Some news items by and about Responsible Policies for Animals follow this brief introduction.
Responsible Policies for Animals’ directors, members, and friends are grateful for all mention in news venues of RPA and its work for human beings, nonhuman animals, and ecosystems – and we are grateful for all queries and interviews.
Most human beings are confused about the nature of animals, including human beings’ animal nature. All of our institutions confuse, but free and independent media have the best opportunity to rectify the confusion rather than continue reinforcing it as is almost always the case. Sources for assertions that follow and are not self-evident are available directly from RPA, in RPA’s factsheets and brochures (see Literature page), and at libraries and websites.
RPA urges news venues, no matter what the topic and whether or not RPA is mentioned, to …
… use “animal rights” rigorously as defined at this website’s Animal Rights page. “Rights” is used precisely when it refers to established human rights or similar (but not identical) rights proposed for nonhumans, starting with rights of personal and ecological sovereignty. Few animal organizations or advocates promote animal rights, strictly speaking. When animal rights is not involved, RPA urges news venues to use whatever term fits: animal welfare, vegetarianism, abolitionism, rescue, other.
… frame animals, including human beings, truthfully. This means reframing the public discussion of animals, because the dominant framing is inaccurate and misleading, based on thousands of years of speciesism, special interests, optimism bias concerning the human endeavor, and other distorting factors.
RPA will soon publish Elephant in the Newsroom: A Guide to Accurate and Truthful Reporting on Animals. A fine book on correct animal-related discourse is Animal Equality: Language and Liberation by Joan Dunayer. Here are a few simple guidelines:
Human beings are animals, great apes, and primates, so language implying they are not (“people and animals,” “great apes and humans,” “primates and human beings,” …) is misleading.
Nonhuman animals did not evolve for human purposes. Other animals existed for hundreds of millions of years before humans. Their practices, with no purpose other than enjoying life, surviving, avoiding pain, and protecting offspring and other family members, created the web of life into which hominids evolved a mere few million years ago, modern humans about 200,000 years ago. In a few tens of thousands of years, humans have wrought radical change on Earth’s ecosystems and biosphere, having done nothing to make it what it was before their arrival.
Humans evolved as prey to large cats and other natural predators, and as herbivores. All animal use is a cultural development, not biological evolution.
“Humane” means kind, not merely not-cruel. Humans do not use other animals or disrupt their ecosystems to be kind to them; all animal use and ecosystem disruption are inhumane by definition; very little of it is cruel, i.e., intended to cause pain and suffering.
Fish are not “seafood.”
Flesh, milk, and eggs of nonhuman animals are not “protein.”
There is no such thing as “animal agriculture.”
Zoos and aquariums are not educational institutions; they fundamentally mis-educate by teaching that nonhuman animals exist for humans.
Read Letter to the Editor, “No turtle kissing“, in the Philadelphia Inquirer (August 28, 2023).
Read Letter to the Editor, “U.S. Food Policy Causes Poor Food Choices“, in the New York Times (July 31, 2023).
Read Letter to the Editor about hunting in founder David Cantor’s local newspapers (January 14, 2020).
RPA Founder David Cantor’s December 2019 Other Animals Interview.
Read Letter to the Editor about animal experimentation in founder David Cantor’s hometown newspaper (October 10, 2019).
ARZone’s Looking Back, Moving Forward podcast asked 35 animal advocates, including RPA executive director David Cantor, what they did on behalf of nonhuman animals in 2012 and what they intend to do in 2013.
In this full-length interview with ARZone, David Cantor explains key differences between rights advocacy and other advocacy, explaining why only establishing rights of all animals can create the needed change.
RPA founder David Cantor explains, in this 48-minute interview, why establishing rights of all animals is the path to – not a result of – plants-only eating, human health and wellbeing, protection and restoration of the natural world, and nonhuman animals’ leading the fulfilling life that all deserve.
Read detailed article about RPA in founder David Cantor’s hometown newspaper
Chestnut Hill Local
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Commentary: Philadelphia’s Deer Kill Is Bad for Deer and Humans Alike
Upon us now is the 15th annual Philadelphia deer kill, a slaughter originally billed as a one-time massacre in the Wissahickon in 1998, now expanded throughout Fairmount Park, enhancing status and livelihoods of decision-makers, propagandists, shooters, pseudo-scientists, and others.
Notorious among animal advocates for its injustice, needless suffering and early death, and false beliefs it promotes about the living world, the deer kill is officially portrayed as a safety measure for automobiles, human beings, and wildflowers. All ridiculous rationalization.
The deer kill perpetuates the hunting cabal that put our species on its destructive course alluded to in Genesis as the first humans leave Eden wearing animal skins. The primary motive of today’s deer kill and of the original hunting cabal is the same: aggrandize the status of the most aggressively dominant individuals, who claim to solve a big problem for society, protecting and empowering the group.
Claiming to solve a problem and solving it are entirely different matters, but propaganda takes care of that year after year. If destroying a few nonhuman animals in their prime can make some human endeavor marginally more convenient or pleasurable, humans are indoctrinated to destroy. It’s just a matter of reinforcing what “everyone” already believes.
Automobiles kill more human beings than all wars combined, severely injure millions more, destroy and aggrieve families, kill millions of nonhuman animals per day just in the U.S., pollute everyone’s air, and heat everyone’s climate (though not as quickly or intensively as raising animals for food). It takes 50,000 gallons of water and enormous other ecologically unsound resource use to make just one. Yet the Philadelphia deer kill aims to protect them, lethal nonliving objects.
Humans acquired Lyme disease by cutting down trees – a particular injustice toward nonhuman animals, disrupting the ecosystem with car culture and sprawl so the mice with the most Lyme ticks grow ever more abundant and have ever more contact with humans and their pets. Scientific studies reveal places where completely eliminating deer did nothing to reduce Lyme disease in humans. The Philadelphia deer kill will supposedly reduce Lyme disease by doing what doesn’t reduce it, while doing nothing to halt what humans do to cause it! What a boon to the biomedical industries at great cost to all of us!
Nature is not a simple mechanism as deer-kill promoters make out. The more plant-eaters you kill, the more food is available for each survivor of the massacre. In deer, this increases earlier reproduction, more than the typical two fawns per birth, and more rapid population growth. If you think beings who have inhabited this continent thousands of times longer than humans can’t find ways to elude our assaults, then maybe you think fewer mice exist now than before mouse traps were invented!
The great conservationist-author Aldo Leopold exhorted humans to kill prey animals whose natural predators humans exterminate or drive extinct. Deer-kill propaganda routinely invokes Leopold. Problem is, he was wrong. Predators do not protect wildflowers and other vegetation by killing large numbers of grazing herd animals. They do it by keeping the animals moving about the landscape so they don’t nibble any particular acreage down to the soil.
Most of the food supporting Philadelphia deer is provided by ecologically unsound human “development” at the various parks’ edges – phenomena that do not occur in nature: “lawns,” “backyards,” “gardens,” “farms,” “nurseries,” “playgrounds.” Penn’s Woods had minimal edge and nowhere near the number of deer per square mile as inhabit landscapes humans mess up.
The Constitution’s stated principles are justice, equality, liberty, defense, tranquility, and the general welfare. The Philadelphia deer kill undermines them. Illusions of enhanced safety, convenience, or aesthetics do not justify destroying others. We will move forward as a community and as a species when we accept accountability and responsibility for what we wreak and put our species on a new trajectory vis à vis the other animals and the living world.
Tribune-Star
Terre Haute, Indiana
February 20, 2013
Dear Editor,
Having spent the past decade urging Purdue University and the other 49 states’ agriculture universities to eliminate their “animal science” programs altogether, I appreciate Rev. Harvey and Ms. Ferry’s challenging some of the worst aspects of “animal agriculture” (“Food Production Must Be Humane,” February 4, 2013).
“Agriculture” means the cultivation of fields – and the 1862 Congress that created our agriculture universities, department of agriculture, and Homestead Act meant it precisely that way. “Animal agriculture” is deception, diverting attention from the inherent injustice of the meat, dairy, fish, and egg industries.
Human beings are natural plant-foraging herbivores who evolved as prey to large cats, reptiles, raptors, and dogs on Africa’s tropical grasslands. Nearly all human suffering, loss, deprivation, and early death come from injustice toward nonhuman animals, from prehistoric weapons-wielding cabals aggrandizing their social status by killing predators to the horrific factory farms established by Purdue and our other agriculture universities.
No human use of other animals is “humane,” which means kind. It is all for humans, not for other animals, and it is bad for humans, too. Using animals is a major factor in human infectious and non-communicable disease, food poisoning, poverty, the loss of homes, global heating, forest destruction, extermination of keystone predators, and species extinctions, occurring now at about three per hour.
Establishing justice as called for in the U.S. Constitution demands that all of our authorities and their institutions stop pretending and start putting our society and our species on an altogether new trajectory, reversing human overpopulation and our species’ life-destroying impacts on the living world. Purdue and our other agriculture universities can help by telling the truth and eliminating programs based on false beliefs about humans and other animals – as the public legitimately expects of educational institutions.
Sincerely,
David Cantor
Executive Director
Responsible Policies for Animals
Glenside, Pa.
New York Times Magazine
July 11, 2010
What we do to other animals and their ecosystems is destructive and a radical change from the original human way of life. Humans are natural herbivores, but over thousands of years we put ourselves at the top of a fictitious ”food chain,” harming and killing humans along with other animals.
Merely preventing the bluefin tuna and other species from going extinct shows the same disrespect that has already done so much damage. We must end humans’ use of other animals by establishing equal basic individual rights for all animals regardless of species.
David Cantor
Responsible Policies for Animals
Glenside, Pa.
Animal People
April 2010
‘Animal Protection’ Movement Not Advancing Animal Rights
Dear Editor:
I cringe at the use of the term “animal protection” in the March 2010 ANIMAL PEOPLE article “Farm Animal Initiative in Ohio Builds on California Success,” referring to organizations that convince caring people that anyone can have meaningful protection without possessing the rights to not be used, bred, owned, driven from natural homes, or poisoned in body, soil, water, or air by humans.
Animal use industry representatives who say they are excluding “animal rights groups” from discussions of how to regulate misery are pretending to not know that the animal welfare and rescue groups they are excluding do not actually promote rights.
Where language, strategy, tactics, mission, bylaws, objectives, and goals do not involve seeking unalienable basic rights of all individual animals, regardless of species, an organization is not promoting animal rights. To end the double standard that animal welfare reinforces, “animal rights” must mean rights corresponding to (though not identical to) human rights.
“Animal protection” assumes an organization or its methods protect or promise protection. But the nature of our institutions ensures that meaningful protection increasingly eludes nonhuman animals because organizations claiming to protect them address, and urge advocates to address, only superficial symptoms–cruelty and other extremely inhumane mistreatment–rather than the symptoms’ source: the lack of basic rights on which to base meaningful protective laws and enforcement. Only establishing countervailing rights for nonhumans will be able to undo the effects of humans’ current possession of property rights over nonhuman animals and their ecosystems.
There is no conceivable way animal-welfare victories can ever put an end to animal use and ecosystem disruption, the sources of cruelty. Gradual steps toward eliminating tyranny’s worst abuses occur after former victims become rights holders, not before. Establishing rights is the huge first step making possible the “baby steps” often invoked as “necessary” by welfarists.
The animal-rights movement slipped into a coma so quickly after its birth that animal-advocacy institutions failed to educate about rights, how basic rights come to exist, the human impulses behind them, and the private and public interests they serve. So the public lacks the understanding that eventually can produce rights for nonhumans the way we evolved our present concepts of human rights.
It is doubtful that any big human problem – health, pollution, global warming, war, genocide, food and water shortages, poverty, species extinctions – can be solved as long as nonhuman animals lack basic rights. All organized efforts are failing, and animal use and ecosystem disruption, along with other inhumane treatment of nonhuman animals, are a root cause of all of them.
Help animals within your purview, report cruelty, rescue animals in need – just don’t pretend these good and compassionate practices are a strategy for establishing needed rights.
David Cantor
Founder & Director
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
Click here to listen to an interview with RPA Founder David Cantor on VegCast.
April 2009
Click here to listen to an interview with RPA’s founder, David Cantor, which was aired on WALO radio. The interview follows RPA’s March 2009 mailing urging the governors of all 50 states to help get our land-grant universities (LGUs) out of the meat industry. Our LGUs’ service to the meat industry undermines anything our governors might try to do for human health or the environment, and using animals is inhumane.
RPA bases its 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign to get our LGUs out of the meat industry on nutrition science, ecology, zoology, and other branches of science that are subverted by “animal science” — our LGUs’ teaching, research, and promotion of meat-industry technology and ideology. So WALO named the RPA interview Aciencia Cierta — True Science.
Meat News
Shorts
January 6, 2004
http://www.meatnews.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Article&artNum=6717
Universities across the USA are becoming the latest public relations battleground for animal rights advocates and the US meat industry. A one year-old organisation, Responsible Policies for Animals, has started a letter-writing campaign to the heads of American land-grant universities, urging them to drop their animal agriculture programs. Responding to that campaign, the Animal Agriculture Alliance, a US industry group, is calling on its members to increase communications with colleges, consumers, and legislators. “We just have to make sure we’re talking up and down the food chain,” Kay Johnson, AAA vice president said. “Our goal is to strengthen our messages and to be more proactive and provide positive messages about animal agriculture.” David Cantor, executive director of RPA, said: “We’re an abolitionist organisation. We want an end to the animal industry, and we want an end to the teaching of that industry.” University agriculture programmes sustain and subsidise the meat business by doing research for it, he added. In addition to contacting university presidents and chancellors with his message, Mr Cantor also has been reaching out to college newspaper editors. Mr Cantor, an animal rights advocate for 14 years, worked with PETA earlier in his career. Ms Johnson said that even though Mr Cantor’s group is relatively new, the meat industry needs to take it seriously.
(Also posted to Animal_Net, an international list)
PR Week (US)
November 10, 2003
SECTION: NEWS BRIEF, Pg. 5
HEADLINE: ANIMAL RIGHTS VS. INDUSTRY BATTLE MOVES TO CAMPUSES
BYLINE: By John N. Frank
ARLINGTON, VA: Universities across the country are becoming the latest PR battleground for animal rights advocates and the US meat industry.
A year-old organization, Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA), has begun a letter-writing campaign to the heads of American land-grant universities, urging them to drop their animal agriculture programs.
Responding to that campaign, the Animal Agriculture Alliance, an industry group, is calling on its members to increase communications with colleges, consumers, and legislators.
‘We just have to make sure we’re talking up and down the food chain,’ said Kay Johnson, VP of the alliance. ‘Our goal is to strengthen our messages and to be more proactive and provide positive messages about animal agriculture.’
Land-grant universities were established by various federal laws dating back to the mid-1800s and traditionally offer courses of study in agriculture and animal science.
David Cantor, executive director of RPA, said: ‘We’re an abolitionist organization. We want an end to the animal industry, and we want an end to the teaching of that industry.’
University agriculture programs sustain and subsidize the meat business by doing research for it, he said.
In addition to contacting university presidents and chancellors with his message, Cantor also has been reaching out to college newspaper editors.
Cantor, an animal rights advocate for 14 years, worked with PETA earlier in his career.
Johnson said that even though Cantor’s group is relatively new, the meat industry needs to take it seriously.
‘We need to work together to create a unified voice,’ she said of the meat business. ‘It would behoove us as an industry to go to land-grant universities’ and discuss how agriculture education benefits students and society.
AnimalNet
Nov. 11/03
Animal rights vs. industry battle moves to campuses: AR groups wants colleges to drop animal ag. programs (PR Week)
November 10, 2003
News Release
John N. Frank
Arlington, VA: Universities across the country are becoming the latest PR battleground for animal rights advocates and the US meat industry. A year-old organization, Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA), has begun a letter-writing campaign to the heads of American land-grant universities, urging them to drop their animal agriculture programs. Responding to that campaign, the Animal Agriculture Alliance, an industry group, is calling on its members to increase communications with colleges, consumers, and legislators. ‘We just have to make sure we’re talking up and down the food chain,’ said Kay Johnson, VP of the alliance. ‘Our goal is to strengthen our messages and to be more proactive and provide positive messages about animal agriculture.’
Land-grant universities were established by various federal laws dating back to the mid-1800s and traditionally offer courses of study in agriculture and animal science. David Cantor, executive director of RPA, said: ‘We’re an abolitionist organization. We want an end to the animal industry, and we want an end to the teaching of that industry.’
University agriculture programs sustain and subsidize the meat business by doing research for it, he said.
In addition to contacting university presidents and chancellors with his message, Cantor also has been reaching out to college newspaper editors. Cantor, an animal rights advocate for 14 years, worked with PETA earlier in his career.
Johnson said that even though Cantor’s group is relatively new, the meat industry needs to take it seriously. ‘We need to work together to create a unified voice,’ she said of the meat business. ‘It would behoove us as an industry to go to land-grant universities’ and discuss how agriculture education benefits students and society.
Iowa State Daily
September 9, 2003
Organization aims to stop teaching of animal agriculture at universities
By Ruth Neil
Daily Staff Writer
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v?TARGET=printable&article_id=3f5d420ea66f9
A new organization is campaigning to stop the teaching of animal agriculture at Iowa State and other universities.
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit organization, began its “10,000 Years is Enough” campaign last spring with a mailing to each 1862 land grant university in the United States.
The campaign’s strategy is to contact influential people, and a second mailing to the same 50 land grant universities will go out later this month, said David Cantor, founder and executive director of Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. wants to get the word out that universities have conflicts of interest in teaching agriculture and should leave it up to businesses to train people for production agriculture, he said.
The organization’s dual message is that animal agriculture is “inhumane, polluting, wasteful … and harmful” and that animal agriculture has no place at universities, Cantor said.
“Teaching people to make animal products is infinitely worse than any other major could possibly be,” Cantor said.
“The factory farms that most animals are now raised on are enormous polluters,” he said. “We don’t think those are the kind of careers for which universities should prepare students.”
Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture, said animal science students get a broad educational background at Iowa State.
“Our students do go into a wide variety of different careers in agriculture,” Woteki said. “Some of them do go back to their family farms.”
Cantor disagreed.
“The vast majority of jobs in the food industry are with large corporations,” Cantor said. “You’re enabling people to choose that even if you’re also enabling them to choose something else.”
Tressa Eckhoff, senior in dairy science, said small farms make a profit by investing in animal care.
“If they’re not healthy, you’re not going to make any money,” she said.
After the ISU dairy farm announced it would be closed for the next three years due to budget cuts, Cantor wrote a letter published in the Daily June 26.
“Iowa State should not only let its dairy go but should forget about building a new one,” Cantor said in the letter. “[Land grant universities, established under the Morrill Act in 1862, were meant to] assist the small farmers the ag giants have now mostly driven from the land.”
Eckhoff, who said she plans to use her dairy science degree in a career as a dairy nutritionist, disagreed.
“So should business colleges not teach students how to run a business?” she said. “That’s what the ag college is doing. It’s teaching us to run a business … every business needs to advance.”
Cantor said pork industry ties also create a conflict of interest for the university.
The Iowa Pork Producers Association donated $100,000 to the university last summer. The gift was used to fund a new animal science faculty position, filled by Ken Stalder, assistant professor in animal science.
“A university can provide [Iowa pork producers] with unbiased, research-based information,” said Rich Degner, executive director for the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
Woteki agreed.
“Funds that come from the producers support practical problem-solving research,” Woteki said.
“Refining management practices for the pork industry is a smokescreen for perpetuating the pork industry,” Cantor said. “We don’t need pork.”
Cantor e-mailed President Gregory Geoffroy about the donation in July, said Charles Dobbs, assistant to the president.
Dobbs said he responded to Cantor’s e-mail Monday and indicated in the e-mail that Stalder’s extension education program will help producers refine management practices and reduce the environmental impact of their operations.
“While the pork producers contributed money, that does not mean they determine his research,” Dobbs said.
Stalder could not be reached for comment.
The second mailing from Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. will address the arguments university representatives made in response to the first mailing, Cantor said.
“We never assumed anyone initially would agree to stop teaching animal agriculture,” Cantor said.
The organization will begin recruiting members when the campaign develops further, but Cantor said wanted to do some substantial work before asking people to join.
“I would love for students to understand our campaign and get involved to the extent that they can,” he said.
Cantor said he began Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. to test his approach of contacting influential people rather than appealing to a broader audience, he said.
“Modern life is what produced animal rights [organizations],” Cantor said. “If animal agriculture remained the way it was in 1862, it would not be a target of animal rights activists. Period.”
© 2003 Iowa State Daily
Iowa State Daily
September 11, 2003
LETTER: Degree should only reflect knowledge
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/09/11/3f5fceae53f86
Thank you for Ruth Neil’s excellent Sept. 9 article, “Organization aims to stop teaching of animal agriculture at universities,” on Responsible Policies for Animals’ “10,000 Years Is Enough” campaign to end universities’ teaching of animal agriculture. Please allow me to clarify a couple of points apparently misunderstood by two people who have responded to the campaign — one quoted in the article, and another replying after publication.
Traditionally, the academy makes a crucial distinction between teaching business as a profession and teaching production of specific products such as pork, cow’s milk, chicken eggs, chewing gum, liquor or house paint — the last three having as much claim as animal products to involving science. “Science” means knowledge; “technology” refers to production methods. College degrees usually reflect knowledge acquired, not product-making abilities. Training in specific products is almost always left to companies that make them. Agriculture is a rare exception because Congress saw a unique need when it passed the Morrill Act of 1862 establishing land-grant universities.
Although a case might be made that horticulture and agronomy should also be eliminated from the academy, plants do not suffer and are necessary to humanity. Animals, whose flesh, eggs and milk are not needed in the human diet, have been made to suffer intensely through the years for longer periods and in larger numbers in the egg, dairy and meat industries — partly due to the efforts of “animal science” to increase their productivity and efficiency.
About RPA being misguided in seeking to address this problem in Iowa, an agricultural center and a state that raises and kills millions of pigs each year: Although we are also working hard in other states, Iowa has a great tradition of open discussion, including in agricultural matters.
RPA appreciates participation in this discussion by those who express support for and opposition to our “10,000 Years Is Enough” campaign. Animal agriculture has been going on for about 10,000 years — we don’t expect it to end overnight. But we’ve got to start somewhere, and as the saying goes, a problem defined is a problem half solved.
David Cantor
Executive Director
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
Cornell Daily Sun
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Animal Activists Call for Change FRIDAY,
JANUARY 30, 2004
By ANDREW BECKWITH
http://www.cornellsun.com/articles/10511/
A group called Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA) has requested that land-grant universities across the country, including Cornell, reconsider the way animal science is taught. RPA claims that current animal science departments are obsolete in modern society and promote and support methods that perpetuate the suffering of animals.
“Systems are set up so that billions of animals each year live extremely short lives and are never treated humanely; I don’t see much of a way that that could change as long as schools are teaching people to run those systems that have animals enslaved,” said David Cantor, president of RPA.
RPA has been engaged in letter-writing campaigns to land-grant university chancellors and presidents, explaining the organization’s “10,000 Years is Enough” campaign, aimed at ending the teaching of animal agriculture. Currently, RPA has received no official response from Cornell.
The animal science department in Cornell’s college of Agriculture & Life Sciences is responsible for teaching, research and outreach, which provides education and information to animal-related industries in New York State and around the world.
Prof. Alan Bell, chair of the animal science department, disagrees with the contention that animal science education advances irresponsible practices within the animal agriculture industry.
“I would suggest that modern animal science departments actually promote more enlightened and responsible attitudes toward animal welfare and environmental stewardship than those industries did in times gone by,” Bell said. “Animal agriculture is not going to go away. What we have to do is manage it responsibly and ethically.”
Still, Cantor hopes RPA’s campaign will spark intellectual debate about the value of animal science education.
“Where do we get that somehow no matter how agriculture transforms itself, no matter how it consolidates itself into huge corporations — how do we get that these are courses that have to remain in the academy and that taxpayers and tuition payers always have to pay for?” Cantor said.
One animal science undergraduate at Cornell believes that animal science does still have a place in academia, but that modification and modernization would be beneficial.
“I think perhaps they should have separate tracks of the major for people who are pre-vet versus people who are more interested in agricultural animals, whether they’re pre-vet or not,” she said. “I have considered switching out of the major because of the emphasis on that area which doesn’t really interest me.”
She also suggested that animal science departments are not the root of the problem.
“I think the problem isn’t just with the major, it’s deeper than that; it’s with agriculture processes, and all the major is doing is teaching us those practices,” she explained. Clair Whittet ’04, president of the Cornell Coalition for Animal Defense, expressed doubts about the possibility of changing or eradicating animal science education.
“Why would [animal science educators] want to talk to people who ultimately want to see their jobs disappear?” Whittet wondered.
“Still,” she added, “I hope the efforts of the RPA might open dialogue at Cornell about the need to drastically change the way animals are treated on modern industrial farms.”
Bell stated that professors within the department already challenge students to reexamine the status quo.
“We hope that our students are encouraged to question traditional practices and get out of here with open minds,” he said.
Cantor hopes that current methods can be changed by stimulating discussion among those already involved in the teaching and practice of animal agriculture.
“Things that would represent progress would be private discussions within the universities, discussions between the university and the egg, dairy and meat industries, and between the universities and state legislators, because there are serious problems with the state laws that require the teaching of these industries,” Cantor said.
Farm Progress
HOG PRODUCTION IN THE PUBLIC’S EYE
9/23/2003, Jacqui Fatka, E-Content Editor
http://www.directag.com/directag/news/article.jhtml?article_id=1023004
Ever feel like no matter how many hog producers are doing things right, the activist groups continue to give the industry a bad name? Instead of back peddling every time a claim is made, be prepared for each crisis before it hits. Fur Commission USA Spokeswoman Teresa Platt suggests for hog producers to follow a number of pro-active steps to keep the negatives from bogging the industry down.
The most important way to handle public interest in your farm is to become an expert yourself, she states. Although every farmer knows what goes on at his/his farm, being able to say things in a positive reference is sometimes not always done. The public has to process information quickly. Just like a mother needs to always say what to do rather than what not to do, a producer must clean up the negative phrasing. For example, a positive phrase would be “pork producers care for their animals” rather than “pork producers don’t abuse their animals.”
Plan for the worst and when anything hits, you’ll be ready to combat it, Platt explains. Develop a campaign that is quickly available to producers who may be working under you or with you. For example, state pork organizations could have releases explaining the positive acts of real producers on humane, conservation, waster or legislative issues.
The fur industry is constantly attacked for inhumane treatment. But animal agriculture is under the same fire. For instance, in a recent campaign from Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc., the group is canvassing to stop the teaching of animal agriculture at universities. The organization wants to get the word out that universities have conflicts of interest in teaching agriculture and should leave it up to businesses to train people for production agriculture, states David Cantor, found and executive of the Pennsylvania-based non-profit. [RPA’s web site is: http://www.rpaforall.org/index.html ] Platt used this campaign as an example for producers at all levels to be ready to state what pork production really is, not what an activist perceives it to be.
If the industry bans together, the pork industry may have the ability to shed positive light on their good management practices and build on what has already been done.
The Council of State Governments
10/31/03 Agriculture and Rural Policy Update
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:20YbmFwnFKkJ:www.csgeast.org/programs/NSAAS/Weekly%2520Update/
webletter103103.doc+%22Responsible+Policies+for+Animals%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Speaking at a Meat Industry Research Conference, Kay Johnson, vice president of the Animal Agricultural Alliance, says a group — Responsible Policies for Animals — is seeking the abolishment of meat-science programs at the nation’s universities. Organized in March by former PETA executive David Canter (sic), the group has begun a letter-writing campaign in hopes of ending agriculture production education programs. They are targeting alumni and donors. The nation’s top 25 animal rights organizations have spent $200 million this year in media blitzes, lobbying efforts and informational campaigns. Adding to the vulnerability of the industry is an overall lack of knowledge by consumers of false animal rights claims and the fact that a relatively small number of the population is involved in agricultural production. Those attending the conference were urged to do a better job of communicating with each other and to become active in their local communities. Johnson also discussed a poll that indicated only 44 % of consumers would pay an additional 5 % for products that are humanely raised. Only 20 % of consumers would pay an additional 10 %, and 6 % said they would pay 20 % more for products that are humane certified. (10/28 meatingplace.com)
The Gonzales Inquirer
(Gonzales County Texas)
December 11, 2003
http://www.gonzalesinquirer.com/articles/2003/12/11/gv_fr/farmer-rancher06.txt
Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association’s News-at-a-Glance
Activists want to abolish meat-science programs in the nation’s universities, says an industry expert who monitors the agendas and actions of animal rights groups. Kay Johnson, vice president of the Animal Agricultural Alliance, says a new group — Responsible Policies for Animals — has begun a letter-writing campaign in hopes of putting a major dent in funding for agricultural production education programs. The group was organized in March by former PETA executive David Canter. “What’s different about this group is that they are not just going to university department heads or deans,” Johnson said. “They are targeting alumni, they are targeting donors, and they are calling for an end to agriculture programs.” Johnson said the nation’s top 25 animal rights organizations have spent $200 million this year in media blitzes, lobbying efforts and information campaigns. She said the industry is made more vulnerable by the overall lack of knowledge by consumers of false animal rights claims. She urged producers to get their message out by participating in local civic groups. — Meatingplace.com
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 22, 2003
Bob Purvis
ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUP WANTS UA TO CUT ANIMAL SCIENCES PROGRAM
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/96/138/01_1.html
In a letter addressed to UA President Pete Likins last month, the leader of a national animal rights organization said he would not rest until a specific UA program is abolished. The letter, from Executive Director of Responsible Policies for Animals David Cantor, contained a questionnaire regarding the school’s animal sciences and called on school officials to ban the teaching of animal agriculture. “Preventing needless animal suffering and deaths is reason enough for universities to stop teaching animal agriculture,” the letter stated.
Cantor called for an immediate halt to the animal sciences program in the letter, writing, “All involved are linked to those atrocities since all activities in the animal and agribusiness industries, including education and training, are interrelated.” RPA condemns the program’s ties to the meat packing industry and says that the department promotes killing animals short of their natural life span. In his letter Cantor pleaded with Likins to find compassion for the “ten billion (animals) killed for food each year.” The UA’s campus agriculture center on the 5000 block of North Campbell Avenue does have a USDA inspected meat sciences center, which instructs primarily on product development.
Animal sciences department head Robert Collier, however, said Cantor’s efforts are misguided and more of an attack on animal consumption than animal mistreatment at UA. “I don’t think they really understand what they are talking about,” Collier said. He said that the research done by animal sciences actually aims to benefit animals, specifically their research on animals in arid lands. “Our research is oriented around diets. It’s really oriented around improving the animal’s lifestyles,” Collier said.
UA’s agricultural center houses over 360 dairy cows and 50 horses, among other animals, according to the Department of Animal Sciences’ Web site. UA’s animal sciences program focuses on two types of degrees: veterinary medicine and research. Enrollment in the college has increased in recent years, including an 80 percent female enrollment, changing the face of animal sciences, Collier said. With UA’s programs in mind, Collier also said Cantor’s vision of a commercial animal-free world is unattainable. “A large part of the land you can’t grow cereal rices on, and a lot of essential amino acids come from animal products,” he said.
Still, Cantor insisted Likins not dedicate university funding to the “atrocities” of the animal agriculture business. “Teaching animal agriculture primarily serves the interests of large private corporations, whose activities are extremely harmful yet profitable and not in the public interest – they should be training their own workers and managers, not relying on university agriculture programs to do so,” Cantor said.
The letter was part of the 10,000 Years is Enough program, RPA’s long-term program aimed at bringing an end to the teaching of animal agriculture in public universities. As of yesterday Cantor had sent 20 similar letters to other universities. Likins has not responded to the letter, Cantor said. Cantor said he was disappointed by Likins’ failure to communicate with him. “One of the key functions of universities in the United States is to serve as venues for the free marketplace of ideas. For universities to fail to examine their animal-agribusiness policies, discuss them openly, and reckon with the harm they are doing would be a terrible disservice to the public,” Cantor said.
Likins was not available for comment at the time of publication.
The newspaper of Iowa State University, the Iowa State Daily, on June 26, 2003, published the letter from RPA that appears below. RPA provided the letter in response to the paper’s article about cutbacks in animal agriculture at the University. According to a November 18, 2002, Omaha World-Herald article, Iowa State University is ranked number two by Meat & Poultry magazine in its listing of “the top 10 schools providing the industry with savvy graduates and useful research” (some honor!). Thank you, Iowa State Daily!
Iowa State
Daily
LETTER: Animal Ag Classes Need To Shift Focus
June 26, 2003
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/06/26/3efa41af75c86
In response to your June 19 article, “Dairy Farm To Close after 95 Years of Hands-On Learning,” this spring, Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. (RPA), asked the 50 states’ main land-grant universities, including Iowa State, to phase out the teaching of animal agriculture due to constant mistreatment of animals in the industries for which the ag programs provide workers, unsustainable waste of soil, water and energy, pollution, and human health problems from animal products.
That doesn’t mean university dairy managers and professors should just be sent packing. The schools’ and industries’ failure to change decades ago when serious problems were first documented makes things harder for conscientious members of the academy who dedicated themselves to their students and blinded themselves to global problems perpetuated by their local activities as is natural when making a living is at stake.
Personnel, resources and facilities should shift to ecology, conservation, plant agriculture and other constructive ventures. The animal industries essentially treat animals as value-added grain products — that’s the root of the problem. So why shouldn’t Iowa part with animals and benefit from high-protein, no-cholesterol imitation meat products filling today’s grocery-chain shelves, as ConAgra sought to do in purchasing the Light Life company?
It is not for no reason that RPA’s campaign is called “10,000 Years Is Enough.” We hardly do anything the way we did back when animal agriculture started. Iowa State should not only let its dairy go but should forget about building a new one and show us something really special instead. And the agribusiness corporations should train their own workers — the colleges of agriculture were not established to provide corporate welfare but to assist the small farmers the ag giants have now mostly driven from the land.
For more information, email us at rpa@rpa1.org.
David Cantor
Executive Director
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
Glenside, PA
This letter-to-the-editor by RPA Executive Director David Cantor, published in The Gazette, a large-circulation Montreal newspaper, was summarized in AnimalNet, an online bulletin produced by the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph and supported by a large number of animal-industry and industry-supporting institutions. The AnimalNet item and AnimalNet‘s long list of supporting entities follow the letter, below.
The Gazette
(Montreal)
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Pig Industry Based on Habit, Not Science
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/archives/story.asp?id=E9A25C9E-71D3-4E62-8E26-C757C5342991
It is unfortunate that Joe Schwarcz’s April 26 column on hog factories, “Bringing piggies to market is a science,” left readers with the false impression that the perverse and inhumane pig industry ensures animals’ and ecosystems’ well-being.
Of course “animal welfare and environmental concerns are addressed” by the industry “extensively.” That is because the industry makes it necessary to address them extensively: A humane and environmentally sound pig industry would not need to address animal-welfare and environmental concerns; it would not harm and threaten them in the first place.
An industry’s being “scientific” merely means some details are managed based on empirical analysis. It does not mean the industry’s existence, the support it receives from government and universities or the notions of its products’ positive value are science-based.
Today’s pig and other animal food industries are based on long-time habit and misconception, not science. Compare human beings with other animals: We are natural herbivores, not carnivores or omnivores. The most extensive and reliable studies show inclusion of animal products in the diet increases many serious health risks – “diseases of affluence.” Thus, science indicates massive feed-crop production and the top-soil loss, pollution and waste involved are reckless.
David Cantor
Executive Director, Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
Glenside, Pa.
© Copyright 2003 Montreal Gazette
ANIMALNET MAY 1, 2003 — II
PIG INDUSTRY BASED ON HABIT, NOT SCIENCE
May 1, 2003
The Gazette (Montreal)
A20
David Cantor, Executive Director, Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. of Glenside, Pa, writes that it is unfortunate that Joe Schwarcz’s April 26 column on hog factories, “Bringing piggies to market is a science,” left readers with the false impression that the perverse and inhumane pig industry ensures animals’ and ecosystems’ well-being. Of course “animal welfare and environmental concerns are addressed” by the industry “extensively.” That is because the industry makes it necessary to address them extensively:
Cantor says that a humane and environmentally sound pig industry would not need to address animal-welfare and environmental concerns; it would not harm and threaten them in the first place.
An industry’s being “scientific” merely means some details are managed based on empirical analysis. It does not mean the industry’s existence, the support it receives from government and universities or the notions of its products’ positive value are science-based.
Today’s pig and other animal food industries are based on long-time habit and misconception, not science. Compare human beings with other animals: We are natural herbivores, not carnivores or omnivores. The most extensive and reliable studies show inclusion of animal products in the diet increases many serious health risks – “diseases of affluence.” Thus, science indicates massive feed-crop production and the top-soil loss, pollution and waste involved are reckless.
AnimalNet is produced by the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph, and is supported by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, AgCare, the Agricultural Adaptation Council (CanAdapt Program), Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, ConAgra Foods, Inc., Pioneer Hi-Bred Limited (Canada), Meat and Livestock Australia, National Pork Board, Canadian Animal Health Institute, Ontario Pork, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Turkey Federation, National Food Processors Association, Ontario Farm Animal Council, Feedlot Health Management Services, Syngenta Crop Protection, Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Livestock Development Division, Office of Consumer Affairs, Burger King, The Dairy Farmers of Ontario, BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Canadian Institute for Food Inspection and Regulation, National Meat Association, Verner Wheelock Associates Limited, UC Davis Biotechnology Program, Consumer Federation of America Foundation, Optibrand, Canadian Livestock Genetics Association, Tactix Government Consulting, Inc., Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management Inc., Urbana Veterinary Clinic, Saugeen River Farms and Global Public Affairs.
The Food Safety Network’s national toll-free line for obtaining food safety information: 1-866-50-FSNET (1-866-503-7638)
Cantor’s letter in the Montreal Gazette is reprinted, along with the article to which it responded, at the website of CREEK, the County Regional Environmental Evaluation Ko-Alition, a Prince Edward County, Ontario, organization dedicated to protecting ecosystems against harmful waste from factory farms.
See http://www.creekwebsite.org/NewsItems/year2003/news03059.htm for the RPA item, http://www.creekwebsite.org to learn more about CREEK and human-health and ecosystem problems from hog factories.
TGFA EMAIL
April 25, 2003 http://www.tgfa.com/news042503.pdf
The Texas Grain & Feed Association (TGFA, 2630 West Freeway, Suite 100A, Fort Worth, TX 76102 / Phone 817-336-7875 / Fax 817-336-7879 / Email info@tgfa.com), founded in 1898, has over 500 member firms in Texas and the Grain Belt states. TGFA wrote the following in the April 25, 2003, issue of its online newsletter, TGFA EMAIL:
A new animal rights group calling itself Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA) sent letters this week to 20 universities across the country, demanding the schools ban the teaching of animal agriculture at all levels. “Preventing needless animal suffering and deaths is reason enough for universities to stop teaching animal agriculture,” said David Cantor, executive director of the group. “All involved (in agricultural sciences) are linked to those atrocities since all activities in the animal and agribusiness industries, including education and training, are interrelated.” RPA says all animal agriculture education is tied to the meat packing industry and that universities promote killing animals short of their natural life span. “Teaching animal agriculture primarily serves the interests of large private corporations, whose activities are extremely harmful yet profitable and not in the public interest – they should be training their own workers and managers, not relying on university agriculture programs to do so,” said Cantor. RPA calls the program “10,000 Years is Enough,” (sic) referring to the period of time during which man has domesticated animal (sic) to provide food.
RPA was pleased to note that Gamefowl News, an online bulletin dedicated to attacking animal activists and advocates, reviled (so it appears to think!) RPA Executive Director David Cantor and published RPA’s factsheet 10,000 Years Is Enough: Time To Stop Teaching Animal Agriculture in its entirety.
The News‘s April 7, 2003, edition badmouthed Gary Yourofsky of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and J.P. Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States. Then it compared with Goodwin (to animal-exploitation promoters, that is bad!) a statement from a Cantor e-mail that had circulated on some listservs announcing RPA’s 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign and factsheet, and provided the factsheet’s text. (See our 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign page for the factsheet.) Thank you, Gamefowl News!
Gamefowl News
April 7, 2003
http://www.gamefowlnews.com/archives/Mon%2007%20Apr%202003.htm
“My goal is the abolition of all animal agriculture”
Is This Right Up The HSUS “Goodwin Gutter”?
(sic)
On May 7, 2003, AR News published the same RPA e-mail posting Gamefowl News had published one month before, with factsheet, with the headline “New Non-Profit, Abolitionist Organization, Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.” Thank
you, AR News!
The online bulletin Farmed Animal Watch (http://www.farmedanimal.net) – sponsored by Animal Place, Animal Welfare Trust, Compassion in World Farming, Farm Sanctuary, The Fund for Animals, Glaser Progress Foundation, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and United Poultry Concerns – published the following about RPA the day after RPA finished its first mailing asking the heads of the 50 states’ main land-grant universities to help end the teaching of animal agriculture.
Farmed Animal Watch
May 9, 2003
Number 15, Volume 2
ENDING ANIMAL AGRICULTURE EDUCATION
As its premiere campaign, Responsible Policies for Animals (RPA), a new organization based in Glenside, Pa., is contacting universities and asking them to stop teaching animal agriculture. The campaign title, “10,000 Years is Enough,” refers to the amount of time humans are believed to have practiced animal agriculture, which RPA says has now become “a merciless industrial monster.” In a fact sheet, RPA states: “The most destructive changes to animal agriculture have occurred since Congress passed the Morrill Act of 1862 establishing land-grant universities to teach agriculture in the public interest.” It goes on to say that teaching animal agriculture diminishes universities’ credibility and intellectual integrity. The fact sheet explains why “Preventing needless animal suffering and deaths is reason enough” to stop teaching animal agriculture. It also discusses associated resource inefficiency, environmental contamination, health hazards and political problems. The head of the U. of Arizona animal sciences department called the campaign “misguided.” He contends the research is done to benefit animals by improving their lifestyles. He also said the vision of a commercial animal-free world is unattainable due to land limitations and dietary needs. RPA also takes issue with universities funding the “atrocities” of animal-agribusiness industries, which it says is not in the public interest. RPA intends to send a letter to universities in every state.