Agriculture's Big Picture

Anonymous
Dear PETA Lovers, I have lived in a rural community my whole life. I was raised around livestock and was also raised to be an animal lover... and to EAT THEM! Oh My! Did I just say Love and Eat in the same sentence?!?! I DID! Lets NOT fill my mouth with twisted words- I do NOT agree with treating animals unkind! I believe that the way we treat and kill livestock should have rules and regulations BUT PETA and it's "Holly" a.k.a D-Bag follwers need to chill out and stop pushing their beliefs on young children and everyone else for that matter! If PETA followers want to eat grass and berries go right ahead I could care two sh*ts BUT leave us MEAT and potatoe lovers alone! One last thing - I would like to know...What does PETA think or do to help CHILDREN who live in total HELL?! The Children that are beat by their parents?! Or those who are starving?! How do they feel about this HUGE problem? I could almost bet $ that they don't care or see this issue as being MORE important than who is killing a hog or eating a quarter-pounder with cheese!
1:21 PM Jan 12th

Anonymous
Please don't lump people into groups saying that "most farmers" abuse their animals etc. Don't do that to us and we won't do it to you as I am sure that the majority of people have noble ideas. The farmers I know all value their animals as they provide income and believe it or not, 'most' farmers become very attached to their animals. Surely there must be some way we could work together. And...PETA I challenge you to take a portion of your monies and use those funds to help neglected and abused children.
7:48 PM Jan 3rd

Anonymous
PETA: What does a wolf eat, other animals. Bears eat other animals. Lions eat other animals. Fish eat other fish. Cows eat grass which you would have a hard time digesting. If it were not for the millions of acres of grass and hay that cows turn into beef and milk, then millions of people would have no food to eat.
11:33 PM Dec 28th

Anonymous
I always wondered why members of PETA don't go down' to Sturgis, and throw paint on anyone down there wearing leather from cows killed just recently, instead of picking on little old ladies with 30 year old furs.
2:07 PM Dec 27th

Anonymous
Stupid thing PETA did:
Last week, they got two girls to put yellow bikini's on and stand out on the sidewalk in 20 degrees holding plackards. Most farmers treat their animals better than PETA treats their volunteers.
11:26 PM Dec 26th

Anonymous
Peta is such a pathetic whore of a org. They suck all the donations they possibly can from dups that have never been around nature at all. Nature IS cruel. Almost every animal that is supposedly tortured on the farm would be far worse off in there natural state. On the farm they are fed the best diets, kept warm and content because only a healthy and comfortable animal is profitable. You "do" realize that almost no wild animal dies of old age. Quit listening to the tripe of anti human idiots.
5:51 PM Dec 20th

Tom
Anon Dec 19: http://www.goveg.com/worldhunger.asp
5:03 PM Dec 19th

jerry
I'm getting a kick out of these cat & mouse games, as well.
If PETA found a turkey manager who said he doesn't care if employees kill the birds for fun, both he and the employees should be fired. Funny how you started out with people kicking a pig, saying it was more or less the way a certain slaughterhouse was run, and suddenly it becomes about a turkey farmer.

As for the animals the PETA workers killed, no I don't have any idea how much $$$ it would take to find good homes for every animal in a bad situation. The point I was trying to make is that those particular animals were already in the hands of PETA workers (not some crummy shelter) and the orginazation who has right in their mission statement something to the effects that animals should have the right to as long and comfortable life as they can live, were put to death by those very same people (when they thought no one was looking). While I don't expect PETA to find homes for every wayward animal, I thought it was above them to kill otherwise healthy animals. I'm one of those 'heartless' ranchers, and I have never killed a dog or cat once it was in my care, but then again, my business relies on proper care of animals, not exploiting them for donations.
Recent research shows that many plants DO feel pain http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/065njdoe.asp http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/plantbio/1994-December/004565.html
Also, I am not trying to make light of spraying the hog with the marker, I was just pointing out it was designed to be non-toxic, wheras spray paing is not. Lastly, I'm STILL waiting for you to substantiate your claim that you made on Dec 12th that slaughterhouses have gestation crates. Saying that some producers are phasing them out is a different subject completely. You said that SLAUGHTERHOUSES have them, which I have never seen, and you have yet to substantiate. Everything I have said, I either have posted a link to prove (whether or not you believe the link is up to you, but you have come up with no proof my link was wrong (other than it was from someone you don't like). You have also proven my point that no matter how humanely the animals would be treated, you would still be against the farmers/ranchers/processers in the meat chain simply because it is animals for food.


2:35 PM Dec 19th

Dale
If PETA would spend their money on something like buying and distributing food for hungry people around the world then they could start tooting their horn about animal abuse. Until the day when no one on this earth is hungry then we need to supply them with all the food we can possibly raise and that includes MEAT.
7:13 PM Dec 18th

Anonymous
Tom: Just wondering, Do you ever eat any beef, lamb, pork, fish, any kind of meat or drink milk or eat any cheese or ice cream or eat any eggs? People who do not get malnurished and die.
7:05 AM Dec 17th

Tom
Jerry: Oh, as far as substantiating the gestation crate claim... what is there to say? They are only banned in a few states and the largest pork producer in the US is phasing them out over the next 10 years. soooo.. I don't know what else to tell you.
4:48 PM Dec 16th

Linda Smith
Sorry I haven't responded personally to Tom's original post before now. I didn't say I don't care about suffering or that I don't do something to try to help it. I do--through other and often much more personal venues. I can't applaud all of PETA's tactics--take for example, giving out free CDs to a bunch of teens at a rock concert if they would sign a petition, the contents of which they have no clue. The reason we DID post the blog is that we, too, note that PETA is finding far too much of this. Hence my comment that every farmer should get it right up close and personal. It only takes one to damage an entire industry--and there's clearly more than one out there committing the sin of abuse of one sort or another. Any farmer who thinks the folks behind animal welfare are a few crackpots had better wake up and smell the manure--their extreme message is what city kids and adults--and our politicians--are hearing and heeding!
2:16 PM Dec 16th

Tom
Jerry: Also, there was recently an investigation into a Hormel pig farm that resulted in a lot of criminal charges on the workers. There are several videos containing crates that pigs are placed in, unable to move. Not to mention spray paint being shot up the nose and in the face of one pig. Another crippled pig being beaten and kicked.

Like you said, there are idiots in every group - but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be answered for.

Let's rag on peta for bringing these truths to light when no one else will. USDA certainly won't, and while all the farmers say "oh it's just extremes!" You certainly don't hear any stories of farmers fighting hard to expose these travesties.
10:35 AM Dec 16th

Jerry
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/

click here if you want to see some of the 'other' things PETA has been doing.
12:12 PM Dec 15th

Tom
Anon 6:03am: You know that for a fact, do you? Weird then that my uncle grows Corn AND Soy in bulk, in Iowa. Not to mention other things.

Since when did I want to put farmers out of business? "Growing" animals for slaughter is lame business thats terrible for our health and the planets health.

Plus, the fact that stopping here doesn't stop it everywhere isn't exactly intimidating.


10:04 AM Dec 15th

Anonymous
Tom: When you get all the farmers in this country out of business, all the food that you eat will have to be imported and it will cost more and it will not stop any of the farts because it will only move them to other countries
5:03 AM Dec 14th

Anonymous
copied from http://www.americansportingdogalliance
Pocketbook Animal Rights - The `Fart Tax' and You by JOHN YATES American Sporting Dog Alliance http://www.americansportingdogalliance.org asda@... As if there isn't enough to worry about, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is telling us that cow farts are hurting the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. You can stop laughing now. It's true! No kidding! EPA actually is proposing to regulate farmers and ranchers to protect us from emissions from flatulent hogs and cows. The deadline for comments on the proposed anti-fart regulations passed quietly a week ago. If the regulations are approved, farmers and ranchers with at least 25 head of livestock will be taxed at $175 per dairy cow, $87.50 per beef cow and $20 per hog. Preposterous, you might say, and you're right. But we would call it something else. We would call it calculated and deliberate. It stems directly from the animal rights agenda, which is aimed at eliminating animals from American life, including animals that produce meat, milk, eggs and wool. The goal is to reinvent America as a vegan vegetarian society. We imagine that many of you are still laughing, and some of you might be wondering if we're nuts. It is preposterous! America loves a good t-bone, Big Macs, milkshakes and eggs fried in sausage drippings. Yum. You are correct in thinking that Americans will not allow meat, eggs and dairy products to be removed from our lives. Surveys show that more than 95-percent of us eat meat and love every bite we can get, and we would never agree to give it up. What you may not be thinking is that no one is planning to give us that choice. In fact, the animal rights groups' strategy is to not even bring up the subject. The following analysis can be seen as a case study of one major way that the animal rights agenda actually is being implemented in America today. While this example is about the planned elimination of meat, eggs and dairy products from our lives, slight variations in the same strategy also are being used to eliminate companion animals, circuses, rodeos and hunting. The animal rights groups may be evil personified, but their leaders aren't dumb. They know that Americans will not give up animal products voluntarily, and they aren't going to try the direct approach. They'd lose, and they know it. Their tactic is to indirectly and gradually take away our ability to choose to eat meat. The strategy is to make animal products too expensive for people to use and enjoy regularly, and also to make farming unprofitable and more hassle than it's worth. Did you notice how the price of beef skyrocketed after the "mad cow disease" scare a couple of years ago? In about a month, most cuts of beef went up by about two dollars a pound. The reason is that meat producers were assessed for the cost of a massive federal inspection and regulatory program, and for developing a way to track each animal from the slaughterhouse back in time to the place of its birth. Suddenly, a halfway decent steak costs $10 a pound. If you're lucky, you can find it on sale for $6.99 or so. Maybe. How many people can afford that? For most people, a juicy t-bone steak probably always has been only an occasional treat, perhaps once or twice a month. Now, it has become once or twice a year. Have you noticed how small the meat section has become in most grocery stores? Have you noticed how small the portions have become? I define a good steak as one pound or larger and marbled with fat. Most steaks in the grocery store are a little more than half that size today. The meat looks like the cow was anorexic and it takes a chainsaw to cut it. Part of the reason is the artificially high price of beef, which we'll document below. Another part of it is the health scare about cholesterol. While cholesterol is a valid health concern for many people, the animal rights groups are exploiting this and other health issues to try to make people afraid to eat much meat. I recall a billboard along I-35 in Dallas that was a photo of former President Ronald Reagan, linking his meat eating preferences with Alzheimer's disease. Guess who sponsored this crude and tasteless billboard? It wasn't the American Medical Association. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) paid for the billboard. If Alzheimer's doesn't get you, "mad cow" disease or cholesterol will. That's the message. Meat already is being heavily taxed because of the brief "mad cow" disease scare. Now, EPA wants to tax it more because of cow fart emissions. What's next? A tax on meat because of its health risks similar to the extra taxes on cigarettes? Yep. Give `em time. It won't be long before some governmental agency proposes a big tax on every pound of meat to pay for "prevention" programs in the schools and social services agencies, mirrored after the tobacco use prevention campaigns. You'll know the time has come when you start to see news reports about meat eaters driving up the cost of health insurance. Enter the $20 a pound t-bone steak. Exit meat from many people's budgets. That's the plan, but it doesn't stop here. Another big step is the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which currently is "voluntary" but is expected to become mandatory soon. The NAIS plan is to license every location that produces poultry and livestock, and to assign each farm or ranch owner a unique identification number (that also applies to someone who owns a horse, or a couple of 4H goats). Then, at some point, every domestic animal and bird on American farms will be microchipped to identify its place of birth, and it will be tracked on computer all the way from the farm to the grocery store. Guess how much that is going to cost? Guess who will pay for it? Microchips can be purchased in bulk today for about $1.50 apiece. Suddenly the $3 frying chicken sold at the grocery store for $1.39 a pound has become a $4.50 chicken. Add in the cost of bureaucracy and additional expenses for farmers, shippers and slaughterhouses, and it becomes a $6.50 chicken. A lot of Americans won't be able to afford to eat much chicken at those prices. It looks like a good time to invest your money in bean burrito company stock. And that is precisely the plan! The bureaucratic and compliance costs of NAIA will be enormous. Imagine what it will take to constantly track a truckload of 10,000 chickens individually on computers! What's the justification for these costs? "Bird flu," of course, even though no form of this poultry disease that is communicable to humans has ever been found in the Americas. The animal rights groups know exactly what they are doing. They find something scary about meat (Alzheimer's disease, cholesterol, "Mad Cow" disease or "bird flu") and then work quietly behind the scenes to exploit it. They have a lot of flunky newspaper and TV reporters in their pockets, and a lot of bureaucrats are smelling a lot of job security. And soon a frying chicken will cost $6.50.for a small one. The other side to NAIS is the burden to farmers and the rest of the food industry. Can you imagine the cost to a farmer of microchipping 100,000 chickens a month! How many employees will the farmer have to hire? How many fines will farmers face for microchips that come out? How many people will the trucking companies and slaughterhouses have to employ to scan a few million chickens a day for microchips? Maybe it will be a $7.50 chicken, if we're lucky. "What's for supper, Honey?" "Two chicken McNuggets and beans, Sweetheart." That's the plan. NAIS will be applied first to cattle, hogs and poultry, but also to horses. A person who owns a couple of pleasure horses would have to report to the federal computer anytime they take a ride off of their property. Lord help them if they want to travel with their horses! Many people believe dogs and cats will be next for NAIS. Another prong in the animal rights plan is to regulate or eliminate what they allege are cruel "factory farming" practices, such as raising hens for egg production in battery cages. Farmers defend these practices, saying that all of the known needs of chickens are being met, and also that these methods keep the cost of food reasonable so that poor and working class people can afford to have better diets. But the farmers lost a big battle last month with the overwhelming voter approval of Proposition 2 in California. Following this referendum, almost every egg farm in California will be put out of business. Only free range chickens, or chickens kept in traditional henhouses, will be permissible. Expect the cost of a dozen eggs to jump to $3 or so. Make it $4 when you factor in NAIS, and $5 when you add the cost of "bird flu" insurance. Don't worry. You'll enjoy bean McMuffins. Look for a law resembling Proposition 2 to become nationwide within the next few years. Of course, you can't have a law without also having cops to enforce it. Every one of these programs will open up every farm in America to unannounced inspections, visits by animal cruelty officers and even vigilante spies from animal rights groups. How much money will farmers have to spend on attorney fees, paying fines for technical violations (the chicken that lost its microchip), or rebuilding facilities, upgrading computer systems and hiring new employees? How many farmers will say "enough is enough" and throw in the towel? How many people will be able to afford to buy milk at $8 a gallon, eggs at $5 a dozen, steaks at $20 a pounds, hamburger at $10 or sausage at $12? We saw the same thing happen in a different form this year, when HSUS exposed cruelty at a California slaughterhouse. A video showed a downer cow being pushed with a loader. It was a cruel act by a callous employee. But the firestorm of protest over that incident brought a host of new federal regulations and increased inspections of slaughterhouses, even though the incident was a clear violation of existing laws and regulations by a single employee. The problem could have been solved easily and simply, but it wasn't. Instead, your steak went up another 50-cents a pound. "Dollars-and-cents" is the most effective strategy the animal rights groups have discovered. Who cares if you want to eat meat if you can't afford to buy it! Your choices become a moot point. No matter where you look, activists and social reformers want to use money to limit your choices. Environmentalists want gasoline to cost $20 a gallon, so you'll use less of it. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) wants a hamburger to cost $15 at McDonalds, so that you'll eat your veggie burgers and shut up. They want gasoline to be expensive, because this will drive up the price of corn used for animal feed and fuel to transport all of America's foodstuffs, and thus the price of meat for consumers. If gasoline rises to $10 a gallon, you won't be eating much meat. HSUS wants to make you pay a few thousand dollars for liability insurance to own a gun, so that you won't be able to afford to go hunting. Thus, hunting can be eliminated without any politician ever having to cast a vote to do it. And they also want the price of a puppy to be about $5,000, so that only rich people will be able to afford one and the vast majority of Americans will forget what it is like to love and be loved by a dog. Wars have been won without ever firing a shot. And the animal rights war will be won in your pocketbook, if you don't wise up. The American Sporting Dog Alliance represents owners, breeders and professionals who work with breeds of dogs that are used for hunting. We welcome people who work with other breeds, too, as legislative issues affect all of us. We are a grassroots movement working to protect the rights of dog owners, and to assure that the traditional relationships between dogs and humans maintains its rightful place in American society and life. The American Sporting Dog Alliance also needs your help so that we can continue to work to protect the rights of dog owners. Your membership, participation and support are truly essential to the success of our mission. We are funded solely by the donations of our members, and maintain strict independence. Please visit us on the web at http://www.americansportingdogalliance.org. Our email is ASDA@...
8:54 AM Dec 13th

Anonymous
Gez, I think PETA should ride in with white semi's, buy all of the abused animals, whisk them away and furnish a place for them to live out the rest of their lives in an animal paradise. I know PETA can do this, don't ya think? Ah, but will they!
8:40 PM Dec 12th

Tom
Greg: Your statement only shows how little you yourself know about PETA. Irresponsible? How? By showing people the truth of the situation?

Put aside your extremes. Put aside individual workers having fun beating and raping animals. How is it any better to have so many animals crammed so tightly in the average slaughter house?

Do gestation crates not exist in the slaughterhouses you frequent? Battery Cages? Veal Crates?

Are the animals on your average farm not pumped full of anti biotics and growth hormone in order to keep them alive and fat when they stand in their own feces?

The chickens in your slaughter houses of the happy and humane must love having their beaks removed by a hot blade. sounds like a blast to me! Your own underhanded comments about how peta only uses extremes are laughable at best - I'm sure PETA could get their "well paid" (HAH) writers to sit around and SAY that the slaughterhouses are bad, but at the end of the day they've got footage and all you've got is mean things to say.
4:23 PM Dec 12th

Tom
Greg: Your statement only shows how little you yourself know about PETA. Irresponsible? How? By showing people the truth of the situation?

Put aside your extremes. Put aside individual workers having fun beating and raping animals. How is it any better to have so many animals crammed so tightly in the average slaughter house?

Do gestation crates not exist in the slaughterhouses you frequent? Battery Cages? Veal Crates?

Are the animals on your average farm not pumped full of anti biotics and growth hormone in order to keep them alive and fat when they stand in their own feces?

The chickens in your slaughter houses of the happy and humane must love having their beaks removed by a hot blade. sounds like a blast to me! Your own underhanded comments about how peta only uses extremes are laughable at best - I'm sure PETA could get their "well paid" (HAH) writers to sit around and SAY that the slaughterhouses are bad, but at the end of the day they've got footage and all you've got is mean things to say.
4:22 PM Dec 12th

American Farmer
How can PETA achieve tax exempt status since they do so much lobbying to state legislatures and the federal congress? Congress and the feds need to study PETA's 501c3 compliance, instead of the many individual churches and the religious based hosptitals that are doing charity work within our communities.
3:55 PM Dec 12th

Tom
Hah.

So you post a well written donation email that merely proves that their are huge problems in the agriculture industry to show that you are worse of a person for not doing anything about it?

A small blog saying you don't care about suffering and that all PETA is doing is showing people the extremes really proves a point, ya?

Where are the videos where the animals are blissfully happy before a humane slaughter? I'm confused, you act like something like that exists by claiming that the videos peta releases are extremes.

It's just odd that time and time again, slaughterhouse after slaughterhouse there are these "extreme" cases of wrong doing.

Well it's a good thing you're here to post an email with PETAs successes and say how you do nothing to make the industry you support better in anyway.

Great blog!!
2:34 PM Dec 12th