Iowa,
This op-ed from the Globe Gazette calls for supportive letters to the editor.
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Pork industry should phase out gestation crates (Guest View)
By PAUL SHAPIRO, The Humane Society of the United States
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2007/01/10/opinion/doc45a44853758c8203994884.txt
Posted: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:09 AM CST
With nearly 17 million pigs in the state, Iowa leads the nation in pork production. In fact, there are far more pigs in Iowa than people.
If for no other reason than its status as the top pork-producing state in the union, Iowa’s pork industry would be wise to pay attention to nationwide trends.
This past election, Arizona voters passed a ballot initiative by a landslide 24-point margin prohibiting the confinement of breeding sows in gestation crates. Four years ago, Florida voters did the same.
Yet in Iowa, it is still typical for the pork industry to confine sows — social, intelligent animals — in two-foot-wide gestation crates that are so restrictive they can’t even turn around for months on end.
While most pigs used for pork production have lives that are fairly bleak, breeding sows in particular are abused in ways that are so terrible that any caring person would be revolted to see the cruelty first-hand.
Pigs confined in gestation crates suffer immensely, unable to exercise or engage in nearly any of their natural behaviors. The forced immobilization takes a serious physical and psychological toll, leading to both leg and joint problems along with psychosis resulting from extreme boredom and frustration.
Confinement in gestation crates is so abusive that the entire European Union is phasing out the practice, with a total ban taking effect in 2013.
Numerous American animal scientists also oppose these cruel crates. Farm animal expert Dr. Temple Grandin states, “Gestation crates for pigs are a real problem... Basically, you’re asking a sow to live in an airline seat ... I think it’s something that needs to be phased out.”
It’s not only animal scientists who oppose this type of intensive confinement. Prominent figures on both sides of the political aisle agree that the use of gestation crates is deplorable. If you can get former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., conservative Republican commentator Pat Buchanan and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio — all of whom oppose this specific cruelty — to agree on something, there’s got to be merit to it.
Simply because animals may be raised for food is no reason to abuse them mercilessly. And while most factory farm cruelty is hidden from the public, when Americans find out about routine abuses farm animals endure, they are appalled. As evidenced by the votes in both Florida and Arizona, when given a choice, Americans will ban the intensive confinement of pigs in these abusive crates, and the industry should take note of this rising societal concern.
Any reasonable person can see that confining animals in crates so small they can barely move for months on end is inhumane. Rather than defending a status quo that most Americans consider indefensible, Iowa’s pork industry can assume a leadership role in the movement to end the most egregious factory farming practices by moving away from gestation crate confinement. Both the state and the pigs would be better off for it.
— Paul Shapiro is the director of the Factory Farming Campaign of the Humane Society of the United States, The Humane Society of the United States, 2100 L St. N.W., Washington, DC 20037; phone (301) 721-6446.
(End of Globe Gazette op-ed)
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Date: Wed Jan 10 09:50:14 2007
