Animal welfare tape prompts action

The suffering cow covertly taped by the Humane Society of the U.S. prompted the biggest beef recall in U.S. history and contributed to sweeping legislation over the past 13 months designed to improve the lives of farm animals. But more important for farmers, it awakened the masses to the stark reality for many animals raised for food.

This October, as the animal protection organization taped workers at a Vermont veal slaughterhouse kicking and shocking day-old calves, the National Milk Producers Federation began urging dairy operators to participate in a new standard-of-care program it is launching in January.

The federation figures self-imposed regulations are better than having the Humane Society of the U.S. force them on the industry through referendums like the one it championed in California that banned cramped cages for chickens, pigs and veal calves.

The protocols in the National Dairy Farm Program are a check list for everything from providing clean drinking water to foot care to euthanasia. The idea is that milk processors whose dairy operators are shown to follow the guidelines will be able to assure restaurants and supermarket chains that their products are cruelty free, something consumers are becoming conditioned to demand.

After watching the Humane Society shepherd laws in six states to keep animals out of cramped cages, dairy marketing officials are preparing for scrutiny. They believe the Humane Society-led ban this year on tail docking at dairies in California, the nation's No. 1 dairy state, signaled a new focus on the milk industry.

That change has come over several years on multiple fronts: food movements that encourage consumers to connect with local farmers; authors such as Michael Pollan who write about the politics and processes of factory farming and food safety issues; and a Humane Society president, Wayne Pacelle, who believes that the collective level of suffering among the nation's 10 billion farm animals exceeds all others.

The organization stops short of calling for the elimination of factory farms. “It's not a matter of creating Old McDonald's-type conditions,” said Paul Shapiro, who heads the nonprofit's End Factory Farming campaign. “Our goal is to reduce the suffering these animals endure.”

California's Proposition 2, the 2008 ballot initiative that by 2015 will free egg-laying chickens from their cages, marked the animal protection group's most public and successful foray from its historic campaigns to stop the clubbing of baby seals in Canada and dog fighting and puppy mills in the U.S.

The landslide victory came despite threats of higher prices ─ anywhere from a penny an egg more to 25 percent more per carton.

The animal welfare group has convinced some of the country's largest users to make at least a gradual switch to cage-free eggs. Red Robin will go totally cage-free by the end of 2010.

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