From: woods@robohack.UUCP (Greg A. Woods)
Subject: Re: Better to be slaughtered than never to have lived?
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc.
Summary: boy, some folks sure have weird ideas....
Keywords: meat vegans vegetarian food veal factory farms
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 19:37:16 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.153259.745@cdf.toronto.edu> g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
> Is it true that animals are generally slaughtered to produce meat?  This is
> my primary objection, the information about adverse conditions on factory
> farms was provided only to refute an earlier poster's claims about the idyllic
> lives food animals lead.

Sure is!  I hope your question was intended to be retorical, because
if it wasn't......

That's not to say, of course, that man kills animals *only* to eat
them, or that every animal killed will have its meat consumed, or that
all this killing and meat production is done for humans alone.

Life on earth works with the concept of the food chain.  "Higher"
life-forms (generally) eat "lower" life-forms.  Higher life-forms
usually have metabolisms evolved to depend upon sustenance derived
from lower life-forms of which they are accustomed to eating.

The only thing that's could possibly change this will be another
catastrophic event similar in proportion to the one which wiped out
the dinosaurs.

The species Homo Sapiens is perhaps one of the more adaptable animals
at the "top" of the food chain, but that doesn't mean you can simply
give an intellectual (and/or emotional) argument against eating other
animals, and thus change the behaviour of the entire species.  We
might be intelligent, but we're not stupid.  What I mean is, we eat to
survive, and thus eat what's (easily) available.

I for one am going to continue to eat the meat of other animals, for
many reasons, and I'm thus going to continue to condone the killing of
such animals, and even the raising of them in the most efficient way
possible.  I'll even go out and kill animals myself, if and/or when it
becomes necessary for my survival.

If anyone thinks this is wrong/barbaric/in-humane/etc., then I'd ask
them to take a closer, more scientific, less emotional, look at how
they came to be, and what their actions might be should survival all
of a sudden mean getting enough to eat today so they might live until
tomorrow, and how they might plan to further change this situation to
make survival beyond tomorrow a more certain outcome.

> The number of small family farms in Canada is declining at a rapid rate.
> "In 1988, Statistics Canada reported that 150 Canadian farm families were
> giving up farming every day--one family every 10 minutes.  The number of
> family farms has fallen by half since 1951 and the number of farmers from 21
> to four percent.  The result is that now 20 percent to 25 percent of farms in
> Canada hold 80 percent of *all* the farmland.  Factory farming is directly
> responsible for eliminating not only thousands of family farms, but also
> thousands of jobs in agriculture:  one factory farmer alone can maintain 300
> veal calves, up to 12,000 pigs, or 70,000 chickens.  Feeding and waste
> removal are automatic, as is collection of eggs."  ("The Meat Industry's
> Cover-Up:  Canada's Most Censored Story?", Canadians for the Ethical Treatment
> of Food Animals.  Contact Tina Harrison, National Coordinator, Box 35597,
> Station E, Vancouver, BC, V6M 4G9).

First off, the conclusion that "large farms" mean "factory farms" is
invalid.

Second, the implication that having one farmer "maintaining" large
numbers of livestock is "bad" in some way is idiotic.

Third, the implication that automatic feeding, automatic waste
removal, and/or automatic product collection is "bad" in some way is
also idiotic.

Finally, large, or factory, farms are not the *cause* of the
declination of small, or family, farms.

Propoganda is treacherous stuff.  Was the above quotation from one
un-broken paragraph?  If so, I'm not even sure why I'm addressing such
un-connected statements with a total lack of backround information!

The major cause of the declination of the small farm is economics and
the laws of supply and demand -- people won't, or can't, pay what it
costs to by food produced on (small) farms, particularly when the small
farmers are under a heavy debt load.  The result is that it's (far)
more efficient to run a farm as a large operation, using large modern
machines and "modern" production line techniques, particularly if
you're starting such an operation from the ground up.  This works the
same regardless of the product in question, be it vegetable or animal.
The numbers quoted above are simple proof of this.  Complaining about
it is like complaining that water is wet.  Cultural pressure,
especially pressure directed against the farmer, will have absolutely
no effect.  Economic pressure, for similar reasons to what I said in
the first section above, is next to impossible to make significant.

If the consumer will not pay the higer price required by the smaller
farmer, then the large farm corporation will make the sale, even at a
lower rate of profit, thus forcing the small farmer out of business.

Though it's been some number of years since farming and farm economy
was my day-to-day concern, I believe it is still true that in Canada
the farm marketing boards (what the Europeans and some Americans see
as a form of subsidy) are the most effective way to help balance the
profits of each producer, be it a small farm, or a large one.  I think
if you compare the statistics of farm size and agrictultural jobs,
etc., between Canada, and the U.S.A., for example, you'll get a much
different picture.  It'll probably look a lot worse too, though
because of the size of the U.S.A., it may be harder to see the
patterns.

Now the small farm also has a number of advantages over the large
farm, and when managed well they probably stand a better chance of
surviving longer.  Is this better?  Since I grew up on a small farm,
I'd say so....  You might not, especially if as a consumer you knew
that the true *cost* of a loaf of bread should be probably 3 times
what you pay now, never mind the increase which would happen when the
middle-men increased their profits based on a percentage of the
increased costs.

> 	"Looking at the Earth from afar you realize it is too small
> 	for conflict and just big enough for co-operation."  Yuri Gagarin

It seems very ironic for this quote to be attached to some of the
postings I've read in this thread....
-- 
						Greg A. Woods

woods@robohack.UUCP, woods@Elegant.COM  VE3TCP	UniForum Canada & ECI
+1 416 443-1734 [home] +1 416 362-XRSA [work]	Toronto, Ontario; CANADA