The Worst Way of Farming

[Guest guest]

Yes, abolish all animals-raised-for-food-based farming! And do a better

job of raising crops for all!

 

, Shannon Morgan

<fortheanmls wrote:

>

> Great expose' on factory farming, but how about just ABOLISHING all

farming!

[Guest guest]

New York Times Editorial - May 31, 2008

 

*The Worst Way of Farming

 

* " In the past month, two new reports have examined how farm animals are

raised in this country. The report funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts

calls the prevailing system 'industrial farm animal production.' The report

from the Union of Concerned Scientists prefers the term 'confined animal

feeding operations.'

 

No matter what you call it, it adds up to the same thing. Millions of

animals are crowded together in inhumane conditions, causing significant

environmental threats and unacceptable health risks for workers, their

neighbors and all the rest of us.

 

The astonishing increase in the number and size of confined animal

operations has been spawned largely by the very structure of American

farm supports, which always has been skewed in a way that concentrates

farming in fewer and fewer hands. As both of these reports make clear,

the so-called efficiency of industrial animal production is an illusion,

made

possible by cheap grain, cheap water and prisonlike confinement systems.

 

In short, animal husbandry has been turned into animal abuse. Manure -

traditionally a source of fertilizer - has been turned into toxic waste

that fouls the air and adjacent water bodies. Crowding creates health

problems, resulting in the chronic overuse of antibiotics.

 

And, because the modest profits in confinement operations require the

lowest possible labor costs, including automated feeding, watering and

manure-handling systems, these operations have helped empty and

impoverish rural America.

 

The Pew report recommends new laws regulating pollution rom industrial

farms as rigorously as pollution from other industries, a phasing-out of

confinement systems that restricts 'natural movement and normal

behavior,' a ban on antibiotics used only to promote animal growth and

the application of antitrust laws to encourage more competition

and less concentration.

 

These are all useful guideposts for the next Congress and a new

administration. "

 

 

Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters (it does!)

www.brook.com/veg