Why Are We Still Talking About Factory Farming?

Source Free From Harm
By Robert Grillo

As I was preparing to speak on a panel on the subject of so-called “factory farming,” I felt compelled to question what this powerful slogan even means. My first thought is that it serves to make some kind of important distinction between large scale farming and some kind of viable, ethical or sustainable alternative.  And I feel compelled to question the very premise of this slogan and ask the audience to think more deeply on it. So here are some thought experiments I came up with for the audience.

If I were to describe an egg hatchery that could hatch thousands of chicks a day, most of us would we call this a factory farm? Yes? We’d have to go back 3,000 years in history to ancient Egypt to find this example.

If I were to describe a method of breeding that involved weeding out and mercilessly killing off thousands upon thousands of weak, deformed, injured and diseased animals and only breeding the strongest individuals, or those with certain traits that farmers find desirable for greatest productivity, would we call this a practice that defines factory farming? And yet this practice has been going on for hundreds of years, long before modern farming.

If I were to describe chickens who lay their entire body weight in eggs every 24 to 30 days during their egg laying prime or dairy cows that have been engineered to produce far more milk than what nature intended to feed a single calf, would we call this a practice that defines factory farming?

If I were to describe the mass disruption of ecosystems through the mass slaughter of wildlife, at times to the point of extinction of certain species, wildlife who present either a nuisance or a threat to raising domestic animals, would we not consider this an example of factory farming? And yet it is a practice that goes back thousands of years.

Please read rest HERE

Order a FREE vegan kit: http://www.peta.org/living/food/free-vegan-starter-kit/

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copy HERE

Searching for Cruelty-Free Cosmetics, Personal-Care Products, Vegan Products, or more?
Click HERE to search.

Click HERE to find out How to Wear Vegan!

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend:

PETA: https://www.petaliterature.com/

Vegan Outreach: https://veganoutreach.org/order-form/

Get your FREE Activist Kit from PETA, including stickers, leaflets, and guide HERE

Have questions? Click HERE

Ignorance is voluntary stupidity

Karen Lyons Kalmenson