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Vol. LXII, No. 11
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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Vol. LXII, No. 11
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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The recent recall by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of many tons of tainted beef was clear evidence that all is not right in the world of agribusiness. Animal rights activist Gene Baur could have told you that a long time ago.
Since 1986, Mr. Baur, who spoke at Labyrinth Books Saturday, has run Farm Sanctuary, a place in California that, as its name indicates, provides a safe haven for animals. These animals are not endangered species. They are “downed animals,” sick and badly treated, often left on “dead piles” to be slaughtered for meat.
Mr. Baur has documented his first-hand observations of the appalling conditions imposed on animals at factory farms in new a book, Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Mind About Animals and Food. Publishers Weekly described the book as “well-argued,” and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. called it “a compelling testament to the need to civilize this industry and end its radical practices for producing meat, dairy, and eggs.”
Animals as Products
“Like all animals, farm animals deserve to be treated with respect and compassion,” Mr. Baur remarked, adding, “That is the antithesis of what is happening. They are treated as commodities.” This treatment includes the use of “gestation crates,” in which animals are unable to walk around. Mr. Baur described one operation in Minnesota that was actually known as “the pizza pen,” where “tired, worn-out sows,” were treated like “production units,” and eventually “ground up for pepperoni.”
Mr. Baur, who is now a vegan, had a fairly typical childhood, growing up in Los Angeles in a family that ate meat, milk, and eggs. He even admits to having been in television commercials for McDonald’s. Traveling around during his college years exposed him to surprisingly unsavory agricultural practices. Watching the Amish and Mennonites at close hand, for example, he discovered an “attitude not as gentle as I thought.”
Indoctrination at School
Animal science classes at Cornell University, where professors warned students about animal rights activists “lurking” among the facilities, proved equally disillusioning to Mr. Baur. He described the “de-sensitization” and “acculturation” of his classmates as they were taught some of the more unappealing practices of the trade, like pulling off pigs’ tails to prevent them from chewing on each others’ tails in too-close quarters, and cutting “notches” in piglets’ ears for identification purposes. When the piglets who underwent such cutting treatment were found dead the next day having bled to death, teachers insisted that something was wrong with the pigs — not the practice, Mr. Baur said.
Farmers see animals as “a leg” or particular cut of meat, said Mr. Baur, rather than as a “feeling animal.” At Farm Sanctuary, he noted, “we look at these animals in a different way than agribusiness, and they get to live out their lives.” Pointing out that a sow would quite reasonably be hostile and in attack mode after her piglets were taken away, he disputed what he described as the typical farmer’s notion that animals are dangerous and need to reined in, in ever-tighter cages.
In addition to publicizing the poor treatment of farm animals, Mr. Baur ardently touted vegan practices, citing the far-reaching, negative consequences of meat-eating. He described how agribusinesses displace small farms, create toxic atmospheres, and actually cause major changes in land use; the Colorado River, for example, no longer reaches the ocean because it has been diverted so many times to support industrial farming. A “vegan world” may be a radical concept, he noted, but “so is quadruple bypass surgery. Killing animals is like killing ourselves.”