We live in a country where animal-protection advocacy is overshadowed by indifference: beaten elephants still travel in our circuses; the seal hunt is a fur-export industry, backed by the government; hog and chicken barns repeatedly go up in flames — killing thousands of animals — and there’s significantly less public outrage than there was for the sled-dog massacre in Whistler this winter.
I have come to the U of M campus for the past five or six or maybe even seven years — memory fails me, it’s the caged existence I lead — to participate in Environmental Awareness Week. I stand in a sow stall, with a sign that explains how I spend my entire life in this cage, where I cannot even turn around and, pardon the image, defecate where I doze. The pork producers split hairs: “not for your entire life,” they say.
OK, OK: I get to be walked to another cage to have piglets and then walked back to be re-inseminated.
I would like to point out that I come to campus for five days out of the year, in order to ask that consumers support new methods of pork production — the kind that will allow me to use my legs and maybe root around in some kind of material.
I don’t come with the volunteers to supposedly faculty bash, as a contributor to the Manitoban wrote last year. I don’t come to directly and negatively attack pork producers; I come with the volunteers to show consumers what is hidden from sight and how they can begin to choose a system that doesn’t involve such narrow cages.
Let’s do the math: For the other 350 or so days, nobody disturbs the status quo on campus, and the links between corporate pork production, the students and uncritical meat-eating stay firm. So, here’s my question: Why have I not been allowed back on campus this year during Environmental Awareness Week?
Surely, the very existence of intensive livestock operations (ILOs) in Manitoba qualifies as an environmental concern. As my caged sow-comrades can attest, the system results in a lot of water usage and a lot of manure held in big lagoons. And what about the lives of animals in these ILOs? Aren’t they part of the environment, too?
I have not been allowed back this year because UMREG — the recycling and environment group who runs the Awareness Week — says they are tired of the conflict between those who support what they call “independent gestation accommodations” (i.e. sow stalls or gestation crates) and those who advocate for a system in which pigs can move around a bit. UMREG does amazing things. Thank God for them. But they want some kind of conflict-free zone for environmental advocacy here, something on a smaller scale.
At least one of their members feels that the faculty of agriculture is being subjected to woeful unfairness — that it isn’t fair to them to come out against gestation crates and intensive pig production. “The piglets are crushed otherwise,” an UMREG rep told one of our volunteers, who had to respond: “You’re mixing up farrowing crates with gestation crates.”
Funny, the agriculture student who wrote “Behind the Steel Cages” merged the two different crates, too. To clarify: We’re not talking about piglet fatalities here. We’re talking about pregnant sows, held so tightly for months and months that they face one direction for most of their lives.
The fact that the faculty of agriculture seems to have a pretty significant voice on campus doesn’t seem to figure in this concept of balance, fairness and representation. I suppose a pig in a cage with some pamphlets for a week can overshadow the presence of an entire a faculty. The pig in the cage at a table is not meant to be hostile. It is meant to initiate consumer awareness of a production process.
The hostility comes from the repeated accusations that the volunteers are no “better than dog walkers” who lie. Where is the lie? Ninety per cent of the breeding sows in this province are held in gestation crates, until they’re moved to a farrowing crate for a brief period. And, then back they go. That is the life of a female pig in this province and country: A few years of entrapment between two types of cages and then we’re trucked off to slaughter.
A brief moment on campus — in which industrial meat production could be held accountable and brought into dialogue — has been lost. How is it possible that UMREG has succumbed to the pressure of those who endorse the intensive confinement of farm animals?
Signed,
Penelope, the papier mâché pig, and dictated to Julie Guard and Dana Medoro, members of the farm animal welfare committee of the Winnipeg Humane Society.
Excellent commentary! Please don’t stop trying to spread the word. People NEED TO KNOW and ‘they’ (including all those benefiting from or afraid of big agriculture) will do anything to stop people from knowing the truth. It’s completely and utterly barbaric! It must stop. I sometimes acutally feel like I’m losing my mind when I think about the poor farm animals, and so very helpless.
“Conflict-free zone for environmental advocacy”? That about sums up the absurdity of it, Penelope. Is this a Western university or a Saudi madrasah? You wouldn’t be welcome in a madrasha either, Pen, because you’re not halal. For UMREG your fatal flaw is being politically incorrect. And that’s literally fatal for you and your hundreds of thousands of chronically oppressed and abused slave labour sisters in this province.
Brilliant! Succinct, well-worded and so important. Thank you for your dedication to this important issue, and know that there are people out there who are fighting for you Ms. Penelope! I will be linking to this article on my upcoming piece on pork production, found on my site here: http://www.theveganomaly.com Feel free to follow me on twitter, or ‘like’ it on FB. Thank you again for this excellent piece!
For the animals,
Shannon
It is insanity, mindless cruelty, and consumers are in the end the ones responsible for simply being greedy and turning a blind eye to this crime. I pray for the day that the pork industry goes pork belly up.
Anybody got a craving for bacon? I do…
Listen up girls, nobody cares.
Why?
Because we aren’t emotional cripples.
Listen up, Chris: how are you “nobody” and “we” at the same time?
And aren’t you the “emotional cripple” here? i.e. the nobody who doesn’t care?
No wonder the planet and all its creatures on it are in trouble, with such bacon-craving stupidity out there.
Wow, these two are commentating as a Papier-mâché pig… and people are answering the pig?
With all their opinions in this piece, it is interesting that they fail to mention how these gestation crates came to be and what the pork industry is currently doing.
If these women, and Penelope, did not have their blinders on, they would know that these crates were originally institutionalized to protect pigs from each other. Pigs are aggressive by nature and would do things like trample other smaller pigs, which made the switch to these crates make sense over 20 years ago make sense.
Now, the Manitoba pork industry is responding to the public and has committed to get rid of gestation crates by 2025. There is no need for Penelope anymore. Well unless these women still like hearing themselves speak
Oh Alyssa, how sad. Intense cruelty in the name of protecting animals from themselves.
There’s no commitment. You might want to read the P.R. pamphlet a little closer.
Another barn fire in Manitoba: 8,000 chickens burned alive two days ago.
While I do think that stalling is inhumane, I think this writer totally misses the point- show students that there are other options. Ethically sourced pork is available, locally. If you take 5 minutes you can find pork which is allowed to roam. Example: Local Meats and Frozen treats. Winnipeg Humane Society also has a list. Put the power back into the hands of the consumer – vote with your dollar. It costs the same as the stuff from the grocery store, but tastes better.
Environmental Awareness Week (EAW) is an annual event that is organized by UMREG, a handful of students, with the aim to educate and inspire the university community about ongoing environmental issues. Each year, EAW focuses on a certain theme: two years ago it was waters issues, last year was food issues and this year was “What can you do for the environment?” in order to offer pratical, hands-on skills on how to incorporate environmental sustainability into everyday life. To fulfill this theme, UMREG offered workshops on bike maintenance, seed starting, vermi-composting and crocheting and invited displays from organizations such as F.O.O.D. (Fresh Options Organic Delivery), MAFRA, Green Action Centre and the Manitoba Eco-Network.
It is true that this year, after many years of participation, UMREG did not invite the Humane Society (and Penelope) to attend this year’s EAW. This decision was based on two things: the first is that EAW 2010 had focused almost entirely on hog farming in Manitoba. Last year, UMREG held a five-person panel discussion on the topic as well as having the Humane Society’s display in UC. The second, it was determined that animal welfare was not compatiable with the theme of this year’s EAW and with what UMREG wanted to accomplish with this event. Because the Humane Society has been a long-time participant in EAW, a meeting was held with one of the Humane Society’s volunteers, Dana, to discuss the decision and, at the time, everyone agreed on the reasons and Dana was assured that UMREG had not “succumbed to the pressure of those who endorse the intensive confinement of farm animals”.
As a vegan and an environmental activist, I agree and support the Humane Society’s Quit Stalling campaign, and would welcome seeing more of their presence on campus. I wonder, why wait for the five days a year of EAW to showcase Penelope to the university community when renting a table in UC can easily be done by any group all year round?
Francine
UMREG
Hi Francine,
It was great meeting with you and continue to think/believe/know that UMREG is a god-send. But what Julie and I wanted to discuss here was the sense that Penelope speaks for environmental sustainability in every way and that the notion of fairness to the Faculty of Agriculture (which teaches intensive confinement systems) seemed to be a problem in my discussions with UMREG.
Thank you for your strongly opinionated comment. As a member of the Agriculture industry, I value the opinions of consumers. However, I would like to point out some of the issues I have with your comment piece. Please note, I am writing this from my heart to yours and have no intentions of making any accusations to your opinions. Much like how you wrote your comment with no intentions of ‘directly and negatively attacking pork producers.’
You start your comment piece off by creating a few animal welfare activist ‘scenes’. However, one of your scenes deeply disturbed me: ‘Hog and chicken barns repeatedly go up in flames – killing thousands of animals.” This makes me think that you think that barns are being burn on a regular basis on purpose. I strongly disagree. What kind of person burns their own source of livelihood, the barn housing all of his/her animals, on purpose? I find it interesting that a statement such as this can be made. Personally, I feel that it is an assumption which is made when media sources announce barn fires prior to investigations of the cause it made. Buildings burn down all the time due to electrical fires, lightning, accidents etc., how is it relevant to the level of care given to the animals? As a farmer, you interact with your animals everyday, often the loss of an animal can be as painful as the loss of a pet… why would you put yourself through that?
You then go on to talk about how for the first time in many years you were not permitted to come onto campus during Environmental Awareness Week. Not only was the Humane Society not invited back but the Faculty of Agriculture and food Sciences was not invited nor were any producer groups. Perhaps in the future we should have an Agriculture Awareness Week where all our voices may be heard. May I remind you, this is not the only week in the year which your voice is permitted to be heard. I was surprised to see your comment published and within a week Penelope appeared in University Centre. You made it sound like you weren’t allowed on campus at all. If anything, Environmental Awareness Week is to improve the environment by finding solutions to our environmental problems. If you had attended the “Real Dirt on Farming” lecture offered on campus by Crystal Mackay from the Ontario Farm Animal Council you would have learned that free-range animals often cause many environmental problems in themselves. This could include: damage to the landscape and environment, improper waste management, smell etc. This seems like a counter-productive method of animal production.
From the point of view of an agricultural activist, I am not against your cause in fact I generally support your cause. My one concern is the cost of producing pork in a modified (more humane if you will) way. This comes at a higher cost to consumers and the real question is: how much are consumers willing to pay for their pork? I agree with you, we need to find a better way to produce pork. I think this is the direction the pork industry is going in as well. A recent article in the Western Producer on March 24th outlined this direction (http://www.producer.com/Livestock/Article.aspx?aid=34168). Clearly, your voice is being heard.
In closing, I’d like to ask the Winnipeg Humane Society to work in the same direction as the Manitoba Pork Council and invest in research on non-conventional pork production techniques. This research should include consumer based research to decide weather or not the consumers are willing to move in this direction.
One last note on your last comment before I sign off. I am a student of the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences who has been educated in BOTH intensive confinement systems and alternative systems for pork production.
Before you start attacking the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences maybe you want to step back and think that these students are the future of food. Sustainability is at the forefront of our education, we need to feed 9 billion people by 2050.
DON’T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU.
Go try and raise livestock without deadstock.
Thank you for your comment, KDG. I couldn’t attend Crystal’s talk because I was teaching. However, I remain deeply suspicious of (and opposed to) the idea that free-moving animals cause problems. I think it’s a form of obfuscation on behalf of the system of cages, which must end.
You ask for research into consumer preferences, costs, switching over, etc. Um, may I humbly note that you have an entire faculty dedicated to those questions.
Intensive livestock operations (with caged animals) is being proven time and again to be rife with problems (ammonia, antibiotic usage, etc etc etc) –then it’s time to figure it out and move forward. The Humane Society, as we’ve been asked before by Aggies, doesn’t need to solve the problems the industry creates; it is simply showing consumers production methods and asking them to put their money to free-range operations.
Finally, I have been told repeatedly that the fires are related to “Producers who want out.” In fact, a Hutterite producer just left me that message, in regard to the hog barn fires.
I will leave that information up to you to decide. You may email me later for the exact information and source.
Whether the fires–that killed almost 150,000 chickens and pigs in Canada last year–are accidental or not, they are horrific incidents of the problem of the intensive-confinement system.
I disagree with you that “farmers interact with their animals every day, that their losses are like the loss of a pet”: how is that caring interaction possible in a 20,000 egg-laying hen operation? or in the 8,000 sow-stall operations? Caged animals on this scale are not pets: are they named? are they held and encouraged to move around?
Maybe if the system were smaller and not so vertically integrated and filled with giant operations–maybe things would get better and I could believe you that you see the animals as pets.
BL, nobody’s biting you. We want smaller-scale animal agriculture. And countries who can produce their own food. You are taking a meat-export business and making it about a population crisis. The world does not need pork produced by caged sows. It needs farming justice, diets higher in plants, and clean water.
The Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, as I know it does, allows for critique and debate. No need to ALL-CAPS and YELL!
Another fire: near Lethbridge, 2000 pigs up in flames.
Dana, I am sure we will always have very different opinions on this issue but I would like to continue our conversation just a bit further.
I agree with you, free-range sounds better. But at the same time I think we have to take each stakeholder along the value chain into consideration before assuming free-range is good for the entire system. This would mean: welfare of the animals, health and nutrition of the animals, the exterior and interior environment, consumers, farmers, safety, and the list could go on forever. Personally, I find that many people will buy ‘free-range’ or ‘organic’ without thinking things true. Might I remind you that animals are just like us… we get sick sometimes and when we do we don’t think twice before taking some medicine. Which would you rather: a sick animal with no access to health care or a sick animal who is treated and cared for? In my opinion (its ok if you disagree with me) the only difference between organically raised animals and conventionally raised animals is the fact that conventionally raised animals are treated and cared for when they are sick rather than eliminated from the herd. This will probably bring on another argument involving antibiotic residues. Please keep in mind that products are tested prior to reaching grocery store shelves and would not be permitted on shelves if they had significant if any antibiotics found in them.
Yes, I do ask for research. Forgive me if I am wrong since I am simply an undergraduate student but last time I checked research could not be conducted for free. Question: how much does the Winnipeg Humane Society invest in research to support their causes?
Moving on to the barn fires issue. I would really like to see the source. I still stand by my previous thoughts. It would really surprise me that if barns were being burnt for producers who want out (especially when there is currently a hog producer buy out program in Canada right now) weren’t disciplined by regulating authorities. Believe it or not farmers don`t get away with everything, in fact we are probably one of the most regulated industries in Canada. If barns are being set on fire on purpose, I would expect their would be many people step in to act upon the producers at fault. This would include the humane society and many other stakeholders. People go to jail for abusing their animals and if producers were burning down their barns on purpose, legal consequences would occur. Farming is not a conspiracy theory.
As a farm girl, it hurts me when you say that you disagree that farmers are interacting with their animals on a daily basis. All of my animals have names, anyone who works with them know their individual personalities and they are cared for on individual and group basis. Few are willing to do the manual labour in barns so those who are usually have to take on larger quantities of work. This does not mean the care of the animals is compromised.
I find that taking your information based on hear-say with take away from your credibility. In future perhaps it would be more useful to base your knowledge off of proven fact.
KDG, I’m happy to answer some questions. First, I volunteer with the Humane Society and am not paid. I research Animal Science publications on intensive-confinement and meet with the committees on animal welfare–all on a volunteer basis. In fact, I give money to the WHS (for the shelter)! not the other way around.
We also confer with other groups, as you know, and get their research –and it’s all free. All the money that the Humane Society gets goes to the shelter, the animals, and the very few paid positions. It’s mostly volunteers, and that includes the researchers.
It is a charity, based on donations, and its work is to make sure that our city isn’t a graveyard of dogs, cats, and other animals with no place to go.
I think you and I are talking about different things, so it’s hard to figure out what is going on here. For instance, the 1000-sow barns that I have seen are not filled with peoples’ pets. The chicken barns with battery cages: even less so.
I have interviewed workers in these barns and have met with police officers, who visit their parolees at the barns (they get work there, once they’re out of jail). I don’t work from hearsay at all.
It is good to converse with you nonetheless because I don’t think we should make monsters out of each other. However, I will never agree that caging animals is o.k. on any level (and that goes for the zoo, too). Battery cages, enhanced cages, and gestation crates: all are completely awful ways of immobilizing animals for life. The system has gotten too big; people don’t know or care where their meat comes from. Things have to get better. People should never pay the tiny amount they pay for meat, milk and eggs, etc. It’s a disgrace, both to the animals and to the producers.
Question: are you telling me that a 10,000 laying-hen operation has names for all its hens? or a 1,000-sow gestation barn?
I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you say that you interact with and name you animals. How many are you talking about?
I am also curious about this: when the industry started hurting, the barns started burning down. So, in one year, the deaths of pigs in fires went from 3,000 to 50,000. This trend continued until this year, but then Martin Grenier starved his pigs to death and then allegedly burned his barn before the investigation.
This isn’t “conspiracy theory”. These are the facts, and they indicate something is wrong with our system.
You say my credibility is hurt by my supposed failure to get facts. Yours is hurt by the same thing.
First off, I just want to make it clear. I have no intentions in argueing with you and I am sorry if I came accross like that.
It confuses me a bit that the WHS is a shelter for dogs and cats having all of its donations go towards the shelter yet at the same time has mixed itself with the hog industry. I don’t understand how the WHS has a place to critise other industries when it only invests in dogs and cats. However, I don’t mean to start an argument and I would like to leave this out of our future conversations.
I am not sure what the proportion of ex-cons are working within the agriculture industry but to me this seems like a very loose tie. Stonymountain (like many other jail facilities across Canada) had up until last summer a very well run prison farm. This was great for the rehabilitation of the immates but was closed by the conservative government because they didn’t have the same opinions. I find it heart-breaking that you would think parolees would have a negative impact on animals just because they went to jail and served time.
As mentioned previously, I think the industry is going in the direction you are willing it to. Gestation crates will be phased out by 2025. My worry is that this will not be enough for the activists and they will find yet another thing to pick on.
My appologies for the confusion in the credibility. I don’t mean to say I think you are wrong… I just don’t beleive you. I usually base my knowledge on scientifically proven fact rather than what someone told me and allegeded facts, this is my fault not yours.
I did not grow up on a hog farm therefore my experiences aren’t first hand. However, I live next to a hutterite colony (which has hogs, chickens and dairy) and two hog farms (one farrow to wean and one wean to finish). Both hog farms are family run for the joy of the animals, both families are in their barns among their pigs daily from early in the morning to late at night. You can’t tell me that someone who interacts with their animals on a daily basis doesn’t know their animals on a personal level. The same goes with the hutterite colony which is the home to approx 150 people who work for a living in their barns and fields. The animals on my farm all have names… I can’t speak for their farms but even if they didn’t have names that doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t know their animals.
Question: The dogs and cats at the shelter. Are they in cages?
Dear Clarify, are you using a charity that takes in unwanted and abused animals and tries to get them homes and comparing it to an industry that cages its animals for life? are you aware that 100s of people take the dogs and cats out for walks and affection every day?
and the cats are moved into areas where they can run around and get sunlight.
do batterychickens and sows get that?
I’m just trying to understand your comment “I will never agree that caging animals is o.k. on any level (and that goes for the zoo, too)”
I did not say that parolees have a negative impact on animals. I said that I have spoken with them about their work.
The WHS disagrees with the battery cages and gestation crates because they’re wrong and inhumane. But we’ve been over this before.
Activists don’t find “things to pick on.” It’s too bad that you think that.
I’m signing off now. There’s a barrier here, a shifting to talk about dairy cows, which the Penelope article was not about, and a sense that we will never agree on Cargill, Monsanto and cages.
That’s fine. You do your advocating; I’ll do mine.
Best, Dana