Livestock gift charities do not help poor nations, say global critics

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

 

 

Livestock gift charities do not help poor nations, say global critics

 

LONDON--Sixty years after Heifer

International founder Dan West pioneered the idea

of soliciting donations to give livestock to poor

families in disadvantaged parts of the world,

criticism of the practice at last cracked major

mainstream news media during the pre-Christmas

2006 peak giving season.

At least three major British newspapers

and news syndicates amplified critiques of

livestock donation programs, quoting most

extensively from a prepared statement

distribu-ted by Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler.

" This year about a dozen agencies are

using your money to punt goats, chickens,

sheep, camels, donkeys, pigs and cows to the

world's starving, " Tyler warned donors. " Prices

vary: £70 will get you a cow from Help The Aged.

Send A Cow demands £750 per animal. Farm Friends

wants £30 for a goat, whereas World Vision will

settle for £91 for a whole herd.

" Farming animals is an inefficient,

expensive and environmentally destructive way of

producing food, " Tyler continued. " Sceptical

readers might accuse me of dressing up a concern

about animal welfare as a concern for the world's

poor. There are major animal welfare issues

involved in sending animals to, for instance,

the Horn of Africa, where earlier this year up

to 80% of the cattle perished in a drought. Many

of the remainder were washed away in the floods

that followed. But this is not about cows taking

precedence over people. Reality is that animal

gift schemes are, in the words of the World Land

Trust, 'environmentally unsound and economically

disastrous.' "

" Oxfam, Christian Aid, Help the Aged,

and others are wooing the ethical shopper with

pictures of cute goats wearing Christmas hats and

promises of helping the poor in developing

countries, " summarized Sean O'Neill of The Times

of London, " but the World Land Trust and Animal

Aid say that it is 'madness' to send goats, cows

and chickens to areas where they will add to the

problems of drought and desertification. "

Said World Land Trust director John

Burton, " The goat campaign may be a pleasing

gift and a short-term fix for milk and meat for a

few individuals, but in the long term the

quality of life for these people will slowly be

reduced with devastating effect. "

Added Andrew Tyler, " All farmed animals

require proper nourishment, large quantities of

water, shelter from extremes, and veterinary

care. Such resources are in critically short

supply in much of Africa, " the major recipient

of help from the British livestock-donating

charities.

Wrote O'Neill, " Christian Aid said that

its critics misunderstood its program. The

purchase of a goat, the charity said, did not

necessarily mean that a goat was bought. The

money would go into a farming and livestock fund

distributed by local project managers. "

Added Kevin McCandless of CNSNews.com,

" In addition to providing the animals, which are

usually bought locally, the charities say they

provide the support needed to care for them,

including fencing and free veterinary care. Send

a Cow said it worked closely with local farmers

in Africa, providing them with support and using

their knowledge to deal with issues such as soil

erosion. It said it does not provide cows to

areas where they would compete with humans for

water, and insisted on a zero-grazing policy.

The donated animals are kept in spacious shelters

and have fodder brought to them. "

Few of the poorest parts of Africa and

Asia can afford to raise animals that way.

Objection from India

Commented former Indian minister for

social welfare and animal protection Maneka

Gandhi, " Nothing irritates me more than

charities abroad that collect money and purport

to give it to women or children or for animals in

Asia or Africa. Very little reaches the country

or the cause for which it is meant. Most of it

goes toward their own 'infrastructure,' which

means rent, staff, travel and 'investigation,' "

Mrs. Gandhi charged.

" If people have paid money for 5,000

animals, fewer than 200 will actually get

there--I can bet on it. This is cynical

exploitation of animals and poor people, " Mrs.

Gandhi alleged. " Basically [livestock gift

schemes] are a fundraising mechanism.

" These charities woo the ethical shopper

with pictures of goats wearing Christmas hats and

promises of helping the poor in developing

countries [but] it is madness to send goats,

cows and chickens to areas where they will add to

the problems of drought and desertification, "

Mrs. Gandhi continued. " Each goat eats all the

grass and shrubbery on two hectares of land a

year. A goat destroys the fertility of land and

[the value of] any milk or dung it may give is

very little compared to the havoc it wreaks.

" Within two years, " Mrs. Gandhi asserted, " the

people who get goats have an even poorer

lifestyle. There are village quarrels about

community grazing; children are taken out of

school to graze the goats; water becomes even

scarcer. Two goats can reduce the amount of

farmland available to local people and result in

villages becoming deserted, while a cow will

drink up to 90 liters of water every single day. "

Objection from Nepal

" I have been sending letters to Dutch

agencies to stop this kind of program for yet

another reason, " commented Animal Nepal founder

Lucia DeVries. " The animals are generally

slaughtered in an inhumane manner, " DeVries

alleged. " In Nepal, for instance, there is

only one slaughterhouse, in the capital

(Katmandu). This means that virtually all

livestock is killed with the

often-not-too-sharp-knives " of rural butchers,

" causing much suffering to the animal and

possibly to the butcher. I've met quite a few

people who lost fingers while trying to kill a

goat, " DeVries said.

" Ultimately, " said Tyler, " my objection

is to the commercial forces that seek to

persuade people of the poor world that their best

nutritional interests are served by buying into

modern, high-throughput farmed animal production

processes. With that comes an addiction to high

capital input systems, additional stresses on

precious water supplies, environmental

destruction, a loss of control over the means of

production, bad health, a nightmare animal

welfare scenario and more human poverty and

malnourishment. "

Tyler urged donors to " boycott the

donate-an-animal schemes and instead support

projects that help people, animals, and the

environment. Animal Aid, " Tyler said, is

" seeking support for a scheme to plant 2,000

trees in Kenya's Rift Valley. They will bear

oranges, avocados, mangos, pawpaws, kei

apples, and macadamia nuts. Such efforts won't

erase the blight of poverty in Africa, " Tyler

said, " but neither will they add to it. "

 

Protest to Oprah

 

Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition

cofounders Steve and Helen Rayshick asked animal

advocates to join them in complaining to

television show host Oprah Winfrey about her

" supporting and promoting Heifer International, "

the Rayshicks wrote.

" The Heifer International training farm,

called Overlook Farms, is near us in Rutland,

Massachusetts, " the Rayshicks said. " They raise

lambs and other animals for slaughter. It is no

different from any other animal farm. We

consider the 'donation' of animals to other

countries to be a thinly viewed attempt to spread

dairy and meat consumption to new parts of the

world, " the Rayshicks continued. " Note that

Heifer International first sent dairy cows to

Japan, after World War II, instead of sending

them healthy food that was a natural part of the

Japanese diet. "

Japanese activist Lydia Tanabe affirmed

to ANIMAL PEOPLE that the Heifer International

work in Japan is widely viewed as the start of

the modern Japanese factory-style dairy industry,

which is seen as having elevated Japanese animal

fat consumption, with detrimental influence on

adult health. " Heifer International is

bringing a cruel, unhealthy, environmentally

destructive diet to cultures that are primarily

vegetarian, " the Rayshicks objected. " Plus,

one of the cruelest aspects of animal agriculture

is animal transport, a mainstay of this

organization. We wonder how many of these poor

animals just get eaten on the spot upon arrival.

 

Islamic charities

 

The activist criticisms of animal

donation schemes came just as leading Islamic

charities introduced similar programs that enable

Muslims to " get the animal of their choice

sacrificed online for festivities like Eid Al

Adha, " according to syndicated reports

originating from the United Arab Emirates and

Pakistan. The charities reportedly included the

Alamgir Welfare Trust International, of Karachi;

the Sahara for Life Trust formed by singer

Abrarul Haq; and the U.S. charities Islamicity

and Life for Relief & Development.

Vegetarian organizations and some animal

advocates have criticized livestock donations as

often being inappropriate, ineffective in

fighting poverty, and inhumane almost since

Heifer International started in 1948, then

called the Heifer Project. Some agricultural

economists began pointing out flaws in the

strategy during the 1970s, notably that many

recipients of gift animals were unable to feed

them to maturity, let alone able to feed and

raise offspring. Environmentalists later added

questions about the wisdom of introducing

non-native livestock to often fragile habitats,

where animals with larger or different appetites

from the indigenous strains might overtax the

vegetation or simply starve.

ANIMAL PEOPLE summarized the arguments

against livestock donations in a May 2003 review

of the Compassion In World Farming and Humane

Education Trust video Saving Baby Ubuntu,

headlined " A video that never mentions Heifer

Project International shows why their premise is

wrong. "

The review may be accessed at

<www.AnimalPeopleNews.org>. --M.C.

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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