From wheeler@super.org Wed Feb 24 17:54:57 1993
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 10:34:52 EDT
From: wheeler@super.org (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
To: tms@cs.umd.edu
Subject: BB/OPED Hoyt



OP-ED 3

  Beyond Beef Campaign
  1130 17th St., NW
  Suite 300
  Washington, D.C.  20036
  Tel: 202-775-1132
  Fax: 202-775-0074


Farm Animals: Commodities or Creatures?

  By John A. Hoyt
     Chairman, EarthKind, Washington, D.C.


  Growing up in rural Ohio does not necessarily qualify a person to
regard himself a farm boy.  But spending summers on my grandparents'
360-acre farm near Spencer, West Virginia, during my childhood and youth
made me very aware that farm animals are creatures whose needs and
wants, though different in degree and scope from humans, are as real as
many of those I experience.

  I could milk a cow, by hand of course, with the best.  Riding
horseback without a saddle was almost as natural as walking.  And though
some may not be familiar with the farm language of that day, I did my
share of cradling hay, slopping pigs, and shucking corn.  To spend
several weeks on a farm in West Virginia in the 1930's and `40s was to
know something of early America, though modern civilization was already
redefining our lifestyles in many ways.

  Like most Americans of that era, I grew up eating food produced
primarily on the many small family farms scattered across this nation.
Like most Americans, I ate meat, cheese, and eggs, and drank milk at
almost every meal.  Like most Americans today, I still do -- though less
so, I suspect, than most.  Something has changed about the ways in which
we raise and market farm products today, especially those derived from
animals.  No longer is it possible to drive into the countryside in most
communities and purchase eggs from a local farmer.  No longer is it
possible in most communities to get freshly dressed chickens -- or any
other kind of meat for that matter -- at a farmers' market.

  The supermarkets have replaced the local groceries; the giant
agribusiness corporations have replaced the small farmers; and farm
animals have become commodities rather than creatures.

  I certainly did not relish chopping off the head of a chicken, and I
very much dreaded the day when my grandfather would butcher a pig or a
calf; but death for those animals was quick and painless and until then
they had lived in natural settings and comfortable quarters.

  Today I eat far less meat and other animal products than in my
growing-up years. Health factors, of course, are an important
consideration in that decision.  But more than anything else, it is my
concern about the ways in which animals are raised, transported,
marketed, and slaughtered that has caused me to reduce my consumption of
animal products significantly over the past several years.

  Calves are confined in crates for their entire short lives, unable to
experience the comfort and nurturing of their mothers, or even express
their most basic instincts, all for the purpose of producing so-called
white veal.  Cattle are herded onto trucks or railway cars, crowded in
hot feedlots where they're fattened for the kill, and, finally,
transported yet again in less than humane conditions to slaughterhouses
that are, in many cases, still practicing methods that would utterly
sicken and revolt most people who eat meat.

  The Beyond Beef campaign, of which I am an enthusiastic supporter,
brings together advocates of animal protection, human health, the
environment, and the anti-hunger movement.  Beyond Beef seeks to reduce
the consumption of beef by 50 percent over the decade.  And the
replacement foods being advocated are not other meats, but nuts, fruits,
vegetables and cereal grains.  Clearly this kind of reduction and
replacement, either in part or in whole, will reduce the numbers of
animals subjected to stress and suffering by the millions.

  If those who choose to continue eating meat are conscientious in
seeking out those farmers and ranchers who practice humane sustainable
agriculture, the end of treating animals as mere commodities will be in
sight.  This campaign will then contribute not only to the well-being of
animals but to farmers and ranchers as well, especially those who still
recognize that animals are sensitive, feeling creatures, and not simply
cuts of meat.

  People rarely intend to inflict cruelty and suffering on farm
animals.  Rather, the suffering is a by-product of systems that fail to
see animals as creatures, systems that are wired to bypass feelings and
needs.  So long as we tolerate and encourage such systems by purchasing
their products, we too are perpetrators of cruelty and abuse though we
may appear to be only bystanders.




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