A Glance Into Factory Farms In the United States

“For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same: as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath and humans have no advantage over the animals for all is vanity” –Ecclesiastes 3:19

What would you do if you knew someone you trusted had been lying to you for your entire life? And not only were you being lied to, but there were new laws being formed and passed that further covered up these lies. Chances are you would not be very happy. When you buy a cheeseburger at McDonald’s or chicken breast at the grocery store you usually don’t think about where it comes from. Or if you do, you picture a quaint little farm with some chickens and cows and pigs, and yes they are being raised to be slaughtered, but they had a good life while it lasted—right? You probably would never imagine that these farms pack their animals so tightly, a lot of them don’t even make it to the slaughtering, or that the beaks and wings of chickens are torn off and they’re boiled, all while still conscious. And you definitely didn’t imagine pigs hanging upside down waiting for their throats to be slit, so they can slowly bleed to death, or getting their heads caught in the throat cutting machines and ripped from their bodies. Even if you decided to do some research and Googled the farms that provide your meat, the likelihood of you finding anything truly disturbing is very small. It takes serious digging to get down to the facts, and even then there are a lot of unanswered questions. Some of you may still be thinking, “Why should I care?” but the way these animals are treated are not only hurting them, it is also detrimental to our environment and human health. So what is really behind the walls of the factory farms that distribute the majority of meat and animal products in the United States?

The first things worth noting are the laws currently put in place to protect animals from such horrific abuse. None. Not one law regulates how the animals are treated prior to their deaths or the manner in which they are slaughtered. In addition to not controlling the methods used on these farms, there are also laws in place that protect the farms from the public finding out about the abuse called the “Ag Gag” law. This prevents journalists and animal rights activists from taking entry-level jobs in order to uncover what goes on behind closed doors, without the owners consent. This could be anything from animal abuse to illegal activities like environmental and labor violations. “It was in early 2011 that Ag Gag bills were introduced in Iowa, New York, Minnesota, and Florida. The bills stated that anyone would be criminalized if involved in visual documentation of animal cruelty or abuse, in agricultural and industrial facilities without the permission of the facility owner. Obviously, big agriculture facilities supported this bill” (Morello, Alex Kindle Locations 309-312). It sounds to me like this is a direct violation of our First Amendment rights as Americans, and the public has a right to know the truth. If the owners aren’t going to tell us, they should not have a right to deny other people the right to tell the truth. Since 2011, more than half of state legislatures also added Ag-gag bills. In addition to violating our rights, “the Ag Gag laws protect the slaughterhouses that regularly send sick and dying animals into our food supply, and would prevent some of the biggest food safety recalls in U.S. history”, according to Cody Carlson, a former investigator for Mercy For Animals and the Humane Society of the United States. It is clear that we should not only focus on creating laws to protect animals from inhumane slaughters, but also on abolishing laws that prevents the public from knowing how the meat they are consuming is being made.

Tyson Foods Inc. (Hillshire Brands’ parent) is one of the largest and most notorious brands that have horrendous animal conditions at their supplier factory farms. One investigator even reported “[workers kicking] piglets like soccer balls, whipped them around by their hind legs, smashed them into concrete floors, and threw them high into the air”. Tyson foods is the largest meat producer in the world, one of the largest companies in the United States, and with a revenue of almost $35 billion dollars, ranked number two in the Fortune 500. Clearly, money is not an issue, so producing mass quantities of animals at a low cost does not need to be done to the extent they are taking it in order to make a profit.

However, I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt so I traveled to the Tyson Foods website to see what they had to say. What I found was not exactly incriminating, but certainly seemed like they had something to hide. When I got to the main page I was greeted by a smiling family with the promise of good food bringing them together. Upon further investigation, I found their “Animal Well Being” page that had a very posed picture of a smiling woman holding a baby pig at the top. The animal well-being mission statement was extremely brief and starts off by ensuring consumers that “Tyson Foods is committed to the well-being, proper handling and humane slaughter of all the animals we use to produce meat and poultry” (Donnie Smith, CEO). It then goes on to say that “The Tyson Foods FarmCheck® Program, which involves on-farm animal welfare audits, as well as our Farm Animal Well- Being Research Program and Animal Well-Being Advisory Committee, each provide added assurance of our commitment” (Donnie Smith, CEO). While this does say that they are committed to the well-being of their animals, it does not provide much information on what the audits consist of, who runs the research program, and who is a part of the advisory committee or what work they do on a day to day basis. So I had to keep digging. As I found the “Animal Housing” page I was immediately shocked that the main picture was a cartoon drawing of a barn in a field. They state that all of their chickens and turkeys are raised in barns without cages or pens, but without pictures made available of the actual living conditions how are we supposed to know how packed these barns really are? Even if there are no cages or pens, they could still be in overflowing barns with an uncomfortable living situation. In addition to very vague information on their dedication to the well-being of animals, the factory farms that have been accused of animal abuse choose not to make comments in response to the pieces that journalists release. The failure to provide adequate information to the public combined with the silence from factory farm owners leads me to further believe in their guilt.

Similarly, Smithfield Food Inc., the largest pork producer in the world, has had numerous undercover investigations in which animal abuse has been uncovered. It has been reported that premature piglets in the gestation cages fall through the slats into the manure pits, the piglets who are not premature are mishandled and tossed into carts, and older pigs have been shot in the forehead with captive bolt guns and thrown in dumpsters still alive and breathing. These large corporations are greedy and care about nothing other than making a quick buck. The difference, however, with Smithfield Food is their voice on the matter. In researching their claims on the animal care they provide I was pleased to discover actual photographic proof of the housing conditions with pigs in spacious pens. They also affirm that they “are committed to keeping animals safe, comfortable, and healthy. As the world’s largest pork producer, [they] have a responsibility to be a leader in animal care” (Smithfield Food). It is very clearly shown that despite claims made against them, in recent years they have made great strides on creating better facilities for their animals. This is strong evidence that the voices of animal rights activists are not lost in the crowd.

Despite some huge companies, such as Tyson, that supply the majority of people’s meat, there are also some other large companies in addition to Smithfield, that are trying to make changes. McDonald’s was the first major fast food company to come up with a definite timetable for eliminating gestation crate confinement of breeding pigs for its pork supply. Burger King soon after decided they would have all of their eggs and pork coming from cage-free chickens and pigs by 2017, and is thus far the most promising major fast food chain. There are also companies, such as Chipotle, that have always gotten 100 percent of their meat from gestation-crate-free producers, and Whole Foods, that have signs to tell the customers exactly how the animals were raised for what they are buying. In addition to companies focusing on the improvement of animal conditions from their suppliers, in 2015 the states that previously voted in Ag-gag bills have been questioning them, influenced most recently by the ruling from a federal judge that ruled the Ag-gag law in Idaho unconstitutional. It seems that the future for the treatment of animals is looking a little brighter, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

As consumers in America we need to be very careful about what companies we are supporting and putting money into. You wouldn’t buy a cell phone from Amazon without reading the description, looking at customer feedback, seeing pictures and buying from a highly rated seller. Why should where your food comes from be any different?