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Published News Stories

Animal welfare regs
would ‘codify cruelty’

New Jersey Farmer

05/20/03

By GENE BAUSTON

Like many people living on farms in rural America, I am saddened by the loss of agricultural land and family farms. These are being replaced with housing developments, retail establishments, and industrial or manufacturing operations, including large scale animal agriculture. Such industrialized operations, commonly referred to as “factory farms,” are a detriment to the well being of rural communities, causing health, economic and environmental hazards, while treating animals like unfeeling commodities and subjecting them to intolerable abuse.

The state of New Jersey is in a unique position to remedy the problems associated with industrialized farming as the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA) has been directed to develop “standards for humane raising, keeping, care, treatment, marketing, and sale of domestic livestock.” The creation of such standards could help to prevent the influx of hazardous factory farms in the Garden State.

The NJDA has been reluctant to fulfill its legal responsibility, but finally, after receiving tens of thousands of letters and six years behind schedule, the department published draft “humane” standards in May, 2003. Shockingly, this long awaited document codifies cruel agribusiness practices. Rather than protecting animals and rural communities, the NJDA opens the state to the worst that factory farms have to offer.

Among the inhumane systems that the NJDA deems to be humane are “gestation crates.” These two-foot-wide metal enclosures confine female breeding pigs for most of their lives. The cages are barely larger than the animals’ bodies, and prevent basic freedom of movement.† Numerous scientific studies have documented that confining sows this way causes a myriad of problems, including: urinary tract infections, bone weakness, lameness, depression, and frustration. Unable to engage in normal behaviors, confined sows experience severe distress and are driven to neurotic coping behaviors. Gestation crates have been banned by countries in Europe because of humane concerns. Last November, over 2.5 million Floridians voted ‘yes’ on a ballot measure and thereby outlawed gestation crates in their state.

Hog factories that use gestation crates and other cruel techniques are rampant in states like North Carolina, where the many negative consequences of factory farming are now being felt . Intensive confinement devices allow thousands of animals to be crammed together in huge factory warehouses. The animals produce tons of waste, which is stored in toxic “lagoons.” Throughout North Carolina and other factory farming states, excessive concentrations of waste (including manure and animal carcasses) have polluted surface and groundwater, killed wildlife, damaged the health of local citizens, and caused real estate values to drop.

So far, residents of New Jersey have had only limited experience with industrialized factory farms.† One of the stateí’s largest is the foreign owned ISE egg production facility in Warren County, which confines more than one million egg laying hens in “battery cages,” wire enclosures that are lined up in rows and stacked in tiers in a series of warehouses. Residents near ISE’s egg factory have experienced stench and fly problems, and ISE has been taken to court more than once because of environmental pollution and inhumane practices. In 2000, ISE was charged with cruelty to animals after live birds were found discarded in a trash can at its facility. It is telling that ISE asserted in court that it could legally treat its hens like manure. When the judge asked, “isn’t there a big difference between live birds and manure?” ISE’s lawyer responded, “No, your honor.”This exchange was reported by Matthew Scully, senior speech writer to President George W. Bush, in his book, “Dominion,” in order to illuminate “how bereft of human feeling” agribusiness has become.

The attitudes and practices commonly employed on today’s industrialized farms are repugnant to a majority of U.S. citizens. Public opinion polls have found widespread opposition to common farming practices, such as confining veal calves, breeding pigs, and egg laying hens in cages and crates so tightly that they can barely move, and starving egg laying hens to shock their systems into a new egg laying cycle.

Ironically, the humane standards drafted by the NJDA allow egregious cruelty, including inhumane activities that even industry groups are seeking to prevent. For example, the department allows the marketing of downed animals, livestock too sick even to stand, for human food. Downed animals commonly suffer for hours or days without receiving proper care before being dragged onto trucks and transported to slaughter. Several states have passed laws to prevent the marketing of downed animals, and the USDA has stopped buying meat from downed animals for the school lunch program because of humane concerns. It is extremely disconcerting that the NJDA would specifically allow this practice.

By producing meaningful humane standards and prohibiting cruel farming systems, the NJDA could help promote more sustainable farming operations, and this would help to protect the health and welfare of rural communities. During graduate studies in agricultural economics at Cornell University, I visited dairy farms which turned to rotational grazing as an alternative to intensive dairy production methods. Not only did these dairies find grazing to be more humane, environmentally sound, and profitable - they also found their daily work to be far more enjoyable. During the campaign to outlaw gestation crates in the state of Florida, I met with a manager of the swine unit at the University of Florida at Gainesville. At first, he was apprehensive, suggesting that animal advocates sought to put his friends out of business, but as we spoke, he acknowledged that modern factory farming operations left much to be desired. He expressed that intensive confinement hog units have caused pig farmers to lose what he called “pigmanship,” and he expressed his feeling that every farmer should have a chance to watch a sow build her nest.

Treating sentient beings like inanimate commodities denigrates the animals and it also denigrates us. When we are callous and fail to empathize with others, including members of other species, we are lessened. On the other hand, when we act with kindness and humanity, we are enriched.
Sadly, the NJDA has failed miserably in its first attempt to produce standards for the humane treatment of farm animals. Hopefully, the department will hear from many citizens and farmers, and will rethink its approach. As Mary Tyler Moore expressed during a recent visit to the New Jersey state capitol, “Like all animals, farm animals have feelings and they deserve to be protected from cruelty. As a civilized nation, we have an ethical obligation to recognize farm animals as sentient beings and to prevent their suffering.”