

19. Yes!

Better for ecology, lets antibiotics, healthier food, etc.

[taught_me_patience]

22. Yes, only rich people should afford to eat meat

poor and middle class can stick to rice and beans.

[Prophet 451]

24. I think that's probably going to happen anyway

It's looking increasingly likely that nothing significant will be done to combat climate change. That will mean less land for raising livestock, which will make meat more expensive and mean that only teh rich will be able to afford it more than an occasional treat.

[quadrature]

26. NYC, or maybe NY State, should try this idea first.

and let us know how it works

[MFM008]

27. I try to avoid meat BUT

We lost our power Thanksgiving day for the first time in 56 years.
Thank God the turkey was done and thats about all that was done, my mom put it in at 9:30 so by lights out . I have never been so greatful to the sacrifice of an animal.
On a cold day that steaming hot turkey had never been better.
We had that and some cold stuff like jello salad and dinner rolls, it really put a spotlight on what to be grateful for than all of us eating there that day by candle light, my sister lit every candle in the house, it looked like a Tutor Cathedral.
One to remember.

(we still dont know what cause it)

[DeSwiss]

28. YES!

- K&R

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[Derek V]

29. x50

[CrawlingChaos]

30. The cruelty of factory farming shocks the conscience

If I let myself think about it, I'd spend all day crying.

[RiverLover]

31. Watch movie "Food Inc" nt

[hunter]

32. The animals we eat ought to be treated humanely and with respect.

It's difficult to achieve in our insane economic system that doesn't even manage to respect human life.

[Prophet 451]

39. Heard that

Personally, I buy free-range and organic (and here, those terms are defined by law) from a local butcher who sources from local farmers.

[Bluenorthwest]

33. You don't go far enough. It is the Industrial nature of the agriculture that is the central problem

not the specific product. That is to say 'factory farming' of plants can be and is very often wildly destructive to the planet, destroys habitats for animals which means cruelty, they all die and will never be eradicated repeatedly from that area until they stop pushing all the crops out of that plot. The water issues, the labor issues, these are things that are the same for whatever you are growing.
So. Not just meat. The whole of the agriculture should be smaller scaled and sustainable. And it is really not cool to just pretend that rodents and insects and other small creatures flourish as they always did in that meadow that becomes a soy field. They die, they lose habitat and if we are talking about cruelty then how can that be exempt? It can not.

[Prophet 451]

36. So what's your proposal?

I'm not disagreeing with anything you say but the fact is, there's 7+ billion of us on this big blue marble and we have to eat something so what are you suggesting as an alternative?

[xchrom]

34. there's no need for it.

small farms and small slaughtering practices would serve us all better..

[dumbcat]

35. People should not eat meat

It is not right that an animal be born just to die.

[Ykcutnek]

37. Only if it can be done without prices going up.

And I don't see that happening, so no.

[Prophet 451]

38. It's probable prices would go up, yes