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RPA is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational nonprofit organization. |
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RPA Factsheet #2 Time To Stop Teaching Animal Agribusiness: Researchers Outside of the Industries Know the Problems The following statements, from highly trained and respected researchers outside of the animal industries and the colleges of agriculture, indicate continuing to teach animal agribusiness is a serious disservice to the public. Authors differ in their focuses and priorities, but the bottom line is that animal agribusiness is an enormous problem for animals, ecosystems, and human beings. One key factor is the farming of far more land to feed animals than will be needed when humanity lives on its natural plant diet. (See Responsible Policies for Animals' (RPA's) Factsheet #1, 10,000 Years Is Enough: Time To Stop Teaching Animal Agribusiness.) RPA does not claim to know the authors' views specifically on teaching animal agribusiness. RPA's 10,000 Years Is Enough program aims to end such teaching because providing workers and managers for the animal industries, showing students how to build careers in the industries, providing the industries with research and other services, and maintaining an illusion that the production and consumption of animal products are based on science worsen rather than remedy very serious U.S. and worldwide problems discussed by these and many other authorities.
"The humane treatment of animals or serious consideration of environmental effects of certain food production practices are given low priority in the decision-making process by agribusiness. Because of the decisions made by agribusiness, all of us are faced with widespread pesticide use and other agrichemicals sprayed on crops. As for animals, livestock production is based on inhumane factory conditions, bolstered by antibiotics, growth hormones, and chemical-based feed additives pumped into them daily. ...
"In 1978 I walked into a 'factory farm' for the first time. It was a small battery-hen egg factory. Soon after that I visited a small hog-confinement building. I was in a state of suspended disbelief, bordering on shock. In the nearly 20 years since then, I have visited much larger factories, dairy and beef cattle feedlots, as well as auction yards and slaughterhouses. I am still horrified by the inhumane treatment of animals and still shocked by the unhealthy conditions for humans and the environment. ..."
"Ecological burdens result from both modern, intensive livestock production methods - such as chicken and pig feeding houses and beef feedlots - and extensive forms - such as ranching and pastoralism. The environmental effects of intensive livestock operations run from grain fields to manure piles. And unsustainable grazing and ranching patterns or impoverished and affluent regions alike sacrifice forests, drylands, and wild species. ..."
"U.S. society is extremely naïve about the nature of agricultural production. Contrary to the beliefs of some elements of the agricultural community, however, it will not help to 'educate' the public. In fact, if the public knew more about the way in which agricultural animal production infringes on animal welfare, the outcry would be louder."
"This same mindset that 'might makes right' characterizes food animals treated as mere production units. The huge numbers of animals killed and the tremendous suffering engendered by their mass production and systematic mistreatment deserve to be described as an animal holocaust.
"Criticizing animal cruelty means little if we continue to cause enormous suffering. If we eat flesh, we are complicit in the suffering of animals and cannot avoid responsibility even if we have never slit an animal's throat."
"Approximately half a billion metric tons of pesticides and herbicides are produced annually for application to crops in the United States alone. Of this enormous total, it has been estimated that only approximately 1 percent actually reaches the target organisms; most of the remainder either reaches soil, water, or nontarget organisms in the same ecosystem or spreads into neighboring ecosystems. ...
"[T]he net effect of the application of pesticides and herbicides is to lessen the diversity of the ecosystems affected. Despite these difficulties, productive modern agriculture depends, to a large extent, on the application of these ... chemicals." "Spreading across three thousand miles of land and settling it in little more than a century, these hardy colonists, or pioneers if you like … endured many hardships to 'settle' the continent. But they also exploited and destroyed much of the natural wealth of the land. ... "The farmers, who followed close on the heels of the hunters and trappers, cleared the trees and grass from the land, settled the country, and made it the greatest agricultural nation of the world. While doing this, however, they also destroyed much more than was necessary. They all but exterminated a great hardwood forest that stretched from the Atlantic to the Great Plains, they killed most of the wildlife that the hunters and trappers had left behind, and they filled once clear streams with mud from their eroding fields. But most important of all, they despoiled the land itself, letting the topsoil from thousands of fields wash away. ...
"More is now involved in saving our civilization from self-destruction than the conservation of natural resources. … And the greatest hope against continued … warfare is that the people of the world will learn that the true source of prosperity and well-being is not the wealth that a group or a nation can seize from a neighbor, but the permanent wealth that develops from the conservation and wise use of natural resources." Donations to Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc., are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc., P.O. Box 891, Glenside, PA 19038 |