The worst thing livestock agriculture can do is to misunderstand its enemy. One of my favorite podcasts, Loos Tales for Feedstuffs, discussed the issue of farm animal welfare on Nov 19. The title of the program was "It's about more than animal welfare."
The thrust of the commentary was that the animal rights activists seeking more humane treatment of farm animals have an ultimate goal of complete freedom for animals, and complete veganism for humans.
It is true that many activists are simply opposed to meat and milk consumption. However, many of these activists oppose the raising of animals for food because they do not believe someone raising animals for money will treat the animals kindly. So long as the animals are given a nice life, not all of the activists oppose animal food products.
It is always nice to pretend that there is an enemy who is pure evil, an evil who will oppose us no matter what. It makes us feel innocent. But part of the reason people are against animal food products is because whenever they see us raising animals for food they see only animals in cramped cages with no natural life. We have not given them "more humane" products and placed the onus on them to pay more for the better animal life.
We are part of that problem. Pretending we are not will only lead to our demise.
Friday, November 21, 2008
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- 2008 AGEC 4213 Nerd of the Year!
- Trust Me: I'm Good For It
- Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History
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- Explaining Price Indices
- Beef, Pork, Chicken, and Egg Consumption: 1910-2006
- Corn and Gasoline Prices
- The Great Depression - Maybe We Learned Something
- Keynesian Perspective
- With Real Poets, It is Hard To Tell
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- It is more than that...
- Don't Forget...
- King Camp Gillette: Hero of Capitalism
- Gains From Trade...And Love
- The Importance of Insurance
- Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the pl...
- Hereos of Capitalism
- Bird Spectacles
- Farm Animal Welfare: A Rare Statement of Truth
- Turkey Torture
- Explaining "Stimulus Package" to Students
- The Cow Tax
- The Market for Organic Eggs
- For Misplaced Southerners
- The Utility of Positive Emotion
- The Great Depression - We Learned Nothing
- Politically [un]Popular Ethanol
- Food Tales
- An Omnivore's Solution
- Cage Versus Cage Free
- The Cost of Happy Hogs
- The Importance of Economics
- Interesting Ag Facts
- American Socialism
- QLD livestock producers support fine increase
- Why Not Just Say "Farmer"
- The Pitfalls of Organic Food
- The Indifference Principle - In Practice
- Beef Prices in the 80's
- Broom Corn
- I, Broom
- Hello From Detroit
- God is Dead
- Laissez-Faire Higher Ed
- Secretary of Ag Michael Pollan
- The Fatal Conceit
- Steven Horwitz's An Open Letter to my Friends on t...
- We may begin hearing increased support for a bailo...
- Cattle, Hog, and Egg Prices: 1920-2002
- Steinbeck Talks About Food
- Sophistry
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- Thinking About Graduate School?
- Economists Are Brilliant!!!!
- Thinking Like An Economist
- Picking Winners
- An Overview of the Agribusiness Degree
- Financial Crisis and Lending to the Poor
- Becoming a Great Teacher: Part 8
- We are all Socialists (1/3, at least)
- Trading Class Notes
- Humbling the Professor
- A New Approach to M.S. Theses
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