"Why the light bulb?" a young entrepreneur once asked Thomas Edison. "I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent."
And our 2011 world has a lot of needs. One of them, though, is particularly ripe for a new brand of capitalism.
See, we wouldn't tolerate someone ripping our dog's teeth out (baby pigs); stuffing him in a cramped wire cage (egg-laying chickens); or searing the tip of his nose off with a hot blade (broiler chickens). But sixty billion animals suffer from that type of cruel and inhumane treatment behind the walls of warehouses called factory farms. And 99 percent of all animals eaten or used to produce milk or eggs are factory farmed.
All of this violence fuels a $140 billion-plus a year industry. An industry so entrenched that it feels bizarrely invisible. We're not only being fed meat by this violent system; we're also being fed lies... But not everyone took the blue pill (see: The Matrix):
• 18% of college students are vegetarian
• There are more vegetarians in college than Catholics
• There are more vegetarians than students enrolled in any major, except for business
• 76% of American say that animal welfare is more important than low meat prices
Compassion now has a market. And we're seeing even wider cracks in the system of factory farming, including this week's historic agreement between the Humane Society of the United States and the egg industry. As an entrepreneur, there are a lot of reasons to care about all this, but here's one to remember: selflessness is profitable.
This isn't a story about being a martyr; it's a story about thriving.
Skeptical?
Tal Ronnen didn't just use his culinary skills to launch another steak house; he helped build a booming line of animal-friendly food products. Donna Oakes didn't just use her fashion sense to start another clothing company; she's using it to bring world-class (and ethical) designers to the marketplace. Greg Dollarhyde doesn't only see consumer demand for animal products; he sees a band of conscious consumers waiting in line at his hip West Coast restaurant chain.
Sacrificing yourself to the beast of conventional wisdom is a 21st century race to a better spot in the unemployment line. Enjoy the wait -- the economy still isn't looking that good.
Billions of dollars and one hundred years later, Edison's answer captures how some entrepreneurs are responding to the needs of so many animals -- and the values of so many consumers. The system of factory farming craves your ignorance -- but it also fears your creativity. And that is a big fact.
Follow Josh Tetrick on Twitter: www.twitter.com/joshtetrick
A Way to Save America's Bees: Buy Free-Range Beef
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/07/a-way-to-save-americas-bees-buy-free-range-beef/241935/
If you want to support sustainable agriculture, stop spending your energies demonizing the very notion of meat and farming with animals. Biodiversity is essential to sustainable ag. Industrial ag, both plant and animal, has very real problems. Creating false polemics to demonize meat is part of the problem, not the solution. Sustainable food systems must mirror natural systems, which work in dynamic webs of complex, biodiverse interrelationships, not oversimplified binary polemics like "meat bad, vegetables good."
One good piece of evidence of this is how confused many food service workers are in regard to what constitutes vegetarianism. Back when I was a vegetarian (prior to my, now, ex- vegan days), there was more than one occasion when I would go into a restaurant and ask about their vegetarian options, and the server would say things like, "well, we have a chicken caesar salad", or "you might want to try the seafood platter". Why? Probably because some self-declared so-called "vegetarian" came in the week before and ordered the chicken caesar salad or the seafood platter. Can you blame servers for being confused?
(. . . not to mention the fact that when it comes to college students, you're dealing with people who are typically "trying out" all sorts of philosophies and lifestyles, and the vegetarian freshman may well be turn out to be the "paleo"-eating sophomore, and who knows what after that.)
I wonder how many of the 18% of college students who are, according to Safran Foer (and Josh), allegedly vegetarians rely on Top Ramen as one of their dietary staples?
Money that flows to sustainable farms ends up supporting a key cog in industrial ag: Hatcheries. Again, though, family farms, although tiny in percentage of animals sold, are an important step towards living our shared values. (this para recently added for clarification)
With that said, I appreciate that you -- as a farmer -- are helping others see that there is a different way. And i wish you'd tell us more about it here. Thanks, Grumps.
Do yourself a favor and put down the shovel. You were wrong. Admit it.
Especially unnevering, is when the article is supposed to be about 'Factory Farming", but they will make a 'fact' 'or 'statistic' about the health benefits of vegetarianism abd toss in a self-righteous dig about how much more 'compassionate' it is too.
Then, when commenters come out and disprove fallacious statements about veganism and how self righteous they are, the bloggers come out and say "Hey, that's not what we said". Well, it's what you meant and 'implied', and we can tell the difference.
I am totally onboard about the atrocities of factory farming, and do my best to eat locally and humanely, but you immediately lose me as a supporter when your article about 'factory farming', becomes yet another condescending, self righteous platform to tell me how much more 'compassionate' YOU are than me.
First, no one rips the teeth out of baby pigs. Piglets are born with needle teeth that they use as weapons against their littermates when trying to establish "ownership" of a teat. They can also injure the sow with these teeth when suckling. Some hog farmers clip (not rip out) the needle teeth to prevent these injuries.
Second, I know too many people who keep their dogs locked in cramped cages (i.e., "pet carriers") for as long as eighteen to twenty hours a day, six days a week. Chaining a dog in the backyard isn't much better. Nor is locking a dog in a house all day long. Dogs are social animals. They need companionship. They also need to roam and explore. Of course acknowledging the way most dogs are treated would mean they can't be used to make an emotional appeal for veganism.
And re your points about how some treat their dogs. That's cruel, and I'm glad you're shining a light on it.
Thanks for reading it, and supporting a move away from factory farming.
Animals are essential to every major form of sustainable agriculture from permaculture to biodynamic farming because the healthiest farms are biodiverse. Josh Tetrick's "meat bad, vegetables good" polemics are part of the problem, not the solution. Nature works in complex, dynamic webs of complex interrelationships, not oversimplified binary polemics.
By creating a false polemic of "meat bad, vegetables good," by demonizing farmers for the act of raising animals, and by belittling the impact of sustainablÂe farmers, it diverts attention away from the real issue; that we need to holisticalÂly develop the most sustainablÂe food systems possible. The most sustainablÂe food systems, in fact every major form of sustainablÂe agriculture, have biodiversiÂty at their core, and that means animals.
When you mislead people into believing that the problems of industrial agriculturÂe will be solved by eliminatinÂg animals from agriculturÂe all together, you become part of the problem, not the solution. Veganism does nothing to create more sustainablÂe food systems. It is no coincidencÂe that as of late, many of the most prominent vegan activist organizatiÂons such as Farm Sanctuary and PetA have been teeming up with anti-eco-ag, anti-small farm, anti-localÂism, pro-GMO, industrial ag shills such as James McWilliamsÂ.
From the link:
Based on the results from farms where teeth clipping has been abandoned, Reese sees "no strong justification for teeth clipping" on most farms. However, he does note that some producers who've stopped clipping teeth have felt the need to go back to it, generally for one reason.
"Facial lesions resulting from intact teeth favor the development of greasy pig disease in some herds," Reese says. Often a problem in newly established gilt herds, greasy pig disease is caused by bacteria that lives on the surface of the skin and is allowed to enter the body through lesions. Because more lesions are likely when teeth are not clipped, some producers who've tried to stop clipping have noticed more piglets with greasy pig disease and have therefore resumed clipping.
Seriously, I can't help begging people to learn the difference between "conscious" and "conscientious".
I still get a laugh every time someone mentions the title of Tal Ronnen's book, "The Conscious Cook". Well, yeah, even if your expectations of a cook aren't particularly high, I think we can all agree that a person working in the kitchen should be conscious - i.e., awake, alert, capable of response to sensory input, with pupils equally round and reactive to light and accommodation.
Didn't he mean, "Conscientious Cook"? I don't agree that the vegan diet Ronnen espouses is more conscientious than a conscientious omnivorous diet, but at least he could use correct grammar.
But, AS USUAL, no mention is made in this article of the fact that factory farming is not the only model of animal husbandry out there, nor that industrial plant agriculture causes many of the same problems as industrial animal agriculture, nor of the fact that non-vegans can find factory farming just as abhorent as vegans do (to admit that would be to throw a wrench into what our friend wildisthewind refers to as the "oversimplified polemics" of veganism). For example, Lierre Keith has said in several talks that, despite her well-known anti-vegan stance, she feels that factory farming should just be made flat out illegal, and Anthony Bourdain (who is not just dismissive of, but downright caustic toward, the vegan crowd) allowed in a debate with Jonathan Safran Foer that, despite his love for bacon, the way pigs are raised in factory farms "borders on the criminal".
But mention attitudes like these to the vegans, and you're met with dismissive responses about how "humane farming represents only a tiny fraction of the meat/eggs/dairy produced in this country", which, in my opinion, is PRECISELY the sort of defeatist attitude which helps to keep factory farming in place as the dominant model.
My skeptical view is that big business will hire more P.R. people and find new ways to lie to us.
Just out of curiosity, Josh, would you accept the consumptioÂn of meat, eggs, and/or dairy products if they were truly (not just as a matter of labelling) humanely produced, or are you of the branch of veganism that considers all forms of animal "exploitatÂion" equally unacceptabÂle?
In the commentary section of another article, I had a vegan blast me for supporting the UEP's agreement to improve the conditions of laying hens in industrial egg operationsÂ, since believing that supporting such improvemenÂts implies acceptance of the use of animals for any human purpose whatsoeverÂ, and I was told by that person that ANY egg consumptioÂn supports cruelty, regardless of whether the hens are in battery cages or in your backyard.
It seems to me there are really two types of vegans: radical animal rights sorts who consider even keeping a pet rescued from a shelter to be a form of "enslavemeÂnt", and others who are basically "conscientÂious omnivores" who, for whatever reason, choose not to go to the bother of finding humane sources of meat, eggs, and dairy products.
I don't need any retraining, but I'm pretty sure the majority of vegans are in need of farm training.