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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."
And it gently tells the story of why we shouldn't eat factoryfarmed animals. The significant problem with this book is that the solution to the problems posed (which begin with "On factoryfarms. ") could easily be some Farm Forward-endorsed small operation where many of the horrors of factoryfarming don't exist.
PETA wants to run a campaign that compares factoryfarming to the Holocaust. The German constitutional court has ruled that animal rights organisation PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) must end its campaign in which it draws a comparison between the Holocaust and industrial farming.
If it steers (sorry about the pun) people toward animals raised in places other than factoryfarms, where they will still be killed, I'm not thrilled. Tags: Activism Current Affairs Ethics Film Food and Drink Delray Beach Film Festival Food Inc. My guess is I'll get some of both. Will you not check it out? veganism.
On the animal front, there is definitely a message that factoryfarming is unsustainable, and that subsistence farming is and was preferable; there is a vague if-we-did-it-differently-it-might-be-sustainable message. Plus though the film isn't long (under two hours), it covers an enormous amount of ground (!), But that's me.
I agree with Nicholas Kristof that factoryfarms will eventually be banned by law. I also agree that it will be a good thing. Addendum: Here are comments on Kristof's column.
as I was running this morning, I couldn't help wonder what the difference is between his book and The Compassionate Carnivore and the myriad others written by people who despise factoryfarming, yet claim to love animals (and of course love their "meat," and find a way to get it while not feeling bad about it).
And because that's his premise, he proceeds to investigate both factoryfarming and smaller operations that include grazing and allowing the animals to live a relatively natural life (after their unnatural beginning and let's not forget about their unnatural end). Tags: Activism Books Current Affairs Ethics James E.
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.
Here is a New York Times op-ed column about pork production. Notice that the author is not opposed to the use of nonhuman animals as resources for human consumption. She simply wants to minimize their suffering before they are killed (painlessly?) and their bodies dismembered and processed.
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.
To replace factory-farmed meat without further tropical forest destruction is impossible. 3, 2009 Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and the author of “ The Ethics of What We Eat.” Peter Singer Geoff Russell Barry Brook New York, Nov. Geoff Russell is the author of “CSIRO Perfidy.”
I've been an ethical vegan for 12 years; for me it was a straightforward transition. Animal Ethics helps me formalize my position so I can be a more effective advocate. My temptation when dealing with others was to simply say, "hey look this is what modern factoryfarming is all about," and voila people would make the change.
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. In this film, we see farmers interacting with the animals they will eventually transform into food (chickens, pigs and cattle).
Currently, I am very interested in social and political philosophy and ethical issues. I felt a strong sense of connection to the ideas of Peter Singer while taking Ethics from Keith. I do not believe that the current factoryfarm system in place lives up to both of those standards. So, I took the plunge.
This, however, is precisely what factoryfarming does. By forgoing meat in our diets, we can reduce, if not eliminate, this massive suffering of animals, merely through bringing market forces to bear upon factoryfarming.
All it establishes is that we should eat far less meat so that factoryfarms become obsolete and that, in conjunction with this, arable land should be turned over to the production of high-protein crops, where possible, so that world hunger can be alleviated somewhat.
Most people are shocked and appalled when they first read descriptions of factoryfarming and learn about the horribly inhumane conditions in which the billions of animals destined for dinner tables are raised, and they are even more appalled when they first see documentary footage of the institutional cruelties inherent in factoryfarming.
To the Editor: “ A FactoryFarm Near You ” (editorial, July 31) does not mention any issue of the morality of factoryfarming—treating living beings as factory products. Cruelty to animals on such a scale should be the centerpiece of any discussion on raising animals for food.
Their interests are primarily protected, if at all, through archaic state anti-cruelty statutes that were not passed in contemplation of the factory-farm or genetic engineering. Though factory-farming and biotechnological techniques massively violate the moral rights of farm animals, they have no remedy.
The wrongness of factoryfarming is overdetermined. Why does it not call for the abolition of factoryfarming? See here for one sufficient ground. By the way, the editorial board of the New York Times is progressive (as opposed to conservative). Instead, it seeks to reform it.
Beyond the environmental impacts of meat production there is a basic ethical issue involved. To suggest that eating one and not the other represents a conflict of ethics is preposterous. However, I agree with Mr. Foer that factoryfarming has to go. 31), while humorous enough, masks more serious issues.
18 editorial about the abuse of antibiotics in industrial hog farms. It not only brings light to a serious issue, but also begins to make the connection between factoryfarm practices and consumer choices. To the Editor: I applaud “ Antibiotic Runoff ,” your Sept. Hamilton Mill Valley, Calif., 18, 2007
As the world moves toward raising the majority of animals in the unnatural setting of factoryfarms, it is likely that more, and worse, such pathogens will arise. What will it take for us, and our public health leaders, to question our addiction to meat and tolerance of factoryfarming?
But this distinction lies at the very center of the land ethic. From the perspective of the land ethic a herd of cattle, sheep, or pigs is as much or more a ruinous blight on the landscape as a fleet of four-wheel drive off-road vehicles. Domestic animals are creations of man. It is, to speak in hyperbole, a logical impossibility. (
11, 2008 To the Editor: We are seeing environmental ruin because of factoryfarming. Besides depleting the ocean’s supply of fish for those animals normally feeding on them, the factoryfarming of cattle, pigs and chickens uses excessive water and pollutes our land. Danielle Kichler Washington, Nov.
To the Editor: “ A FactoryFarm Near You ” (editorial, July 31) is in a time warp. Yes, concentrated animal feeding operations, or “factoryfarms” as you call them, are a key feature of modern agriculture. But today these livestock operations don’t have to be unwelcome neighbors in their communities.
Inhumane confinement, illegal anticompetitive practices and factoryfarming hurt animals, the environment, the consumer, the public health and the farmer.
To the Editor: It’s mind-boggling that in spite of overwhelming evidence that the consumption of animal products is directly responsible for a host of human diseases , greenhouse gas production and indescribable animal suffering, the general public continues to satiate its taste buds and support factoryfarming.
Modern farms (so-called factoryfarms), for example, raise animals in unnatural conditions. Quite the contrary, just as would be true in the case of my son, what we should say is that part of the harm done to these animals by factoryfarming is that they do not know this. (
Someone might argue that there is no incompatibility between (1) working to decrease animal suffering and (2) working toward the abolition of factoryfarming. Imagine arguing not that human chattel slavery ought to be abolished, but that it ought to be reformed so as to inflict less suffering on the slaves.
At our farm sanctuary, we see how much chickens rescued from factoryfarms delight in these experiences. 15, 2010 The writers are co-founders of Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary. They will still lack the freedom to engage in natural behaviors like foraging and nesting. Most will never know sunlight, breezes, plants or soil.
A factory-farmed egg-producing hen’s lifespan is less than two years. The use of wire cages isn’t being addressed, but should be in the future. We are headed in the right direction, but need to fight to push the changes through. It could take up to 18 years for them to be phased in, if the law should pass.
His call for the end of factoryfarms (concentrated animal feeding operations) is courageous. Better food creates better health. And yet our government is perversely encouraging food habits that negatively affect our health and our environment.
The Episcopal Church embraces a resolution that specifically addresses puppy mills and factoryfarms. The United Methodist Church supports the humane treatment of farm animals and calls for the protection of endangered species. The Catholic Church is not alone among major religions on this issue.
Especially because animals are made to suffer in the pursuit of human purposes—in the name of "efficient" factoryfarming, for example, or in pursuit of scientific knowledge—the utilitarian injunction to count their suffering and to count it equitably must strike a responsive moral chord. Because animals are sentient (i.e.,
My view, then, is not that which it has often been taken to be in discussion and which Singer, Regan, Clark, and others blast in their work; I am not suggesting that, because they lack language, animals can be factoryfarmed without suffering. Animals can suffer, which they could not unless they were conscious; so they are conscious.
Have you visited a factoryfarm or a slaughterhouse? This sympathy can be a basis for revising one's moral principles so as to take animals into account. Perhaps the sympathetic impulse would be activated if people saw how their meat is produced. Have you taken the time to investigate this?
What is wrong is factoryfarms. Animals turn grass, a k a sunlight, into high-quality proteins, minerals and fats that are an ideal food for humans. Meat is an excellent source of food and far higher quality than just plants. We are evolved to eat meat—it is right and natural.
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