This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Irv Bell's farm is a family farm. It's also a factoryfarm. The marketing of an operation of breeding and slaughtering sentient nonhumans as a family farm (here, Bell straddles the line) is supposed to trigger some kind of compassion for the humans. And all of those are implicit in "farm."
The discussion about the environment usually originates in the massive problems created by the factoryfarming of sentient nonhumans. The arguments against factoryfarming, which most recently were articulated by Jonathan Safran Foer (who has caused quite a stir in the mainstream), are legion. You are choosing violence.
The column, which you can read here , is a call to arms to factory farmers to fight back against those individuals and organizations working to protect farm animals from the abuses inherent in factoryfarms. To learn more about Arizona's precedent-setting victory for farm animals, see here.
The film Partitions (running time: 14 min) by Audrey Kali gives an intimate glimpse of the ethical struggles that five small-scale meat farmers face when their animals are slaughtered. This film provides an accurate portrayal of small-scale, non-intensive animal farming. This is as humane as "humane farming" gets.
Today's New York Times gives us Adam Shriver's Op-Ed " Not Grass-Fed, But at Least Pain-Free ," which presents its dilemma at the end: If we cannot avoid factoryfarms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. Like when they're about to be, say, slaughtered?
Meat, however, purchased at the supermarket, externally packaged and internally laced with petrochemicals, fattened in feed lots, slaughtered impersonally, and, in general, mechanically processed from artificial insemination to microwave roaster, is an affront not only to physical metabolism and bodily health but to conscience as well.
And they certainly wouldn't hurt anybody; that's what those big factoryfarms do that aren't owned by families. Their goal is to make a profit from the breeding and slaughter of animals. Yes, factoryfarms are the stuff of nightmares for nonhuman animals. But so are family farms.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 30+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content