I recently visited California and met with grassroots activists around the state. They were inspired and engaged in the glow of the Prop 2 victory, and many are now undertaking new efforts to combat factory farming with vigor and optimism. During my time in California, I also spoke at a conference attended by agribusiness corporations (including pharmaceutical companies), trade groups (like the Farm Bureau), and state legislators who represent agribusiness interests across the country. The factory farming industry is worried about the impacts of Prop 2. One farm belt senator told me he was waging ‘war’ against proponents of efforts like Prop 2, while another Midwestern lawmaker said that if a state in the heartland “fell” like California, animal agriculture would never recover, and a Farm Bureau official expressed concerns about the “California influence” on agriculture policy in Washington, DC.  

With each advance the humane community makes, agribusiness will respond.  They are now trying to pass a law in Oklahoma to prevent citizens from enacting initiatives to prevent farm animal cruelty. And other states may try the same. We will need to oppose such undemocratic schemes, which seek to give agribusiness interests control over regulating their own behavior. This is wrong and unacceptable. Can you imagine if the oil industry, or the chemical industry, were given complete control of regulating its behavior?

Factory farms have been operating outside the bounds of acceptable conduct for decades, abusing animals, destroying the environment and threatening public health. But, as agribusiness cruelty and arrogance are exposed, and as citizens step up, change is inevitable.

On Election Day, our nation voted for a new president, capping a wave of optimism and hope among millions. In California, another historic vote took place when Proposition 2 was approved by a wide margin - 63% to 37% - banning some of the most egregious factory farming abuses (veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages) in our nation’s largest agricultural state. By voting Yes on Prop 2, California’s voters made a statement of principle and told the factory farming industry that its abuses are outside the bounds of acceptable conduct in our society.

It is the rare miscreant who condones animal abuse, but tragically cruelty has become the norm on today’s industrialized animal farms. Most citizens are appalled when they learn about how cows, pigs, chickens and other animals are mistreated, and with growing awareness about the animals’ suffering, change is inevitable.

I had the pleasure of celebrating our Prop 2 victory on Election Day with friends and colleagues in Los Angeles. I was elated by our monumental achievement, moved by the generosity and kindness of those in the room, and grateful to be part of a movement that aspires to bring out the best of our humanity.

Photo courtesy of Marisa Miller Wolfson

 

 
Photo courtesy of YesonProp2

I recently visited California and attended a Gala in support of Proposition 2, which was hosted by Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi. The event featured moving performances by Carol King and Moby and raised funds to help air television commercials in California in support of Proposition 2.

Proposition 2 is the most significant effort ever undertaken in the U.S. to protect farm animals from intolerable abuse. It seeks to ban three cruel confinement systems:  veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages, and if successful, will lessen the suffering of 20 million animals. California is the largest agricultural state in the U.S., and it is the sixth largest egg producing state. Enacting Prop 2 will send ripples across the nation and help codify the fundamental principle that all animals (including those exploited in agriculture) deserve to be treated with respect.

I was deeply moved to see so much enthusiasm for Prop 2 among animal advocates in California. But factory farm corporations across the country are raising millions to try and defeat this basic humane measure. We don’t have their resources, but it’s critical that we do whatever we can to advance this crucial effort.

For decades, industrialized animal agriculture has acted with reckless self-entitlement, abusing animals and bullying those who challenge their routine cruelty.  Factory farms mistreat workers, pollute the environment, threaten rural communities and public health, and they manipulate government institutions to avoid responsibility for the harms they cause.

Agribusiness also has quasi governmental institutions, such as the American Egg Board (AEB), which work with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), to promote sales. The American Egg Board’s mission is marketing, and it is prohibited from “influencing government policy or action.” But the AEB  has allocated millions of dollars to help oppose Proposition 2, a citizens’ initiative in California that seeks to ban some of the cruelest types of factory farm confinement - veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages.  The Yes on Prop 2 campaign has sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Egg Board over the unlawful allocation of $3 million to campaign against the enactment of Prop 2 this November.

The factory farming industry routinely misleads citizens in order to maintain its advantageous position and the cruel status quo. A recent op-ed by one of their “experts” made the explicitly false claim that gestation crates are necessary to protect piglets from their mothers. Not only is it nonsensical to say mothers can’t care for their young (as demonstrated here at Farm Sanctuary where pregnant gestation sows recently rescued from Iowa floods have given birth and proven to be fantastic mothers), but there are no piglets in gestation crates in the first place. Gestation crates are where breeding sows are kept during their gestation period.

We must continue to expose abuse, to challenge unethical, dishonest, and illegal behavior, and to demonstrate that as a society we oppose cruelty and injustice. The leading edge of our fight is Prop 2 in California, and it is absolutely critical that we support this vitally important effort.

Nearly 800,000 Californians signed a petition to place the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (Proposition 2) on this November’s ballot.  The measure aims to ban some of the cruelest factory farming confinement systems (veal crates for calves, gestation crates for breeding pigs and battery cages for egg laying hens.) The lives of 20 million animals in California, mostly egg laying hens, are at stake.

Feedstuffs, the Wall Street Journal of agribusiness, published an editorial titled “California Dam Must Not Be Breached” urging industry to dig in and fight Proposition 2, saying that the initiative “will affect all of livestock and poultry production across the entire U.S., if not North America.”  And, in just the last two weeks, animal industries added more than 1 million dollars to their war chest under the dubiously named campaign committee, “Californians for Safe Food.”  In his blog, HSUS President, Wayne Pacelle, suggested a couple more accurate names for the industry committee: “Industrialized Factory Farms Seeking Profits at the Expense of Animals” or the “Committee for Treating Animals Like Objects.”

Agribusiness is mounting a major campaign to defeat this basic humane measure, and money is pouring in from across the U.S. Some of our nation’s most notorious animal abusers are supporting the opposition, including: Moark LLC, a company that paid $100,000 to settle an animal cruelty case after a concerned neighbor videotaped company workers throwing live birds into a dumpster, and Gemperle, a California egg factory with a long history of animal cruelty that was uncovered by Farm Sanctuary in 2005 and 2007, and whose abuses made the news earlier this year after a Mercy for Animals investigation.

It is critical that we dig deep and combat the intolerable cruelty by supporting “Californians for Humane Farms”. 

This year’s Hoe Down in Orland, California was magical.  People came from across the U.S. to connect with animal friends and be immersed among like minded citizens. The community feeling was palpable, commiserating with colleagues, dancing to live music under a warm starry sky, smiling, joyful.

Vegans comprise a tiny segment of the U.S. population (perhaps 1% or 2%). We can sometimes feel different, like outcasts among the mainstream. But at Farm Sanctuary, vegan is normal, and it’s a beautiful thing. We gain peace and strength from each other.


Gene

 

 

 

I visited Chico, California to speak at a Barnes & Noble bookstore.  Like with other talks, I appreciated the participation of audience members, especially when questions come up that I have difficulty answering, like whether or not cats can be vegetarian.  Often, someone in the audience offers a more educated perspective than I.  In Chico, I described some easy vegan dishes, including how I sometimes just heat up noodles with a sauce made of margarine, nutritional yeast, Braggs, salt and pepper.  A woman in the audience grimaced when I mentioned margarine because it can be so unhealthy.  And the group was reminded that it’s better to use certain oils, like olive oil, in place of margarine. 

I also spoke to two agriculture business classes at California State University, Chico, comprised largely of students involved in the farming industry.  They spouted various assumptions that support animal production, including the notions that meat is healthful, that producing it is efficient, and that consumers around the world want more meat. I encouraged them to examine these assumptions, and to consider whether growing plants instead of animals is a more efficient and healthful way to provide food for consumers in the U.S. and abroad.

 

Gene