Factory Farming: The Experiment that Failed Vol. 1
Price: $2.00
Item SKU: BOPFARM111
A compilation of articles and photographs with contributions by Rachel Carson, Bernhard Grzimek, Ruth Harrison, Desmond Morris, George Wald: This paperback book, published by AWI, documents current cruelty and available alternatives.
Excerpts from the introduction
Factory farming has held out a promise of profits to farmers and investors, but objective scientific analysis shows the pitfalls which have come about through failure to consider the nature, the feelings and the basic needs of the veal calves, the pigs and the hens severely deprived and confined for months in crates or cages so small they cannot even stretch out their limbs. Many small farmers have gone out of business when investment in expensive equipment they were led to believe would result in profits, led instead to bankruptcy.
Because too many animals are
forced together it is necessary to dose them
with a variety of drugs to keep disease from
wiping them out. The yolks of eggs must rely on
artificial dyes in the feed to give the
illusion of eggs from free range hens. Residues
of carcinogenic growth hormones have been
repeatedly found in white veal.
This compilation of articles is intended to open the doors on the usually windowless factory farms so consumers can have a glimpse of what goes on inside and let the government and the press know how they feel about it. Only through determined public demand will changes take place.
They can change rapidly for the better because alternative methods, carefully worked out by humane scientists and humane farmers, can be substituted for the extreme overcrowding and close imprisonment now being forced on veal calves, laying hens and pigs.
These alternative methods, far from being old-fashioned, are the most modern and forward -looking. They take the feelings of the animals into account, and they take into account the normal behavior of each species, rather than attempting to make living, vertebrate, warm-blooded fellow creatures into machines for producing money for people who never even lay eyes on them, much less care for them.
The purpose of this small volume is to put before both farmers and consumers the possibilities now available. We urge the humanitarians in both groups to press for extensive voluntary change wherever severe deprivation is now occurring.
Factory farming has taken the joy out of the lives of millions of calves and pigs, and billions of hens; it has driven countless family farmers off the land; it has polluted streams and rivers; it has injected massive amounts of antibiotics and other drugs into the public food supply resulting in serious health risks. It has lowered food quality. Its chief beneficiaries have been people who have profited from "farming the tax code" and who already had so much money they were able to ride out losses till peak prices could be obtained. Others have been bankrupted. Hence the title, Factory Farming, The Experiment That Failed. But the vested interests and supporters in academia, funded by drug and equipment manufacturers, have not yet recognized the failure, so ordinary citizens have to take the matter into their own hands by rejection factory farm products.
