Yesterday I wrote about the horrors of factory farming. The images from the videos I watched haunted me all day today. I've watched such videos before--there are lots of them on the internet--but have never been bothered at such a deep place in my soul. The cows bellowing in pain, as these gentle creatures are practically tortured by the type of people who would have felt right at home running Auschwitz. The pigs stuck in their stalls, unable to turn around, kept there for months on end with nothing to do but eat. And they go insane. Pigs are as smart as dogs. Imagine confining a yellow lab to one of those metal pens, stuck facing forward, no fresh air, no exercise, nothing. Just stand there and go insane. This is what happens to put meat on our tables. Yeah, it bothered me all day.
This isn't about hunting--I have no problems with that. It's not about raising livestock on family farms. The issue, for me, is factory farming, these complexes where all human decency is sacrificed in the name of commercial efficiency.
Career-wise, I've been hanging around and writing about and cheering on churches and pastors for the past 25 years as my denomination's Communications Director.
Last summer, I did a feature story on a family who has a large hog operation. The family has been raising hogs for six generations -- the old fashioned way. Recently, they agreed to take on a one-barn operation on their property.
I knew the couple before I did the interview, but I had never been in one of those barns. When they invited me inside, I was surprised to say the least. It was clean. The hogs seemed pretty normal. They weren't in cages, but in pens with room enough to walk around. The floors were clean -- I wouldn't have tested them by eating off them, but they were pretty clean. Sure there was a bit of an odor, but there is quite an odor coming from the old fashioned pig farm a few miles away from my house.
I was required to put on plastic boots to go in, both to keep my shoes clean and to keep me from dragging in any foreign germs. The pigs were all very well taken care of. The family said that they lose a much lower percentage of animals in the one-barn farm than the old fashioned way.
I don't post this to exonerate all factory farms, but just to point out that all such farms are not created equal.
I'm with you. Thanks for taking issue with the morality of this uncomfortable (and unpopular) issue.