Kim Stallwood

Today is Blog Action Day–the annual international celebration of blogs, which, this year, is dedicated to food, as it coincides with World Food Day.

My message to the world about food is that there is nothing better than a vegan diet. It is compassion in action for the animals, embraces environmental protection, facilitates world development and helps to prevent hunger, and is good for our own health.

I have been a vegan since 1976 after working in a chicken slaughterhouse. Whatever inconveniences I have personally felt over the years pale into comparison when the benefits are considered.

There is no reason why everyone cannot be a vegan.

Regular readers to this blog and its evil twin, the Grumpy Vegan, know that there exists a love-hate relationship with The Guardian whose coverage of animal rights and related issues, including vegan/veg, cruelty-free living is bizarre, to put it generously. Contempt, more like. Anyway, The Independent is fast becoming the newspaper of choice for consistent, intelligent coverage of animal-related issues as well as other important topics of concern to anyone who cares passionately about this world.

For example, today’s Indie‘s cover feature, Death Wish, reports on the link between farmers feeding antibiotic-laced feed to obese factory farmed animals and the impact that this has on human health and our ability to fight lethal strains of new infections (e.g., E.coli, MSRA). This article is accompanied by an excellent graphic charting the significant increase in antibiotics on British farms. There’s also two op eds, including one by Johann Hari, which concludes “Our demand for cheap meat turned us, in turn, into cheap meat.”

Although The Guardian publishes excellent investigative reports on the food industry by Felicity Lawrence, for example, it frequently fails to make the link between animal cruelty and the human condition and, when it does, often trivialises it at the expense of the animal. So, well done The Indie!

Animals Australia reports that after eight days of intense public pressure following the exposure of horrendous cruelty documented by their investigators, the Australian Federal Government announces a suspension on the live cattle trade to Indonesia. More here.

Cast your vote against live exports at BanLiveExport.com

Lyndum House in Petersfield where I first began to work for Compassion In World Farming.

On the occasion of a recent visit to Petersfield, Hampshire, I made a point of taking a look at Lyndum House in the High Street.

In 1976 when I first began to work for organisations campaigning for animals, my first days (well, two years) were spent at Lyndum House with Compassion In World Farming.

At this time, Compassion was a very small organisation renting a couple of rooms upstairs in the back of an old building, Lyndum House, in Petersfield’s Hight Street. Working there were Elaine, Compassion’s first and then only full-time employee, and Thelma and Pauline, part-time researcher and secretary respectively. Peter, who donated his time and expertise to Compassion, had also started a company called Direct Foods, whose claim to fame was Sosmix.

My interview with Peter was the first time I was forced to think about what compassion meant.

“Do you have a problem with the word ‘compassion’?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “Why?”

“Well,” I recall him saying, “some men are embarrassed by the word.”

“Not me,” I reassured him.

My answer was motivated more by wanting the job than understanding what compassion means. I cannot say that I understood what it meant then but it is a word that I have subsequently grown to respect, becoming one of my four key values.

Peter hired me and my professional career in the animal rights movement began unbeknownst to me. I soon realised from working at Compassion that this is what I wanted to do with my life: stop animal exploitation and secure animal rights.

Jill Howard Church, my colleague at the Animals and Society Institute, assesses the outbreak of Ag Gag Bills in various US states. She writes,

By using its considerable financial and political resources to enact these “ag gag” bills, the industry is hoping the whole issue of factory farm cruelty will be nudged away, by adding another layer of legal intimidation toward those who already take great risks for the purpose of bearing witness to violence. Trespassing is already illegal, but by singling out filming on farms for special punishment, these states are hoping activists will take their cameras elsewhere or simply give up. I strongly suspect that’s not going to happen.

Indeed, enlightened responses to ag interests going gaga over ag gag bills is really encouraging. For example, the American Veterinary Medical Association made a most welcomed statement, which concluded

A variety of organizations, including the AVMA, industry groups, humane organizations, and state and federal regulatory agencies, offer guidelines to protect the health and welfare of animals used to produce our food supply. Too often, however, these guidelines are ignored. There is no excuse for this. If those responsible for the good welfare of the animals in their care are unable or unwilling to follow these guidelines, then additional oversight, either through public pressure or regulation, may become a necessity. We can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way. But either way, it must be done.

Further insight into these developments and a comparison between the UK and US is a commentary published on the Web site, just-food.com, which describes itself as the “food industry’s leading online resource.” Discussing the Ag Gag Bills and undercover exposes in the US and the approach taken by RSPCA (e.g., Freedom Foods campaign) and CIWF (e.g., Good Egg Awards), Ben Cooper concludes,

Freedom Food and CIWF also aim to restore some form of link between consumers and animal agriculture. But they recognise that the real disconnect exists between mainstream production and mainstream consumers, rather than those buying niche, high-welfare products who in many cases will have that heightened awareness. The UK NGOs also believe that this is more likely to be achieved by cooperation between industry and campaigners than through conflict, and their results appear to be bearing that out.

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Anonymous for Animal Rights

Remember the live feed from the egg-laying chicken factory farm in Israel?

Now, JS West, a California-based company which owns factory farms, has a live feed on its own chicken battery. Excellent commentary by Erik Marcus here.

Among the number of animal advocates who I most admire are Karen Davis, president and founder of United Poultry Concerns, and the philosopher Peter Singer. In a movement that isn’t always capable of rational and respectful debate on ideas and strategy, Karen makes the case in this thoughtful and fascinating article that Peter’s ethical stance on the moral and legal status of animals — and, in particular, chickens — has changed since the publication of his important book Animal Liberation in 1975.  She discusses various statements and actions Peter has taken and discusses them within the context of the place poultry occupy in the animal liberation struggle. She concludes that Peter

condemns the cruelty and environmental havoc of factory farming and observes that ‘ultimately, we should be aiming to eat vegetarian diets,’ which is all well and good, but he is no longer an inspiration for animal liberation.

What do you think?

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced today the creation of a new Animal Health and Welfare Board which will

bring experts including farmers, veterinarians, welfare experts and others from outside Government together with the Chief Veterinary Officer and civil servants to make direct policy recommendations on policy affecting the health and welfare of all kept animals such as farm animals, horses and pets.

DEFRA states the board will be made up of

around 12 members, 5 senior Defra officials including the Chief Veterinary Officer, and 7-8 external members including the chair. The external members will have experience and knowledge of kept and farmed animals, animal and veterinary science, and animal welfare, and could be farmers, veterinarians, animal welfare experts.

With the announcement only being made this morning there has not been sufficient time to study the proposals for the new board. A quick read suggests, however, that the term of reference for “animal welfare” is meant only in the context of the continuing instrumental use of animals and not in their ethical and legal status. In this context, today’s announcement is not necessarily anything significantly new.

Regardless, this development will be a significant factor in animal welfare public education campaigns and public policy initiatives for the foreseeable future.