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Industry’s
Attitude
Agribusiness
has tended to consider farm animals
primarily as tools of production, rather
than as living, feeling animals. This
attitude has resulted in the commodification
of sentient beings and the prevalence
of animal cruelty on industrialized
factory farms. The following statements
exemplify this attitude.
“The
breeding sow should be thought of, and
treated as, a valuable piece of machinery
whose function is to pump out baby pigs
like a sausage machine.”
— L. J. Taylor,
export development manager for the Wall’s
Meat Company, Ltd., National Hog Farmer,
1978
“In
a contemporary agricultural context, the
role and value of animals are defined
in terms of their economic efficiency
and productivity (and the prices for their
products). In this valuational context,
animal welfare (and its study) is restricted
to what has an effect on production and
price.”
— Bernard E. Rollin,
Professor of Physiology, Philosophy and
Biophysics at Colorado State University,
in his book, Farm Animal Welfare: Social,
Bioethical, and Research Issues
“It’s
a damn shame when they kill each other.
It means we wasted all the feed that went
into the damn thing.”
— Herbert Reed,
poultry producer, referring to chickens
pecking each other to death in battery
cages
“Forget
the pig is an animal. Treat him just like
a machine in a factory. Schedule treatments
like you would lubrication. Breeding season
like the first step in an assembly line.
And marketing like the delivery of finished
goods.”
— J. Byrnes, “Raising
Pigs by the Calendar at Maplewood Farm,”
Hog Farm Management, 1976
“It
doesn’t bother me. We’re no
different from any other business. These
animal rights people like to accuse us
of mistreating our stock, but we believe
we can be most efficient by not being
emotional. We are a business, not a humane
society, and our job is to sell merchandise
at a profit. It’s no different from
selling paper-clips or refrigerators.”
— Henry Pace, owner
of a livestock auction yard
“Death
losses during transport are too high—amounting
to more than $8 million per year. But
it doesn’t take a lot of imagination
to figure out why we load as many hogs
on a truck as we do. It’s cheaper.”
— Hog industry
expert in Lancaster Farming, 1990
When
an egg factory was charged with cruelty
to animals for discarding live chickens
in a trash can, its lawyer argued that
the hens could legally be discarded like
manure. This prompted the Judge to ask,
“Isn’t there a big distinction
between manure and live animals?”
to which the egg factory’s lawyer
responded, “No, Your Honor.”
— From trial transcript
of State of New Jersey v. ISE America,
Central Warren Municipal Court
“Sheep
farming, like most agriculture, has become
agribusiness and not just a way of life.
We must be concerned with the amount and
quality of the salable product produced
from our basic production units. In sheep
farming, the basic production units are
the ewes. . . . We don’t need large
beautiful fat happy ewes that only produce
one lamb a year. We need ewes that will
provide us an adequate gross income to
cover all our costs and then some.”
— D. E. Hogue,
Animal Scientist
“The
modern layer is, after all, only a very
efficient converting machine, changing
the raw material—feedstuffs—into
the finished product—the egg—less,
of course, maintenance requirements.”
— Farmer and
Stockbreeder, 1962
“Broilers
blooming to market size 40 percent quicker,
miniature hens cranking out eggs in double
time, a computer ‘cookbook’
of recipes for custom-designed creatures—this
could well be the face of animal production
in the 21st century.”
— “Farm Animals
of the Future” from Agricultural
Research, 1989
“At
higher egg prices, crowding always resulted
in greater profits.”
— Robert Brown,
“Toe-Clipping May Help Hens Improve
Returns in Crowded Cages,” Feedstuffs,
1985
“I
believe it’s completely feasible
to specifically design an animal for hamburger.”
— Bob Rust, Iowa
State University meat specialist, quoted
in “Hamburger Cattle,” Successful
Farming, 1977
“The
slatted floor of the hog factory farm
seems to have more merit than disadvantage.
The animal will usually be slaughtered
before serious deformity sets in.”
— Editors of Farmer
and Stockbreeder, 1961
“We
don’t get paid for producing animals
with good posture around here. We get
paid by the pound!”
— Hog farmer J.
Messersmith commenting on crippling leg
deformities commonly suffered by pigs
on factory farms
“At
the Animal Research Institute, we are
trying to breed animals without legs,
and chickens without feathers.”
— R. S. Gowe, director
of the Animal Research Institute, speaking
at a Livestock Intensive Methods of Production
conference in 1978
“The
object of producing eggs is to make money.
When we forget this objective, we have
forgotten what it is all about.”
— Fred C. Haley,
president of a Georgia poultry firm, quoted
in Poultry Tribune, 1974
“Farmers
treat their animals well because that’s
just good business. The key to sow welfare
isn’t whether they are kept in individual
crates or group housing, but whether the
system used is well managed. . . . Science
tells us that she [a sow] doesn’t
even seem to know that she can’t
turn. . . . She wants to eat and feel
safe, and she can do that very well in
individual stalls.”
— Paul Sundberg,
veterinarian and National Pork Producers
Council vice president
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