Here in California, there is a proposition on the ballot that could change the way laying hens, pigs, and calves are treated. Proposition 2 would require farms to "allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs."
Tuesday's Oprah episode was about the farming of these animals. Lisa Ling took cameras to both convential and cage-free chicken farms, as well as showed some pig farms and calves being raised for veal.
The conditions in the conventional farms would surprise most consumers, I think. The hens are kept 5 or 6 to a cage, stacked five or more rows high. The chicken are thin and white, or they would be white if they weren't covered in chichen waste all the time. They never see the light of day. they spend their entire life in the crowded little cage, and the farm's stench is overwhelming.
Contrasting this was a cage-free farm, where the fat, colorful chickens are housed in one big open coop, and then let outside for much of the day to roam free, eat, and spread their wings. They all go back to their coop, on their own, when the sun goes down.
I'd bet most of us would like to think this is where our eggs and chickens come from. But this farm only produces 900 eggs per day. The conventional chicken farm produces 80 times that amount each day. And the difference shows up in the price of the dozen eggs we buy at the store.
They show some filthy and inhumane conditions for calves and pigs too, but a representative from Californians for Safe Food says that there aren't many of those farms in California, but that California's huge egg industry would be wiped out. She says farmers can't afford to refit their farms, and don't even have the space for housing the prop would require. The cost of farming that way would drive the cost of eggs up so high, retailers and consumers would buy cheaper eggs from Mexico, or even as far away as China.
Now that does scare me. I really do try to buy local, and all the eggs I buy are produced in California. Not only to save on gas and trucking, and because the more local the more fresh, but also because I don't trust the standards of food from Asia or Central America.
But the chickens!
Oprah opened her show stating that she believes that how we treat the least of beings among us defines our true humanity. That line is a reference to a line from Matthew 25 "'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." I don't pretend to be able to quote much from the bible, chapter and verse, but that one is near and dear to my heart.
I lost a newborn daughter to a fatal birth defect, and that line crystallized how I felt about the value of her life, and explains why my husband and I are pro-life. The quote actually likens our treatment of the least to our treatment of Jesus, so I am not sure how I would apply it to non-human species, who are not cast in the likeness of God. But I think this is still a good comparison.
There was even much use of the word "choice:"
Allowing chicken, hogs and cattle to have more space, Julie says, is a choice consumers can make already. "We can either buy animal products, if we so choose, and we can buy them at the cheapest, most affordable, safest cost, or we can choose to pay more for cage-free, free-range eggs and pork and cattle. And that's a personal choice," she says. "But there will not be a choice after this Proposition 2."
Hmmmmm. Choice. Should we choose for ourselves if the humane treatment of the least of beings is worth the greater cost? And choose by ballot, or choose by practice? If you don't like those farms, don't buy their eggs?
Apparently the changes would not be law until 2015, giving farmers time to make changes, but that doesn't help them AFFORD the changes, or alleviate the cost they must pass on to grocery store.
Another solution occurs to me. Maybe we cannot change the chicken farming culture, and the egg-buying choices of Americans, just by legislating it. Maybe the farmers need assistance and support, so they won't feel forced to treat the chickens so inhumanely. Maybe the public first needs some education as to the inhumanity of current farming methods, and the superiority of alternative methods. Maybe the value of humane farming methods is worth some public funds and incentives to retrofit existing farms, and still keep local eggs affordable? Less corn subsidies, more egg subsidies?
If we offer enough support, encouragement, and assistance, perhaps we can alleviate much of the consequence of legislating humane treatment of the least of "beings."
Changing a culture takes more than just a law, and more than just a few years. At least when the "change" means legislating the moral highground--despite it's cost and inconvenience.
(Pardon my levity, but I can't stop imagining a movie coming out of Comedy Central of clay-mation chickens, titled "Why We Can't Wait." Or maybe on SNL?)
