This is a letter I recently submitted to the VT independent newspaper.
While I admire those that have the devotion and determination to maintain a vegan lifestyle, I wonder if this is really the way to be fighting the problems of factory farms.
I agreed with Megan in her letter last week concerning the way animals are treated on factory farms. Yes, these animals suffer cruelties and atrocities that we should find shameful. Yet, I think an important alternative is to veganism can be found by active involvement of the meat market. We can seek reform to the meat industry by supporting local, sustainable agriculture.
As agriculture essayist Wendell Berry says, “Eating is an agricultural act”. By this act, we are able to tell the producer, the farmer, what we consider important. If consumers are willing to pay for these products, economics tell us that more farmers will be interested in the business. These sustainable farms are more efficient, use less fossil fuels, have less impact on the environment, and produce healthy food for us. These farmers care about the health and comfort of their animals partially because they know that ultimately this leads to the health benefits and quality of their product. Let us have a positive impact by supporting this competing market. Look for reform of the industry by “voting with our mouths”.
Finally, let us not count on more government regulations to control how our meat is produced. Instead investigate what has been produced safely, humanely and environmentally “friendly”. Visit local farmers markets, even if no one is selling meat, they are likely to tell you where you can find this locally grown meat. Visit local farms; sustainable farmers love to have consumers that are interested in what they do. For a humorous approach to the problem of factory farms, visit www.themeatrix.com. Support the local farmer!
1 comment:
Good job on the essay. I think Wendell Berry would agree.
Last night I ate an organic, all natural bison eye of round steak from Wild Oats and I'm hooked. Surprisingly the buffalo steak was $2 a pound cheaper than the organic beef eye of round ($6.49/lb) versus $8.49/lb) It was really lean and I didn't notice much difference in taste. There was just a slight venison tang to it, which made it all the better.
The big kicker though is we should realize there is an economic value to ethically produced healthy products. But the Wal-Mart always pay less mentality is hard to combat.
That's gradually changing though, with one example being Taco Bell giving in to boycott pressure to pay their tomato pickers more, (which I assume might be passed on to customers in slightly higher prices). You also are seeing a lot more of the fair trade certified products and sweatshop free clothing these days, although the cost prevents a lot of us poor idealists from being able to buy.
I think the biggest problem is that most of us/I are/am too apathetic to do all the extra research to find out how to support conscientious local farmers and ethical companies. I'm not sure how extensive the listings are elsewhere for www.themeatrix.com, but they did list a couple of local Louisville area sustainable agriculture farms.
As for the sweat shop free idea, I take the Janist approach. (Jain sp? is the eastern vegetarian Buddist who though it was wrong to eat vegetables unless someone else had already killed them and wasn't going to eat them, so he begged for leftover veggies door to door).
The idea being, there's all these great clothes in thrift stores and by buying those I'm not contributing to any current human suffering in $.13 an hour "slave labor" in China, Peru, Bangladesh, Madagascar, etc.
Hope that helps someone a little bit.
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