Animal Activists Challenging the Meat Industry: Change and Successes

[StrongHeartsWin]

Animal exploitation industries are worried and frightened of the successes of animal activists and the threat they pose to their way of doing business and getting profits. An excellent story from a food industry site relays the panic they are feeling. Here are some quotes excerpted from that story that outlines their fear and the challenge facing them as they belatedly try to unite against The Movement:

FOOD producers who produce dairy, meat and poultry are facing a significant threat from animal activists opposed not only to certain production practices but to farm and food animal production, and although producers "are not losing, we are barely keeping up," according to Steve Kopperud.

Furthermore, he said if livestock and poultry producers continue on their current path, "we will lose, and it won't be a quiet death. A lot of you in this room won't be growing hogs."

...

producers were challenged by animal activists in the 1980s and '90s but succeeded in putting aside attacks then because animal activism was a fractured, leaderless movement of some 150 groups.
Today, it has coalesced into a movement with direction and very well-funded strategies, ...

...

Accordingly, producers are losing the perception war, he said, letting the animal activists position modern production as factory farming.

...

A unified food industry "can be very powerful," he said, "but if we are fragmented, we will get picked off one at a time."

It looks like they are still being picked off one by one. Florida and New Mexico have completely outlawed sow gestation crates, in both places passing bans by large voter margins on ballot innitiatives.

[saltinespike]

They will never entirely take over. Animals are too delicious. I don't want to sound inhumane, but think of the public's reaction if they got close to taking over Popeye's Chicken? They'd be murdered! People REALLY care about food. And we're not all going to become vegitarians just to please them. No way.

[Kamehameha34]

This is making me double my meat intake. Have to support them now, right?

[DEEJ85]

I dislike the factory farms as well. I still eat meat though, I just get my meat from alternative sources. Organic farms treat the animals well enough.
I think we will see better treatment of animals seeing how factory farms are unacceptable. I don't think this is a sign that everyone will become a vegetarian though. outlawing sow gestation crates are one thing, stopping the eating of meat completely is another.

[StrongHeartsWin]

Quote by: DEEJ85 I think we will see better treatment of animals seeing how factory farms are unacceptable. I don't think this is a sign that everyone will become a vegetarian though. outlawing sow gestation crates are one thing, stopping the eating of meat completely is another.

Meat consumption will never come to a complete end, just like rape and murder, too, will never completely end. More regulation of the meat industry will, however, cause meat prices to rise. A population moving towards vegetarianism as the norm will be a slow transformation. But, I am confidant it will occur and the meat industry is fearful of it. Even they give credence to the impact activism is having against them and the potential damage it could cause to them in the future.

All social movements moving towards winning rights follow this pattern:

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then they negotiate.

The struggle has already moved into the negotiation stage. Just look around, and you will see industry coming to the table to accept change of their industry by those who are demanding it. Just as an example, one of the largest fast food chains in the U.S., if not the world, Burger King has agreed to activist demands to help work towards better treatment of animals that are supplied to them. Just a few years ago they refused to even consider meeting with activists. They were pulled kicking and screaming to the negotiating table, but in the end they came to it, sat down, shook hands with their adversary and ceded to demands for change.

MIAMI, March 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following nearly six years of discussions with PETA -- and independent discussions with The Humane Society of the United States -- about problems concerning the treatment of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses, fast-food giant Burger King has announced groundbreaking plans to improve the lives and deaths of some of the animals killed for its restaurants.

Full story here.

[Heather]

StrongHeartsWin is right. People will always eat meat. I think that people overall just buy the meat and don't think about where it comes from. I used to be a vegetarian, and have had many conversations with people who did not realize how these animals are treated in order to be put on our plates, and many of them freely admitted, that if they had to take part in it, they would not do it, or eat it. Out out sight, out of mind. But now we have animal rights groups such as PETA showing us what happens behind those closed doors, and people don't like it. It's not as if these animals are living on a farm, living happy go lucky animals lives. And people are starting to realize that and are taking a stand against it. It's progress, I think, in the right direction.

There are several places now that are making improvements as to where their produce/meat products come from. There are now several places that are now only using free range eggs, etc. It's a step, and a good one at that I think. As humans, I don't think we have the right to torture other animals for our personal gain. I'm not saying do away with meat and other animal products for consumption, but I do think we need to rethink how we produce it. If that forces up the cost of meat, so be it.

[tinybear]

Yeah, I'm one of those people. I like to see meat on the dinner table and I don't wanna know how it got there.

[StrongHeartsWin]

The thing is, you are being forced to learn how it got there. Haven`t you clicked on some of the Meat Your Meat clips that have popped up on this forum? You can also take a look at the Free Me video in my signature.

But, I think you have an idea of how corpses got to your plate.

[Heather]

Quote by: StrongHeartsWin The thing is, you are being forced to learn how it got there. Haven`t you clicked on some of the Meat Your Meat clips that have popped up on this forum? You can also take a look at the Free Me video in my signature. But, I think you have an idea of how corpses got to your plate.

I think knowledge is a good thing.

[castille]

I think vegetarians should be shot. They are eating plants, which are LIVING THINGS! Think of the plant-children!

We should only be allowed to eat oxygen and drink water.

[saltinespike]

Quote by: castille I think vegetarians should be shot. They are eating plants, which are LIVING THINGS! Think of the plant-children! We should only be allowed to eat oxygen and drink water.

Can you grow animals in your back yard? No. No one, not even vegetarians give a crap about plants. They don't have feelings (that we know of). They don't communicate.

Whoever thinks the life and death of a plant is beautiful should be shot. Not the other way around.

Oh. And I know you were trying to be immature. Please take that elsewhere.

[Duke1985]

Quote by: StrongHeartsWin The thing is, you are being forced to learn how it got there. Haven`t you clicked on some of the Meat Your Meat clips that have popped up on this forum? You can also take a look at the Free Me video in my signature. But, I think you have an idea of how corpses got to your plate.

No one should forced see anything they don't want, if someone wants to remain ignorant on the topic of where their food comes from, thats their right.
Some people, like myself can look at that and say, "well that could probably be done better, but I still like my meat." Gimme a petition that says the meat industry should try and kill animals humanly, I'll sign it.
Put a law on the ballot that says everyone should be "forced to learn how it got there" I'll vote no on that bill.

[5010]

I welcome the changes. I have given up meat but still include egg and dairy in my diet. Before the movement, I had no choice but to buy eggs of unknown origin. Now I can go to the market and see 'cage free' on the egg carton and make a more informed decision. I welcome farms becoming more respectful of their animals and labels that inform me as such. I don't mind paying a little more to those who treat source of my food with more respect.

I realize that most of my vegetable supply comes at the cost of many little animal lives. The big combine chews up all sorts of creatures while gathering the crops. A meat eater might take that info and claim that vegetarians support animal-killing plant harvest methods. But it is by force, not choice. When I have an option to buy vegetables harvested by safer equipment, I will choose it. Right now the movement's priorities are rightly against those whose methods create horrible living conditions then kill for meat instead of those whose methods allow free animals to live then are sometimres killed while harvesting veggies.

[5010]

Quote by: Duke1985 Gimme a petition that says the meat industry should try and kill animals humanly, I'll sign it. Put a law on the ballot that says everyone should be "forced to learn how it got there" I'll vote no on that bill.

So I suppose you'd have no problems with a ballot that required packaging plants to include labels that inform those who desire to know about the method the source uses for animal living conditions? Maybe something similar to TV show ratings (perhaps CflAHG means Caged-for-life and pumped with Antibodies and Hormones and killed by Gun, FSe means free range until Stunned-by electricity and bled to death, RKB means Road Kill found by Bubba).

I wonder if having such labels would create a niche that some vegans would even accept. Not all vegans, but the ones who avoid meat because there is no way for them to know if it came from a respectful or disrespectful farm.

Personally, I would still avoid meat because 1) it no longer tastes good to me, 2) what I eat now is better for my health, 3) my diet costs less without it, and 4) the grotesque factor of meat remains

[fushigi]

In fact, the meat/dairy industries have been fighting this since the '70s; just look at the 1973 movie Soylent Green and the way it demonizes a future world where meat doesn't exist!

It does seem to be a losing battle, as the number of vegetarians climb. From 1% of the US population in 1994 to 2.5% in 2000 to 6.7% in 2006. This is good news for the American Heart Association, PETA, and all the vegetarians who - like me - don't have good non-meat options for food sources (it's easy to find a Whole Foods or a Wild Oats in Albuquerque or Humboldt, but try in Little Rock or Flint, MI and you'll find a different story.)

I think it's inevitable that our diets will become meatless one day. Raising livestock to feed us for every meal is simply not going to be compatible with a future world of 15 or 20 billion. We're already taxing the world's resources as it is.

[Osborn F Enready]

I know where meat comes from, and like meat still.
I respect animals as much as they respect me, within my power to do so.

I would support more humane livestock practices, but I would not support laws that force people to spend more to achieve it.

I respect education on the topic, and support the idea, but people have a right to say no-thanks, its not a topic of my intrest.

I support small farms when I can, where I can.

I love animals, and support the humane treatment of them to the point of education campaigns and public pressure on industry, but I don't support more laws of restriction, excess spending, or more regulation when it is not necessary.

[fushigi]

How about requiring labels to at least inform consumers how the animal was raised, so that we can let the market make the changes consumers care about rather than the gov't?

[Osborn F Enready]

Why not just get our free press back, so they can actually provide some non-corporate backed news?

[fushigi]

You mean have the press cover the meat industry? What would be there angle? Family of Five Area Cows Slaughtered, Police Suspect Meat Industry?

[castille]

Quote by: saltinespike No one, not even vegetarians give a crap about plants. They don't have feelings (that we know of). They don't communicate.

Actually, plants do have feelings. And they do communicate. Obviously they can't talk, but they do have their forms of communication.

Whoever thinks the life and death of a plant is beautiful should be shot. Not the other way around.

Same goes for animals.

Oh. And I know you were trying to be immature. Please take that elsewhere.

Bite me.