You may have recently heard that McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants will soon be requiring their pork supplies to phase out the use of gestation stalls in their operations. This is a result of pressure from the HSUS‘s attempts to bully the agricultural community into submission. What the HSUS can’t accomplish through direct government intervention (by sponsoring legislation aimed at crippling agriculture) they do by deceiving consumers through the spread of lies and misinformation. This latest effort targets pork producers, in particular, by making the assertion that the use of gestation stalls for the raising of hogs is both inhumane and unhealthy. Naturally, the HSUS misrepresents the issue, but when consumers fail to do their homework and simply take the HSUS at face value, the end result is bad for agriculture.
Chris Chinn presents a thoughtful and informative essay explaining why both barns and gestation stalls are actually good things, both for agriculture and for consumers. The video embedded below provides a great thumbnail sketch in support of the types of facilities used to raise hogs, and Chris includes another video at the bottom of her essay that shows a real, live hog operation. I highly recommend you read (and watch) the whole thing.
Diana Prichard provides another fresh perspective exposing the fallacy that commercial agriculture is bad and that farmers care about nothing but making money. (And believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. If you want to make buckets full of cash, agriculture is probably not the career path you should choose.)
The HSUS is bad news, and it’s unfortunate that so many people and organizations are willing to accept what they say at face value — which is why those of us in agriculture are speaking up and providing actual truth. And the truth is, far and away the vast majority of livestock farmers actually do care about the quality of life of the animals in their care.
[via HumaneWatch]
