I manage supply chains for Bon Appétit Management Company, which is another way of saying that my job is to think about chicken and pork. Not just the meat, but the lives of the animals themselves. I suspect there are few other non-meat-eaters whose corporate roles require them to think about farm animals as much as mine does.

But thinking about production systems and negotiating with suppliers can only go so far. Today, we’re saying that we’re fed up. Bon Appétit Management Company today announced that by 2015 all our pork will be sourced from companies that don’t use gestation stalls–the densely packed metal cages that imprison pregnant sows in spaces so tight they can’t even turn around. Imagine hundreds of 200-pound dogs confined that way all day, every day, and it should be easy to understand why this system is so egregious.

We also announced that in addition to our shell eggs, which have come from farms Certified Humane by Humane Farm Animal Care since 2005, all of our eggs will meet that standard or those set by other credible certifiers. That includes eggs that are separated from their shells, known as “liquid eggs,” which are commonly used in very busy restaurant kitchens like ours. (You try cracking eggs for 2,000 people daily!) Liquid eggs, after all, come from laying hens just as shell eggs do, and we believe that the 67-square inches a battery cage affords each hen is simply unacceptable.

We are the first and only food service company to make such a serious commitment. And we’re not just raising the minimum standards of what we’ll accept in the way of pork and eggs, we’re also raising the ceiling. We’re committing that 25 percent or more of all our animal proteins will be the most humanely raised possible—not just cage- and crate-free, but also raised without subtherapeutic antibiotics and hormones, and allowed to engage in their natural behaviors. We won’t rely on producers to reassure us, but on independent, third-party-certified labels.

So why does “going humane” keep me up some nights?

The true answer, perhaps paradoxically, is that there isn’t a ready supply today of gestation crate-free pork or Certified Humane liquid eggs that we can buy. We’re going to have to catalyze sources to live up to our commitment.

And I work for a very impatient boss. Fedele Bauccio, Bon Appétit’s CEO, served on the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production a few years ago and came back from site visits around the country complaining about how factory farming made him sick. I wanted to phase in this policy over five years, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He made it a companywide commitment to start now.

With pork, we really have our work cut out for us. Several big companies have announced plans to phase out gestation-stall confinement systems by 2017, but at least one buys most of their meat from the open market, so their claim of changing what they produce is pretty shallow. Another owns and operates production facilities in states with regulatory mandates that could be reversed in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision.

A third company sent their CEO and a squad of senior executives to our offices to demonstrate their commitment to humane and environmentally responsible practices. After months of talking, we made little headway on developing a supply chain. As big as our demand is–over 800,000 pounds of bacon alone per year–that company processes so many hogs that they couldn’t separate the products they might raise humanely for us from their massive supply of other pork products. How would we know we’re making good on our commitment if they couldn’t track what they were selling us?

There are some fairly responsible, smaller regional producers whose names you might recognize from high-end supermarket meat cases. Some are certified by credible third-party agencies to distinguish themselves from other producers, but others spin aspirational tales — and their shortages of certain cuts are legendary.

I’m frustrated but not discouraged. If these questions had easy answers, our problems would have been solved already. The failures to develop a national supply chain have given me insight on better questions to ask and partners to identify.

I’ve learned, for instance, that most pigs are raised by quasi-independent smaller producers, not corporate-owned hog farms. These guys have made capital investments in these hideous confinement technologies and it will take serious money to make changes–the kind of capital that isn’t readily available unless their giant corporate pork-contract holders extend them credit to make changes.

I’ve also learned that Bon Appétit needs partners such as supermarkets and upscale fast-food operators, because we primarily use different cuts of pork. We can’t have humane systems for our bacon, pork chops, and sandwich meat without finding partners for the carnitas shoulders and Easter hams. They all come from the same animal.

Much as I hate to admit it, we actually need the big producers in this mix. Many people deeply believe that our food system would be vastly improved if we just went back to our agrarian past of small farmers. Yet that’s not how most people are going to feed themselves. It’s too expensive, at least for the foreseeable future.

Our role, as a company that serves 135 million meals a year, must be to put significant pressure on the big producers who currently feed the 300 million Americans—and others—to improve what they do.

Good animal welfare isn’t just about the animals. It’s about starting to dismantle a system that has enormous costs for our society, including the loss of medically important antibiotics, the pollution of our air and water from animal waste, and horrible working conditions in factory farms.

So we are announcing a commitment—even though the products we need aren’t produced in the quantities we need. Why? We’re convinced of one thing: The best chance for change is to stop waiting for everyone else to make the first move. We’re committed to shifting production practices in the marketplace one way or another.

Photo: Bon Appétit Farm to Fork partner Pure Country Pork raises hogs in hoop barns near Ephrata, WA and has attained Food Alliance certification.

The goal of The HSUS is not endless campaigning or conflict with political adversaries, but to find a place where we can forge solutions that produce tangible and meaningful outcomes for animals and show a new way forward in society. And that means sitting down with people who see the world differently than we do, even sitting down with industries that we’ve had deep disagreements with in the past.

Yesterday, we put that principle into practice. I participated in a press conference that I thought could only occur many years into the future: a joint event with The HSUS and the United Egg Producers (UEP).

The UEP is the primary trade association for the egg industry, and we’ve been at war with them over the extreme confinement practices in the industry—specifically, the confinement of laying hens in barren battery cages. We’ve supported bills in legislatures, ballot measures in the states, and litigation in the courts to make our case and to demand better living conditions for laying hens. With more than 260 million hens caught up in extreme confinement systems, we knew there was a lot at stake.

Yesterday, with the leaders of UEP at my side, I announced an agreement between the two organizations to mark the beginning of the end of the era of barren battery cages in America. The agreement, by calling for a national labeling program for all eggs sold in commerce, also promises to provide consumers with more information on the production practices used by egg farmers. This historic agreement calls for a series of reforms to be put into place in the years ahead that will demonstrably improve the lives of laying hens.

There’s currently no federal protection for chickens used for food at all, and no protection for any farm animals during production (there’s a federal humane slaughter law only, and even it applies only to mammals and not to birds). With this agreement, I have great hope that may soon change.

In short, the proposed legislation that HSUS and the UEP will work to enact would:

• require a moratorium at the end of 2011 on new construction of unenrichable battery cages—small, cramped, cages that nearly immobilize more than 90 percent of laying hens today—and the nationwide elimination of barren battery cages through a phase-out period;
• require phased-in construction of new hen housing systems that provide each hen nearly double the amount of space they’re currently provided;
• require environmental enrichments so birds can engage in important natural behaviors currently denied to them in barren cages, such as perches, nesting boxes, and scratching areas;
• mandate labeling on all egg cartons nationwide to inform consumers of the method used to produce the eggs, such as “eggs from caged hens” or “eggs from cage-free hens”;
• prohibit forced molting through starvation—an inhumane practice that is inflicted on tens of millions of hens each year and which involves withholding all food from birds for up to two weeks in order to manipulate the laying cycle;
• prohibit excessive ammonia levels in henhouses—a common problem in the industry that is harmful to both hens and egg industry workers; and
• prohibit the sale of all eggs and egg products nationwide that don’t meet these requirements.

Some of the provisions will be implemented nearly immediately after enactment, such as those relating to molting, ammonia, and euthanasia, and others after just a few years, including labeling and the requirement that all birds will have to have at least 67 square inches of space each. (Currently, approximately 50 million laying hens are confined at only 48 square inches each.)

One thesis in my new book, The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them is that so much animal mistreatment happens because so many of us in society have become disconnected from animals. In other words, they are far removed from our daily experiences, especially those animals used in institutional settings for a wide variety of purposes.

We are disconnected from the fur trade or the skin trade—we can select these products from the rack or even from a mail order catalog, and they later show up on a doorstep or at the apartment. We are greatly distant from the animal testing that goes on in the run-up to marketing of household products and cosmetics, which are nicely lined up and available to us at department stores bearing no evidence of any pain, suffering, or struggle on the part of an animal. We are certainly very removed from our meat, which comes neatly wrapped and packaged in its proper section at the supermarket, well-prepared at a restaurant, or barely recognizable at a fast food joint.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg faced up to this reality in announcing recently that he’d no longer eat meat unless he’d killed the animals himself. This of course means, according to him, that he’s reduced his meat consumption substantially. He then proceeded to slaughter some animals with a knife held in his own two hands. He’s presumably eaten these animals.

Many Americans expressed shock at the act and sympathized with the animals he killed. Some condemned Zuckerberg, accusing him of being cruel.
While I understand those natural reactions to the killing of these creatures, I think we owe Zuckerberg some plaudits, not only for reminding people that eating meat involves the killing of animals, but also for recognizing that it’s morally dubious to simply pass the “dirty work” off to an anonymous slaughter plant worker. Indeed, we should ask ourselves if there’s really much of an ethical difference between killing an animal (what Zuckerberg is doing) and paying others to kill animals for us (what most of us do).

Too many of us avert our eyes and prefer not to think much about how food gets to our table. It can make it easier for us to rationalize the mistreatment of animals in factory farms and slaughter plants if we believe ourselves far removed from the process—without feeling any connection or sense of obligation to the animals, or even seeing them at all.

Yet if every American were to adopt Zuckerberg’s approach—or even just witness, if not participate in, what happens to farm animals—you can bet there’d be many fewer animals suffering on factory farms.

Zuckerberg’s act, in its own way, was an act of conscience for him.  It was also a public provocation. Eating is a moral act, and it’s time we all face up to it, wherever we may ultimately land on this important question.

Photo: Cary Smith

Originally published on Wayne Pacelle’s blog

Despite recent crowing by the United Egg Producers—an agribusiness trade association—evidence shows that the national trend toward cage-free eggs is growing.

John Baker, president of Giving Nature Foods—a Pennsylvania-based cage-free egg company—asserts that “it’s shameful for the United Egg Producers to denigrate family farmers who don’t confine hens in small cages.” He continues, “As a multi-generational family farmer I can say for certain that cramming hens in tiny cages is not only cruel and inhumane, it also is a food safety threat.”

Fortunately, more and more players in the food industry are paying attention.

Earlier this year, Hellmann’s mayonnaise announced it that will convert to 100 percent cage-free eggs; all Wal-Mart’s private line eggs are cage-free; and Burger King, Subway, Wendy’s, Quiznos, Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and Golden Corral are just some of the major restaurant chains that now use cage-free eggs, many of them with increasing percentages each year. Additionally, Michigan and California have passed laws to outlaw and phase out cages for laying hens. California recently passed a law requiring all whole eggs sold in the state to be cage-free by 2015.

In addition to it being common sense that birds shouldn’t be confined in cages where they can’t even spread their wings for their whole lives, an abundance of scientific research [PDF] also supports switching away from cage confinement systems for hens.

Dr. Ian Duncan, Professor Emeritus of Poultry Science, University of Guelph, states, “The welfare advantages for non-cage husbandry systems for laying hens are overwhelming.”

Similarly, Dr. Bernard Rollin, Department of Animal Science, Colorado State University, says that “Virtually all aspects of hen behavior are thwarted by battery cages. …animals built to move must move.”

And Dr. Michael Appleby, co-author of “Poultry Behaviour & Welfare,” sums it up well:

Battery cages present inherent animal welfare problems, most notably by their small size and barren conditions. Hens are unable to engage in many of their natural behaviors and endure high levels of stress and frustration. Cage-free egg production, while not perfect, does not entail such inherent animal welfare disadvantages and is a very good step in the right direction for the egg industry.

Not cramming hens into cages also benefits food safety [PDF]. Every one of the last ten studies comparing cage to cage-free systems found higher Salmonella rates in cage systems, including a 2010 study that found 20 times greater odds of Salmonella infection in caged flocks.

Rather than defending a system of confinement that’s simply indefensible, the United Egg Producers may want to consider a different approach: Taking a leadership position by advocating for a switch to cage-free production systems.

Photo: Peter B. Tzannes via Flickr

It’s also far from the first time an equipment failure has killed thousands of animals—a similar incident killed 3800 pigs less than a year ago. So let’s look the causes behind these tragedies, and what it would take to keep another incident like this from ever occurring.

One of the points I regularly make in my writing is that while factory farming is loaded with horrific cruelties, very little of it is a result of outright sadism. Instead, nearly all the pain and suffering that farmed animals endure is a result of efforts made by factory farms to cut costs to the bone. It turns out that many of these cost-cutting practices entail the infliction of great amounts of suffering.

We see the link between cost cutting and animal suffering in veal crates, battery cages, and gestation crates—which allow factory farms to pack the most possible animals into a single facility. We see it again in practices like tail docking, beak searing, and dehorning: these painful mutilations are performed to reduce injuries that occur when animals are overcrowded. And we see it yet again at slaughter: the horror stories that regularly emerge about birds and pigs being dropped into scald tanks or butchered alive have everything to do with packing plants that rush slaughter in an effort to minimize labor costs.

All of the above examples are well-known to anyone who has spent any time learning about factory farming. But, as with each of the above items, this week’s death of 60,000 chickens likewise has its roots in industry cost cutting.

At issue is the fact that, by their very design, factory farms are intended to run on autopilot. Between water pumps, feed conveyors, ventilation fans, and so forth, everything is in place to keep tens of thousands of animals alive unattended for weeks or even months at a time. There’s often  consequently no financial reason to keep a single employee on the premises, for the sake of guarding against something going catastrophically wrong. It makes no financial sense, since it’s cheaper to simply purchase insurance that would cover the cost of dead animals, in the event of a catastrophic equipment failure.

It would be comforting to think that when factory farm mechanisms break down the animals die quickly and painlessly, but I doubt that’s the case.  Yet media coverage frequently creates the impression that there’s not much suffering associated with these equipment failures. For instance, in its coverage of the 60,000 chickens who died this week, the Associated Press reports:

Andy Elmore with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture says the chickens probably died within minutes of the fans going out.

Dead within minutes? I think that’s unlikely. Perhaps I’m projecting my personal anxieties and phobias onto the situation, but I have to think the ordeal these animals suffered is something akin to being put into a dry sauna and having someone lock the door.

A friend of mine who does as much for farmed animals as anyone I know thinks that birds brought to commercial slaughterhouses may die even more painfully than those lost to equipment failures, but I think his position misses the point. If, as a society, we’re going to raise and slaughter animals in brutal factory farm environments, the very least we owe these animals is a guarantee that their bodies won’t be discarded by the tens of thousands due to equipment failures.

But if this problem is left to the market, that’s exactly what will continue to happen and nothing will change. Factory farming is a game of squeezing pennies, an industry in which everyone but the lowest-cost producers are driven from business. The number of dairy, pork, poultry, and egg producers has dropped by more than 90 percent over the past half-century.

No wonder, then, that whenever factory farms are confronted with the opportunity to spend money to reduce animal suffering, they’ll cut corners every time. In this case, rather than spend a tiny amount of money to safeguard their animals from equipment failure or fire, they spend a tinier amount of money to buy insurance that will compensate them financially should trouble arise.

So what we get is a situation where, every once in a while, thousands or even tens of thousands of animals die horrifically, because nobody is on the scene when the food, water, or ventilation systems break down. In essence, much of America’s meat, milk, and eggs are produced at factory farm ghost ships—places where animals are kept in unspeakable conditions, with absolutely no human supervision for days or weeks at a time.

That this is common practice, and is forbidden nowhere by state anticruelty laws, is an obscenity. We can debate which industry practices are too cruel to perform, but there can’t be any legitimate debate about whether it’s morally acceptable to keep tens of thousands of animals in one building, a single power outage or equipment breakdown away from a gruesome death.

Let’s do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to determine what it might cost to protect all these animals. It’s not uncommon for a chicken grower to keep upwards of 100,000 birds on a single property. At about 3.8 pounds of meat per bird, that works out to 380,00o pounds of meat produced every six weeks. Six weeks of 24-hour supervision comes to 1008 hours. Multiply that by the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and you get $7308.   Divide $7308 by 380,000 pounds of chicken and you get an added cost per pound of less than two cents.

Now it should be inserted here that there’s no need to have 24-hour supervision at alternative chicken and pork farms offering top-notch welfare. At these facilities, there’s no chance that an equipment failure could lead to the deaths of every animal on the premises; the animals just aren’t packed together in ways that makes them completely vulnerable. But at factory farms, having a worker present at all times is the only line of defense the animals have against a needlessly horrible death. So if you want factory farmed meat, milk, or eggs, the cost of having an employee on duty 24-hours should be the minimal price of admission.

So how do we go from here to there? Groups like the Humane Society of the United States, Mercy For Animals, and Compassion Over Killing are constantly pushing animal agriculture to phase out its worst cruelties. It’s time for ghost ship factory farms to be put high on the list of agricultural abuses that need to go.

The meat, milk, and egg industries are overseen by trade groups that exert great influence within their sectors. Unfortunately, these groups consistently come out against even the most minimal and reasonable cruelty bans. And no doubt, they’d oppose even the simple measure of initiating standards to ban ghost ships within their industries. That said, the call to ban ghost ships is something that these trade groups can’t oppose without appearing loathsome, so animal advocates need to get these organizations on record about this ongoing problem.

The time has come to outlaw factory farm ghost ships: each one is a large-scale disaster waiting to happen. In the end, deaths arising from financially motivated animal neglect are as morally wrong as deaths caused by deliberate cruelty. The sensible response to tens of thousands of animals dying due to equipment failure is not for the owner of the farm to receive a check from his insurance company; it’s for the owner to get a free ride to the county jail in the back of a squad car.

Originally published on Vegan.com

With prospects looming for a November vote on the ballot measure,  Ohioans for Humane Farms, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, The Humane Society of the United States, and the Ohio Farm Bureau agreed to implement a broad range of important animal welfare reforms in the state.

Thanks to the hard work of the signature gatherers in Ohio, the following terms were agreed upon in exchange for Ohioans for Humane Farms not going to the ballot this November. (The signatures gathered do not expire and can be used in a subsequent election cycle if these reforms are not enacted.)

• A ban on veal crates within six years, which is the same timing as the ballot measure;
• A ban on new gestation crates after Dec. 31, 2010. Existing facilities are grandfathered, but must cease use of these crates within 15 years;
• A moratorium on permits for new battery cage confinement facilities for laying hens. This prevents a planned six-million-bird battery cage complex from moving in;
• A ban on strangulation of farm animals and mandatory humane euthanasia methods for sick or injured animals;
• A ban on the transport of downer cows for slaughter;
• Enactment of legislation establishing felony-level penalties for cockfighters;
• Enactment of legislation cracking down on puppy mills; and
• Enactment of a ban on the acquisition of dangerous exotic animals as pets, such as primates, bears, lions, tigers, large constricting and venomous snakes, crocodiles and alligators.

Needless to say, this is a very sweeping array of reforms, especially in a state that has long been regarded as having some of the most anemic animal welfare laws in the nation.

The agreement was applauded by the major groups leading the signature drive: The Humane Society of the United States, Farm Sanctuary, and Mercy For Animals. The reaction from agribusiness groups has been more mixed, with some groups lamenting the agreement (such as the Animal Agriculture Alliance and Feedstuffs) and others taking a more nuanced view, such as the editor of Poultry magazine.

In the end, I think it’s clear that this agreement represents important progress, and those involved in the signature drive should be proud of what they helped accomplish.

In a move to help consumers make more informed choices when choosing to eat humanely sourced animal products, the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) developed and launched the very first restaurant database. The resource identifies 150 restaurants in 15 U.S. cities that offer products and menu items created by methods that benefit animal welfare, human health, and the environment. The free database includes 11 Bay Area restaurants and others in: Atlanta, Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Sharyana Prasad who works as the Program Officer for the U.S. office of the WSPA, which is based in Boston, says the on-line tool started as a response to polls regarding the way American’s think about farm animals. “A large majority think it’s important [to be conscious and compassionate about what they eat] but don’t know how to find humane products. We want to fill the void and bring information to consumers to make it easy to switch to humane foods.”

The database took six-months to create and involved an “intensive look into 15 top cities which represent a geographical spread of metropolitan cities which may also be popular tourist destinations,” said Prasad. “Our staff and consultants looked at products on the menus and talked to the farms and ranches directly to verify. We also spoke with someone at the restaurant, either the chef or the owner, to get their perspective.”

The San Francisco restaurants included in the database are: A16, Acme Chop House, Aziza, Bar Tartine, Delfina, Magnolia Pub and Brewery and Perbacco Ristorante and Bar.

“I can’t source any other way,” says Dave McLean, owner of Magnolia Pub and Brewery. “No one wants to be responsible for being cruel or unjust. I don’t eat that way at home and when I go out I want the same. That’s just being a good person 101.”

“If you believe in putting the right things on your menu, it just requires a little research,” says Thom Fox, Acme Chophouse’s Executive Chef. “This is not only the wave of the future, it’s the wave of the now.”

In addition to the restaurant database, the Eat Humane website also features a Grocery Store Database for those who prefer to cook at home. It’s designed to help eaters find the best brands of humanely labeled foods available at the local grocery store. Some brands include Applegate Farms (available at Trader Joe’s) and Cyd’s Nest Fresh eggs (available at Safeway). The list includes products in the following categories: dairy, eggs, processed meat (includes products like burgers, hot dogs and sausage) and unprocessed meat (includes cuts of chicken, beef and pork) and is relatively comprehensive, listing choices in order of Best, Better and Good.

The website also features helpful tips and useful information to encourage people to eat less meat and supportive resources for those who choose to eat in line with their values. While some food labels indicate a meaningful animal care standard, there is no agency charged with verifying that participating farmers comply with the standards. And, in other cases though compliance is verified, the standards address only what is considered a limited definition of animal care and handling. According to the Eat Humane website “Animal welfare organizations in the U.S. have recently developed comprehensive humane standards that are verified, but products from these programs are not widely available yet.”

To make the process of finding humane food labels easier to understand, the WSPA has indicated the following as guidelines.

Their “A GOOD start” category is defined as “indicate a meaningful animal welfare standard but the standard covers only one aspect of animal care and compliance with the standard is not verified by a third party” includes foods labeled: “Cage free” (for eggs),
“Free range” (for eggs, chicken, goose, duck and turkey)
and “Grass fed” (for dairy, beef and lamb).

Their “Even BETTER” category is defined as “a higher level of animal welfare because the standards are more meaningful than those for the Good Start labels, but the standards are either not verified by a third party or cover only a limited aspect of animal care. Included here are labels such as
“Free range” (for beef, bison, pork and lamb),
“Pasture raised” (for dairy, eggs, chicken, goose, duck, turkey, beef, bison, lamb and pork) and
“USDA Organic” (for dairy, eggs, chicken, goose, duck, turkey, beef, bison, lamb and pork).

And, finally, their “The BEST options” include “Certified Humane” (for dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb and pork), 
“American Humane Certified” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork) 
“Animal Welfare Approved” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, duck, goose, beef, lamb, pork, rabbit) are defined as “covering multiple aspects of animal care and compliance with the standards is verified by an independent third party.”

“There are so many different labels that have some reference to humane, but people aren’t so sure which to choose,” says Prasad. “We want to encourage consumers to start with the ‘good.’ If people want to do a little more, go for the ‘best’ options.”

The WSPA has been in the U.S. for 25 years and was formed after the 1981 merger of the International Society for the Protection of Animals and the World Federation for the Protection of Animals. Based in London, the organization has offices in 18 regions around the world and works primarily in developing countries. They are the largest alliance of animal protection groups in the world with over 1,000 participating organizations in over 150 countries. Their main goal is to alleviate animal suffering and they tend to address issues that other organizations won’t touch – “like bear bating,” says Prasad. In the U.S., their primary issue is factory farming.

Of course, the WSPA is looking to add more restaurants to their database. If you are aware of any additional restaurants that serve humanely raised meat or dairy products, please send them their information at restaurants@wspausa.org.

A shorter version of this article was printed in the Winter 2010 edition of Edible San Francisco

Ever feel like you were playing checkers and the other guy was playing chess?

That’s the sort of feeling I get often when I watch many of the recent spate of food documentaries to be released.  Activists announce that this or that is wrong with the food system, and on the rare occasion when something appears to be getting done about it, the folks who are doing things badly simply change their tactics, but not their strategy.

It happened again while watching the British documentary film Pig Business. I watched this film in several ten-minute segments via YouTube because it hasn’t been released in the US, primarily due to legal pressure brought upon the producer (Tracy Worcester) by the film’s main “villain,” Smithfield Foods (the world’s largest pork producer).  Despite four letters threatening litigation, the UK’s Channel 4 played the film last summer.  But since no US insurer would back the film’s release here in the States due to concerns over threatened lawsuits from Smithfield, it has become essentially a black market film.  Thus as Americans have fought censorship by our government for more than 200 years, corporate censorship continues unabated.

Smithfield does, in one sense, have cause for concern: this film certainly does not show their company in the most favorable light.  Right off the bat the viewer is struck with some rather gruesome images of pigs being brutally mistreated, apparently at the hands of workers in Smithfield-run facilities.  We hear from farmers and neighbors complaining of health problems that they tie to the fumes and water contamination from Smithfield hoglots.  When this large corporation and their methods of competition had pushed the owner of a small family farm in Poland out of business, he said, “I don’t know whether I should retire, hang myself, or emigrate.”

In Poland in the early 90’s, there were 27,500 independent pig farmers.  Today there are 2,200 hoglots, and 1,600 of them are wholly owned by Smithfield Foods.  Smithfield has 52,000 employees processing 27 million pigs per year in 15 countries and accruing annual sales around $12 billion.  Each of those factory farms in Poland replaced 10 family farms with 2-3 minimum wage jobs.  Any objective accountant might call that efficiency, but one protester in the film had another way to describe it:

Why is it, when people are in bondage to their government it is called ‘tyranny,’ but when the oppressor is a multinational corporation, it is called ‘efficiency?’

It was precisely this form of “efficiency” the art and social critic John Ruskin had in mind when he said “There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply.  The person who buys on price alone is this man’s lawful prey.”

Smithfield is not alone under Worcester’s microscope: she takes large financial institutions to task as well.  In an interview with noted Belgian economist Bernard Lietaer, he points out that Big Finance has its fingers in absolutely everything–making 1/3 of all political contributions in the US.  This is a figure that is sure to only increase in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Citizen’s United case.  Big Money’s influence, along with that of many other large and wealthy corporations, dictates the type and scope of laws throughout the US and the world.  My daddy used to call this the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

That influence is precisely what makes the competitive practices of Smithfield (not to mention many other agribusiness conglomerates) patently unfair.  As Pig Business points out, if the likes of Smithfield had to pay for the damages they cause–to the environment and to human health–then any small farmer in the world could out-compete them.  But they don’t, because the game is rigged.

So most of the time agribusiness will take its profits and go obliviously on its way.  But if anyone points out that this emperor has no clothes, they have scads of lawyers and PR professionals to make certain no one hears.  Watching Pig Business on YouTube is one small way to get past their invisible hand.

The agribusiness sector has been abuzz with complaints about ABC’s recent Nightline exposé of the biggest dairy factory farm in one of the largest dairy production states: New York. The segment features footage compiled by Mercy for Animals showing inhumane treatment of dairy cows, followed by ABC’s interview of the operation’s owner rationalizing that he doesn’t know if it hurts the animals, because as he put it, “I can’t speak for the cow.”

Agribusiness spokespeople predictably dismissed the story as a “propaganda piece” and “lacking…factual information.”

Reading industry responses to these kinds of investigations is always interesting to me. Whether it’s exposés of pig factory farms, egg factory farms, or now this dairy investigation, some ag producers seem to have a “circle the wagons” mentality that prompts them to attack anyone who’s critical of industry practices. In many cases, they resort to the industry mantra that farm animal suffering only occurs as isolated cases, not as part of standard industry practices.

For example, a recent blog on the American Farm Bureau’s web site attacking the Nightline story entitled, “Enough is enough! I don’t abuse my animals!” lamented, “The alleged abuse that was showed [sic] on a dairy farm on ABC last night is not typical of how animals are cared for today.”

But is that really the case? No one interviewed in the Nightline feature disputed that cutting off cows’ tails without painkiller is a relatively common industry practice. Unfortunately, it’s not only painful when done, but it renders the animals more vulnerable to biting fly attacks as it removes their best weapon against them. A Colorado State 2005-2006 national study found that 82.3 percent of 113 dairies surveyed were still docking tails, and some experts say the practice’s use is increasing.

Despite being so common, routine tail-docking is opposed by the American Veterinary Medical Association. There’s so little scientific evidence to support benefits of tail-docking that even the National Milk Producers Federation says the practice is “not recommended.” And even the editor of Dairy Herd Management has editorialized, “the dairy industry should eliminate the routine practice of docking tails.”

So why are so many producers still cutting off cows’ tails? Why are some of the largest dairy operators in the nation going on TV to defend the practice? And why are Big Ag bloggers complaining about animal welfare advocates’ concerns with tail docking?

To their credit, some of the more reasonable voices in the California dairy industry didn’t stand in the way of a recently enacted bill banning routine tail-docking of cattle. And the California Farm Bureau and California Cattlemen’s Association actually worked with animal welfare advocates and veterinarians in support of the measure. But the agribusiness lobby in other states is fighting hard to prevent even this modest reform from advancing.

Some industry spokespeople admit that they shouldn’t “defend the indefensible.” It would show real leadership on their part to not only admit that some standard practices, like routine tail-docking of dairy cows, are indeed indefensible, but also to join consumers and animal welfare advocates in passing laws to prohibit the worst abuses.

When faced with gruesome images of mistreatment of farm animals, rather than simply condemning the cruelty, some in agribusiness just can’t leave it at that. They feel the need also to attack the compassionate investigators who put themselves at great risk to go undercover and blow the whistle on such abuse.

For example, a new Mercy for Animals investigation involved videotaping workers at one of the nation’s largest pork companies throwing piglets by their ears and legs across the room, cramming pigs into cages barely larger than their own bodies for months on end, and even leaving pigs with untreated prolapses, sores and other health problems.

And what’s the response of the president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, Dr. Butch Baker? Quite simply: These types of investigations “really are an attack on the rural lifestyle of America.”

Wow.

Since when does “rural lifestyle”  equate with rampant animal cruelty, and since when did the head of a veterinary trade group (who you’d think would focus on protecting animals) become qualified to comment on such sociological phenomena? It would be interesting to see just how many folks in rural America think a video decrying obvious animal cruelty is really an attack on their lifestyle. Perhaps those in big agribusiness perceive it that way, since cruelty is far more endemic in the meat, egg, and dairy industries than many may think, but alleging that anti-cruelty whistleblowers are somehow victimizing rural Americans would be laughable if it weren’t so appalling.

Another example is the recent Humane Society of the United States investigation into a Vermont dairy calf slaughter plant. The investigator worked as a floor cleaner for a total of 21 days, videotaping days-old calves—some with their umbilical cords still hanging from their bodies—who were kicked, electrically prodded, and in at least one case, even skinned alive.

What’s the response of the exposed plant’s leadership? Rather than accepting blame when caught red-handed, they claimed the investigator actually “provoked” at least some of the abuse by instructing a worker how to act.

Seriously.

Forget about the fact that after reviewing the unedited segment of the video that would show the allegedly “provoked” scene, the Burlington Free Press reported that no such provocation is on the tape. Forget about the fact that the USDA had cited the plant for inhumane handling three times in 2009—and the plant was shut down two of those times—all prior to HSUS’ investigation.  Just consider how plausible it would be for a brand new floor cleaner, the lowest person on the totem pole, to somehow have the authority to “instruct” anyone to do anything. And it’s especially absurd when you consider that the co-owner of the plant himself is seen in the video abusing animals with gusto—relentlessly shocking, cursing at, and making fun of calves who were too weak even to stand.

These throwback reactions and denials certainly reflect poorly on agribusiness. But there are more welcome signs—a recognition that the real problem isn’t with the taping of cruelty on factory farms, but with the reality of animal cruelty itself.

Agribusiness industry trade publication Feedstuffs recently editorialized about these investigations conducted by animal organizations. To its credit, the paper’s editorial board didn’t recommend continuation of the current strategy of blaming animal advocates for the abuse they merely document. They in fact wrote: “It’s important to understand that companies and producers can’t just say ‘bad apple’ and move on because—to consumers who have seen these videos again and again—there are no bad apples anymore. The bad apple, to consumers now, is the industry.”

I couldn’t agree more.