A Challenging Article on Catholic Moral Theology

[GratefulFred]

So what are the alternatives to factory food production?

Trying to feed 3 people for a lifetime is one thing. Trying to feed 300 million for a lifetime is quite another thing. Not to mention the food we export to those who need it.

Whatever the alternatives, our food will cost more. Which does not help the poor at all.

GOOD STEWARDSHIP of our natural resources is a moral imperative in my view. But 300 plus million people need to be fed every day at a price they can afford.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

The things that I’ve seen in chicken farms that bother me.

you have to raise the level of the water and feed lines as the chicks grow to weed out any stragglers. The ones that don’t grow fast enough die of dehydration.

daily culls of sick or weakly chickens. usually I’ve seen them either bashed in the head or choked. A lot of times one try will not kill them and they will then die over course of several hours while they are in compost piles.

For transportation to the processing plant they are gathered about a dozen at a time and hurled into cages in the back of a truck. The process will injure or kill some of the chickens and others will be suffocated or crushed in the back of the truck on the way to the plant.

I am not really sure if any of the suffering that the animals go through would be classified as unnecessary according to Catholic teaching.

 

[vsedriver]

I do find it very hard to justify the treatment of animals in the large factory farms, especially since having cheap meat with every meal is not what I would call a need.

it is if you are poor.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

So what are the alternatives to factory food production?

Trying to feed 3 people for a lifetime is one thing. Trying to feed 300 million for a lifetime is quite another thing. Not to mention the food we export to those who need it.

Whatever the alternatives, our food will cost more. Which does not help the poor at all.

GOOD STEWARDSHIP of our natural resources is a moral imperative in my view. But 300 plus million people need to be fed every day at a price they can afford.

People can cut back. There is no need for the typical American diet of meat at every meal. We do need some meat for optimal health but we’ve gone a little overboard.

 

[vsedriver]

yes, they store the waste from thousands of pigs in ‘tailings’ ponds that are an environmental hazard and sometimes spray it on the land;

this is liquid gold not a biohazard. it’s sprayed on the fields because it is organic fertilizer.

 

[vsedriver]

(See peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/pig-transport-slaughter.aspx )

I wouldn’t believe a word PETA says.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

it is if you are poor.

When I lived on food stamps we ate a lot of meat. It was one of the only times in my life I’ve been able to afford to eat rib eye and lobster every week. I can usually spot someone paying with food stamps because of how much steak they have in their cart.

Anyway that is an aside. I say we need cheap produce not cheap meat and grains. Things are upside down now because we subsidize the wrong industries.

 

[vsedriver]

Yes, it is quite challenging. I found this video that shows the cruelties. It’s pretty bloody…

earthlings.com/

One thing these videos never tell you is how old the incriminating video clips they are showing are. Several groups have exposed some of PETA’s nastiest videos to be decades old and prior to the implementation of new policies and procedures.

Many of the animal rights groups recycle the same material.

 

[vsedriver]

When I lived on food stamps we ate a lot of meat. It was one of the only times in my life I’ve been able to afford to eat rib eye and lobster every week. I can usually spot someone paying with food stamps because of how much steak they have in their cart.

 

[Bluegoat]

this is liquid gold not a biohazard. it’s sprayed on the fields because it is organic fertilizer.

Manure can be good for the land - not just pig manure but human manure. But I bet you don’t want human manure that from thousands of people sprayed over a relatively small space to get rid of it, especially when it is still raw.

Disposal of pig manure has been a real problem in the hog industry. People have had their wells contaminated, and rivers have been destroyed when the containment pools leaked into them. Just because it can be useful when used properly doesn’t mean it isn’t a biohazard if it isn’t, as the people at Walkerton found out.

 

[Bluegoat]

Bluegoat, but if you look at KostyaJMJ’s post, most of it I believe to be pure hyperbole; but the parts that have a little truth to them, they were all practice in the days of the small family farm. I can attest to the fact that cattle prods have been in use and applied to the rear end of animals for a long-time, and on very small farms (I was never told to confess that one by the priests/nuns who worked in my hometown). The point of the thread is cruelty to animals in our livestock industry. I do not think the destruction of distributionalism in agriculture has had much impact on the treatment of animals overall.
I can attest that hogs have been slaughtered at a young age for a long time (as a boy raising my own hogs, I never felt the least pang of guilt in sending a 6 month old hog to the slaughter house).
The typical death of a hog/cattle at the hands of a small butcher in the year 1950 would have been much more slow and painful than how it is done today. The pneumatic guns work very well, much better than the old sledge hammer to the forehead.
Living conditions of animals: overall are certainly better than it used to often be (well maybe not for poultry, but for dairy cows, beed cattle, and hogs, yes). I remember what the hog pens and cattle pens were like in the old days after a really heavy rain and a cold night. If it was a sudden change of weather, the scrambling to inject medicines that were not very effective. Modern feeding facilities have learned a lot along these lines.

I would certianly never argue that in “the old days” farms were a heavenly place for animals - people have always had an ability to be cruel, and life itself is harsh. And there have always been good and bad husbandmen. But I do think larger operations allow for a different kind of cruelty - a kind of institutional rather than just personal or circumstantial cruelty. When there isn’t much opportunity for real contact with the animals, or to develop the kind of natural sympathy men are meant to have with animals, you get bad results. On the one hand people can anthropomorphize animals in a way that isn’t really accurate and develop a sentimental attitude, and on the other we can reduce them to less than what they really are as creatures who have a natural law of their own that they are bound to. It is always easier to forget individuals, their human nature or their animal nature, in an institutional setting.

I disagree that factory farming is better than a good, human level farm as far as animal comfort goes, and I say that as someone who has kept livestock. Animals need pretty simple things, food and shelter and the ability to follow their natural instincts. That doesn’t mean the instincts have to have the same outlet they would in nature - a bored animal can play with toys rather than root for food and be very satisfied with that. And I know there are a few large scale farms that think of this stuff (and even find it profitable)… But the average factory farm does not. Comfort is more than a lack of mud (especially if your an animal that rather enjoys the mud) and a clean cement floor.

I don’t have an issue with the age of slaughtering animals. I don’t really get why it is an issue for people.

 

[Bluegoat]

So what are the alternatives to factory food production?

Trying to feed 3 people for a lifetime is one thing. Trying to feed 300 million for a lifetime is quite another thing. Not to mention the food we export to those who need it.

Whatever the alternatives, our food will cost more. Which does not help the poor at all.

GOOD STEWARDSHIP of our natural resources is a moral imperative in my view. But 300 plus million people need to be fed every day at a price they can afford.

What makes you think that factory farms are more efficient?

 

[razredge]

It is and I cannot answer that. It is a fact of life. Lions eat lovely zebras. For a lion to reah adulthood he must eat 200 zebras.

But let’s talk about vegetables? Isn’t it the same thing? There is no problem only because they do not “feel” ?

Complicated.

Well said, all animal life has to eat other life, simple fact of nature which is ‘red in tooth and claw’ - if God didn’t want us to eat meat we’d have evolved as herbivores or even be able to directly photosynthesise sunlight into energy.

 

[GratefulFred]

What makes you think that factory farms are more efficient?

Economics.

Chicken sells for a $1 a pound in my area. Everyone in the supply chain from farmer to grocer has to cover his or her costs and then make a profit in order to stay in business on that low retail price of $1 a pound.

Any business person knows the surest way to a profit is to control your cost and loss of product. There are so many things that can go wrong, one is forced to be efficient or fade away. Land space is a large cost. If one can grow 1,000 chickens on one acre or 10,000 chickens on one acre, which is cheaper?

If factory farms were not efficient they would fade away.

Of course farmers could be required to increase their costs to satisfy certain concerns and then chicken could sell for $2 a pound. The Middle and Upper class might absorb that cost but it would be harder on the poor. Of course then if we paid $2 a pound and had our taxes increased another $1, the goverment could give the poor an extra $0.85 (the government has to pay itself first) in tax to buy the $2 chicken with a $1.85. So the poor are helped, but still shorted, and become more poor.

So if I have $2 only, I can buy a $1 chicken and a $1 quart of milk today, or tomorrow I can forego the milk and just buy a $2 chicken. And pay more taxes.

At some point chicken will cost too much and we would buy less and the farmer goes out of business anyway.

Economics.

Stewardship requires a constant balance.

 

[Rence]

What it boils down to, like everything else, is that most people just don’t care about how animals are treated. They are disposable, like anything else. The people who do care, patronize their local farmers, where they are assured that the animals are treated better. Or they patronize ‘food factories’ that operate with treating the animals better. All of them are not the same. Basically, if people want a change, they will rally to make it happen. Sometimes hiding behind cellophane wrappers makes it easier to ignore what happens to the animals. It’s out of sight, and out of mind for most people.

Personally, I honestly believe that the poor health of our society is God’s retribution for the cruelties inflicted on animals. Whoever thinks they can get away with abusing their ‘authority’ given to them by God when he made us sterwards of the earth, are just plain fooling themselves. There is a consequence for every abuse of God-given authority. In this case, the proof is right there in front of us, as plain as the nose on our face, with all the cancers, allergies, diabetes, and literally countless other ailments we cause ourselves from what we put in our mouth and body. Hormones in our water. Chemicals in our food…mmmm, yummy, Bon Appetite…

 

[severus68]

What it boils down to, like everything else, is that most people just don’t care about how animals are treated. They are disposable, like anything else. The people who do care, patronize their local farmers, where they are assured that the animals are treated better. Or they patronize ‘food factories’ that operate with treating the animals better. All of them are not the same. Basically, if people want a change, they will rally to make it happen. Sometimes hiding behind cellophane wrappers makes it easier to ignore what happens to the animals. It’s out of sight, and out of mind for most people.

Personally, I honestly believe that the poor health of our society is God’s retribution for the cruelties inflicted on animals. Whoever thinks they can get away with abusing their ‘authority’ given to them by God when he made us sterwards of the earth, are just plain fooling themselves. There is a consequence for every abuse of God-given authority. In this case, the proof is right there in front of us, as plain as the nose on our face, with all the cancers, allergies, diabetes, and literally countless other ailments we cause ourselves from what we put in our mouth and body. Hormones in our water. Chemicals in our food…mmmm, yummy, Bon Appetite…

Good post. Just to add that people in the West should change the way they eat. Why does there have to be a chunk or more of meat in every meal. If you have to eat meat, why not lessen the portions and even better, have no meat days. Feeding the poor does not justify brutality to animals. There are viable options to producing very cheap meat.
If we eat less meat, more land would be available for crops.

As good stewards, we would have to answer to God as to how we have treated the other of his creatures.

 

[Geofarmer1]

I take great offense to this tread and the idea that meat raised in modern production agriculture is cruelly raised. My wife and I are 5th generation family farmers in the Midwest. We own and operate 2 of these farms that you would label “Factory Farms”. Pig care and the best welfare of the animal is the highest priority of our farm and the pork industry. The animals are raised inside in climate controlled barns, individually cared for and fed the most nutritious feed possible.

There are many organizations such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States (not your local dog & cat shelter) that want to see operations like ours closed down. The real reason is that they object to slaughtering animals for food. They would like to see you eat VEGAN.

The manure generated by our operation (and generally in the industry) is used as an organic fertilizer and spread on our farms to best utilize the nutrients in a sustainable way to grow next years crop of corn.

The truth of the matter is that today, in the US and the developed world we have the safest food supply in history, thanks to the farmers and the agricultural industry.

This so called “Factory Farm” we own has allowed us to remain on the farm, to become financially independent, to care for our family and to put two of our children through a Catholic college with one to go.

 

[Nate13]

I take great offense to this tread and the idea that meat raised in modern production agriculture is cruelly raised. My wife and I are 5th generation family farmers in the Midwest. We own and operate 2 of these farms that you would label “Factory Farms”. Pig care and the best welfare of the animal is the highest priority of our farm and the pork industry. The animals are raised inside in climate controlled barns, individually cared for and fed the most nutritious feed possible.

There are many organizations such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States (not your local dog & cat shelter) that want to see operations like ours closed down. The real reason is that they object to slaughtering animals for food. They would like to see you eat VEGAN.

The manure generated by our operation (and generally in the industry) is used as an organic fertilizer and spread on our farms to best utilize the nutrients in a sustainable way to grow next years crop of corn.

The truth of the matter is that today, in the US and the developed world we have the safest food supply in history, thanks to the farmers and the agricultural industry.

This so called “Factory Farm” we own has allowed us to remain on the farm, to become financially independent, to care for our family and to put two of our children through a Catholic college with one to go.

yeah I have to agree with you here. I think people speak of things they don’t really know about other than a few documentaries they watched. I think people also don’t understand that a lot of those chemicals serve purposes that prevent a whole host of other diseases. If God punishes us for anything it will not be for animal cruelty, it will be for human cruelty and the millions upon millions of abortions that have occurred. I don’t understand why people are surprised by the animal cruelty when we do it to ourselves as well.

 

[Rence]

I take great offense to this tread and the idea that meat raised in modern production agriculture is cruelly raised. My wife and I are 5th generation family farmers in the Midwest. We own and operate 2 of these farms that you would label “Factory Farms”. Pig care and the best welfare of the animal is the highest priority of our farm and the pork industry. The animals are raised inside in climate controlled barns, individually cared for and fed the most nutritious feed possible.

You shouldn’t be offended. You know very well that not every farmer or food producer has scruples like you have. All industries have the good and the bad producers, just like anything else in life. You, being a farmer, know that you can eat off the floor of some dairies, and other dairies – well, you wouldn’t want the bottom of your shoe to touch their floors.

There are many organizations such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States (not your local dog & cat shelter) that want to see operations like ours closed down. The real reason is that they object to slaughtering animals for food. They would like to see you eat VEGAN.

What about those whackjobs that are saying the cattle burping in the fields are raising our methane levels to dangerous levels and are wasting all kinds of energy and money trying to figure out a way to stop cattle from ruuuining our world by their burps and toots?

These people also feed off the ignorance (as in, lack of knowledge) of city folks who don’t understand husbandry.

The manure generated by our operation (and generally in the industry) is used as an organic fertilizer and spread on our farms to best utilize the nutrients in a sustainable way to grow next years crop of corn.

The truth of the matter is that today, in the US and the developed world we have the safest food supply in history, thanks to the farmers and the agricultural industry.

I kinda disagree with that. For example, I personally think that milk would be healthier if they were distributed from the dairy farmer, rather than trucked from the individual dairies, driven all over the country, to the bigger “dairy factories” where they do whatever they do to make it taste not-like-milk-really-tastes, with that awful mucousy stuff that’s left at the back of one’s throat. If you distribute to the customers straight from your farm, I think that would be better than what they’re doing now.

This so called “Factory Farm” we own has allowed us to remain on the farm, to become financially independent, to care for our family and to put two of our children through a Catholic college with one to go.

A few bad apples will always spoil the whole barrel. People should put their energy into removing the bad apples rather than throwing away the whole barrel-full. Farms like yours need to stick around for the good it does and for the good it brings everyone.

 

[Good_Daughter]

The animals are raised inside in climate controlled barns, individually cared for and fed the most nutritious feed possible.

I’m just curious, what are pigs supposed to eat?