Treatment of Food Animals

Bill Kiley

Back to the Future

America's high-density, high-yielding, highly profitable meat, poultry, dairy and egg industries-which keep food prices down-are under fire from physicians, nutritionists, environmentalists, animal advocates, water experts, mothers, chefs, a politician or two and even some farmers and ranchers. Can old-style farming make a comeback?

"Barbaric." "Sickening." "Infuriating." These are words that Senator William Byrd of West Virginia used to describe the way that livestock is treated in our nation's "profit-driven factory farms" and slaughterhouses. It was July 9, 2001, and the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee was speaking from the floor of the U.S. Senate. "Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous," he said. "Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized society."

In 2002, no one can dispute that the horrors of "factory farms" are predominant all across the nation, but a small group of men and women, and a growing number of sympathetic organizations, are doing all they can to make sure that we Americans know what is happening to our food animals, and they're waging a battle to make things better.

Honor Thy Dinner

Take Ray Killian, for example. He's the president of Montana's Meyer Natural Angus company. Meyer raises beef cattle.

In the 1990s, Killian was working as a teacher in Montana, and during the summer months, he was a guide for fishermen.
One of his clients happened to be Robert Meyer, a wealthy businessman from California.

"I got to know him quite well as the boat drifted around," says Killian. "It turned out we had a lot in common. He began telling me about his dream to create a very special ranch. It wasn't some silly Shangri La thing though. He was a businessman who wanted to try something new in cattle ranching."

In 1995, Killian quit his teaching job to become the president of the cattle company that five years later would be the first ranch to qualify for the new Free Farmed ™ label of the American Humane Association (AHA).

In the late 1990s, the Denver-based AHA was making a drive to educate the public while ameliorating the dreadful conditions faced by the nine billion plus animals being raised and slaughtered for food each year in the United States. One initiative-launched in September 2000-was to allow farmers to put the AHA's Free Farmed label on packaged meat products that had been raised under animal welfare standards. AHA knew that a growing portion of the meat-consuming public was becoming aware of the cruelty inflicted on farm animals and the dangerous health issues associated with the ways the animals were housed, fed and medicated.

That's why the AHA created the label-which lets buyers know that the meat being offered was not injected with growth hormones, dosed with antibiotics and fed a diet contaminated with animal byproducts and petroleum derivatives often used by intensive farmers in their attempt to grow the fastest, cheapest, heaviest animal possible.

"When I first heard about the Free Farmed label," says Killian, "I realized that we could easily qualify because we were already raising our beef almost exactly as demanded by their rules. "The [inspectors] were great to work with. They came to Montana and made a thorough examination of our operation. They insisted that we change a few things, and we did, but they understood when we said that certain other changes were unreasonable." A case in point was in-field castration. Most calves are castrated by a veterinarian in a secure, clean area, but now and then a calf is missed. Killian argued that it would be impractical-and stressful-to transport the calf back to the ranch, so they were given the okay to operate on the spot in those situations.

The Meyer Natural Angus Ranch is on 40,000 breathtaking acres 60 miles east of Missoula. It is the home of 3,000 of the big red cows and steers. Meyer cattle are quiet and contented animals-all herding is done on horseback or foot, no dogs or motorized vehicles are allowed. The cattle, who are fed natural vegetarian food grown right on the ranch, are never supplemented or medicated to force rapid growth.

"We must never, never bring fear and stress into their lives," Killian says. "I'm totally aware that from the moment of their birth until the hour of their death, they're here for only one purpose - to provide food for humans. Therefore we must respect and honor that life."

Family Farming

Paul Willis, a pig farmer in Thornton, Iowa - and please don't make the mistake of calling him a "pork producer" - lives in the house where he was raised by his parents, who were also pig farmers.

"My father taught me to be tender and considerate with the animals," he says. "So I was amazed and angered when I watched the development of those huge factory/containment farms that began taking over the pork industry in the '70s. They got even bigger in the '80s and threatened to take over everything by the '90s. I saw the big farms constructing buildings that would hold as many as 10,000 pigs - and they'd have 20 such buildings side by side. The poor animals were kept indoors over cement slabs and manure pits that were choking and disgusting, not to mention very dangerous.

"Sows were contained behind bars in crates so small they couldn't even turn around. They were bred in these gestation stalls and kept in them through the entire gestation period, then moved briefly to farrowing crates. The owners weaned the babies as quickly as possible, then shoved the sow right back into the gestation crate to start the process all over again.

"Some never saw real ground. Some became so stressed that they attacked each other or bit off their own tails. Those buildings were filled with terror."

Then one day Willis attended a farm forum and heard a speech by Diane Halverson, farm animal advisor for the Washington, DC-based Animal Welfare Institute (AWI). "The farmers wanted to discuss markets and weight and feed and prices - and she's the only one who had the courage to stand up before those men and ask, 'What about the animals?'"

In 1994, while on vacation in California, Willis noticed a tremendous growth in the "free-range chicken" market, with the public willing to pay extra for safe and healthy products. "I figured that there would be just as much interest in free- range pigs who had been raised under natural conditions."

Willis visited the Niman Ranch in Oakland, California, a top meat producer and marketing company. He met with Bill Niman, who asked him to ship a test selection of his pork when he got back to Iowa. "Bill was so impressed with the taste of my pork that he ordered as much as I could send," Willis recalls.

Then Willis told Niman about the husbandry standards and the certification program of the AWI, and Niman Ranch soon qualified and has been an active member ever since.

During those early days, Willis sent the meat of 30 pigs to California every other week. Today, as manager of Niman Ranch Pork Company, which includes as part owners some 150 other small midwestern family farmers who are certified by AWI, Willis ships the meat of 1,200 pigs a week to meat markets and restaurants all across the nation. "Raised with care, naturally," is the Niman Ranch motto.

Willis can easily recall a time when that motto was unnecessary. "In my father's day, most farmers raised their animals with care and concern," he says. "It wasn't until the introduction of these huge factory farms and their rampant use of drugs, chemicals and food filled with animal byproducts and other additives to force rapid weight gain that the business became difficult. The small farmer trying to do things the old way found he was in trouble because the industry was catering to the giants."

"That's why the AWI/Niman program is so helpful. It lets the small farmer raise his animals the natural, healthy way, and gives him a network to a decent market."

Access to markets is critical. Beef, pork, chicken and lamb farmers all admit that they occasionally have a problem placing their product in the local supermarkets. "When we advertise that our product is better because it was raised in a stress-free environment and fed no dangerous chemicals or medicines, we are also saying, by implication, that all the other meat in this store isn't as good."

Ray Killian agrees that this can make store managers nervous. "But it happens to be the truth, and if enough people who are aware of the problem put their money where their mouth is, the meat managers will usually accept our product anyway - especially if the public is asking for natural, drug-free meats."

The "natural" farmer has to charge more for his product than a factory farmer does, says Willis, "but our consumer market is growing and expanding. Surveys show that Americans are willing to pay a dollar or so more per pound for safer, better meats. We're seeing that the humane treatment of animals is a very marketable commodity."

Taste Tells

"Some buyers don't really give a hoot about the mistreatment of animals," Willis points out. "They just know our product tastes better."

Willis believes the difference is dramatic. "An animal who's been raised on a concrete floor is going to be inedible compared to ours," he says. Some pigs are now marketed as lean meat, he adds, "and they do indeed raise a pig so lean that it can't live outdoors because it doesn't have enough fat to protect itself. And broiler chickens are grown at such an incredible rate that their legs won't support the weight of their bodies, and many die of heart attacks at slaughter age of six weeks. When you add physical abuse to that," he concludes, "you come up with a stressed, fearful animal - which results in dry and tasteless meat."

Kelly and Sue Ryan raise pork for Niman Ranch Pork Company at their farm in northeast Iowa. Her family began farming on the land more than a century ago, and she learned from her father. When her sows are ready to deliver, they are taken to a fenced area in nearby woods, where each farrowing stall is supplied with straw, and water is available.

"From then on we leave the mother alone. She can go into the woods and gather grasses, leaves, sticks, branches or whatever she wants to build her own nest," says Sue. In factory farms the mother is in a cage so narrow she can barely lie down to nurse her young, who have to feed through bars.

Sue, who raises 1,000 animals a year, sings the praises of the AWI program and the Niman company because they allow any farmer of any size to take part. "It would be very difficult for the average small farmer to do what we do without a network or niche market to depend on. The public is very willing to pay extra for food raised this way. If you have quality, you don't need quantity."

Stephen Gray and Rod Wubbena face similar problems in raising chickens and eggs. Gray, who manages marketing and sales at Springer Mountain Farms in Baldwin, Georgia, formerly worked for one of the largest factory-farm operations in the nation.

"When you pack chickens together so tightly they have no room to move around, you create the prime cause of chicken stress - and that stress leads to all kinds of illness and problems," he says. "Our chickens get five times the space of factory chickens."

As the 12th largest poultry producer in America, Springer Mountain Farms processes 500,000 chickens per week.

"Four years ago we started a program to see if we could raise chickens the old-fashioned, natural way," says Grey. "We decided we'd do it without the use of antibiotics or chemical medicines. We stressed the proper watering, lighting, food, air temperature, fresh litter - everything we could think of to make life good."

Then he read an article about the AHA's Free Farmed program.

"We asked to be certified, and they came to make sure we lived by their rules. They suggested some changes, and gave us some helpful hints about food and watering methods that we hadn't even considered. The Free Farmed label has been a home run for us, because it lets the public know who we are and what we do."

And does the good life mean that Springer Mountain chickens cost more?

"At first we had to raise our prices a little," Grey says, "but the public has been so supportive of stress-free, humanely raised animals that we were eventually able to drop them a bit. You'd be surprised how many consumers are now asking questions at the meat counters. They want to know how that chicken was raised. Did it live in a cage? Did it have room to exercise? What was it fed? Was it medicated? They're smart - and we're proud to answer their questions."

Rod Wubbena, general manager of Phil's Fresh Eggs in Forreston, Illinois, agrees about the density problem. "We've been producing eggs for more than 40 years - without cages," he says of the business his father founded in 1959. Instead of being confined with six to nine other hens in the tiny battery cages that are the norm in the egg industry, the laying hens at Phil's Fresh Eggs have free run of a building the size of a football field, with access to a roost, scratch, feed, water... and a private nest with darkened interior. After laying, the hens are free to scratch in dust and wood shavings and groom themselves while a conveyor belt gently rolls their eggs away.

The operation has grown from a 2,500 hen farm in 1959 to 140,000 birds today. Phil's Fresh Eggs are certified by AHA to carry the Free Farmed label, and are distributed through Whole Food Markets, primarily in the Midwest. "Our cost per bird housed is $20 to $26," says Wubbena. "The cost for a battery cage operation is $5 to $9 a bird. This isn't the most financially productive investment out there." Phil's Fresh Eggs manufactures its own feed, which it claims accounts for the superior quality and taste of their eggs.

Meaty Matters

Although the certification programs of AWI and AHA both seek to improve the living conditions of farm animals, there are important differences between them. The AWI program, which was launched in the late 1980s, stipulates that pigs be raised on a family farm, where family members live, care for the animals and derive their livelihood. "Humane and sustainable" are the twin criteria for AWI farm operations, and because it insists on sustainability - meaning that the farming operation takes responsibility for maintaining soil, air and water quality as well as preserving indigenous plant and animal species - AWI's on-farm pig husbandy standards have been endorsed by such varied groups as the Chefs Collaborative, Slow Food, Waterkeeper Alliance, Earth Pledge Foundation and Global Resource Action Center for the Environment.

If the relevance of sustainability is unclear, consider this: In 1999, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, in which researchers ranked the ecological costs of various activities and products. Automobiles - surprise! - were at the top of UCS's list of environmentally damaging products. But coming in at No. 2 was meat production. (See "Resources").

AHA takes a more pragmatic view. It will certify a farm that meets its standards, even if only on a small - though separate - part of its overall operation. According to Adele Douglass, executive director of AHA's Farm Animal Services, a nonprofit agency set up to run the Free Farmed label program, "The objective of the program is to improve the lives of farm animals through the marketplace. Some producers have a natural line and a commodity line. Until they feel the natural line has a good market, they will not give up the other." In the two years since the program launched, roughly a dozen producers in North America - representing beef, pork, chicken, dairy and eggs - have qualified for the Free Farmed label, which is proclaimed as "Good for animals. Good for business. Good for everyone."

But Marlene Halverson, whose serves as AWI's farm animal economic advisor, worries that the market doesn't work that way. She points out that intensive livestock producers could fill up the limited niche markets for humanely produced products with only a small part of their enterprise, while continuing to raise most of their animals in cruel confinement, which is cheaper. "True reforms will not come about by allowing producers to have their cake and eat it, too," she says. "It's important that consumers purchase from farms that have humane attitudes and are not merely being opportunistic. Opportunism responds to market forces, while humane attitudes are reflections of deeply held values and are more sustainable."

Meanwhile, good news about farm animal welfare is trickling in. In one week in June 2002, a number of news items were posted in Farmed Animal Watch (see above). One announced that Albertsons and Kroger, major grocery retailers, will require their suppliers to comply with animal welfare standards on breeding, handling and processing practices as set forth by the Food Marketing Institute. Safeway stores had done so previously. Another news item related that major restaurant and grocery chains were considering a ban on buying beef from producers who brand cattle. The impetus for such a move has less to do with the cruelty of branding than with the industry's need to reassure a nervous worldwide marketplace that the identification and traceback of American cattle is unassailable. A third item reported on research at the University of California that suggests calves who remain able to see and hear their mothers across a fence line at weaning time suffer much less distress than those who are abruptly removed to a f
eedlot, resulting in greater weight gain and better health. Were even this simple welfare improvement to be implemented within the cattle industry, it would hardly matter that economics, not compassion, was the motivating factor. There appears to be more evidence every day that in the long run, what's good for farm animals is good for human health, the environment, and ultimately good for farmers. And when all the costs of factory farming are factored in, meat raised with care may not even be more expensive.

Bill Kiley is a freelance writer and photographer based in Livingston, Montana. Additional reporting by Marion S. Lane.

© 2002
ASPCA Animal Watch - Fall 2002

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