 | H.R. 2859/ S.1620 (PRIME Act) seeks to repeal the federal ban on the sale of meat from small slaughterhouses catering to local, grass-fed or organic farms. If this act gets passed it would facilitate the building of a lot more slaughterhouses and likely mean more animals being raised on pasture or grass-fed. |
1) No one should be forced to live near a
slaughterhouse.
slaughterhouse.
- While large slaughterhouses typically can only set up shop in areas zoned, "industrial", these small, "artisanal" or "custom" slaughterhouses often open in rural residential neighborhoods. I wouldn't want one in my backyard -- so I oppose it going into anyone's backyard -- but new slaughterhouses will be moving into someone's backyard if this law passes.
2) Prime would increase carbon emissions from
animal agriculture.
animal agriculture.
- The Locovore movement perpetuates a dangerous myth -- that choosing to eat local food is the most important factor to consider if we want to reduce our food's carbon footprint. In fact, transportation of food ("food miles") actually contributes only a small fraction to our personal dietary carbon footprint. Sometimes growing food far away and transporting it LOWERS greenhouse gasses. For example growing tomatoes in Arizona in November and trucking them to Minnesota could have a lower footprint than producing them locally in a greenhouse in Minnesota.) But even more significant -- those emphasizing eating local, often miss the elephant in the room. It's something they can do that has a much greater impact than eating locally -- replacing the meat/dairy/eggs on their place with beans and vegetables.
- Individuals can do far more to lower their personal carbon footprint by eliminating meat dairy and eggs completely
- furthermore -- WHAT animals are fed impacts the carbon footprint of the resulting meat from those animals. There is a reason that industrial animal operations have flourished -- they are the most efficient (though it's still not efficient at all) way to turn plants into meat. Grass fed animals grow more slowly then grain fed ones. That means grass-fed animals must live longer to produce the same amount of meat. A longer life means they eat more, poop more, belch and fart more, and consume more water per pound of meat produced. Grain-fed beef actually has a lower carbon footprint than grass fed. This law would increase the carbon footprint of those who continue to eat meat. Eating "grass-fed" or "pasture-raised" meat may be great for virtue signalling, but it's not good for the planet.
3) Prime will increase infectious diseases.
- Though large Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are particularly susceptible to cultivating antibiotic resistant diseases (which ultimately become a threat to everyone via contaminated ground-water, or cross contamination of fruits and vegetables) small integrated animal farms (the type that this law seeks to encourage) play a much different but equally deadly role by helping to create new diseases in human populations.
- Influenza for example, naturally lives in water fowl, where it easily spreads from bird to bird via the oral-fecal route, without making THEM sick. Influenza strains found in water birds are very poorly adapted to reproduce in mammalian bodies or to be spread by coughing. (There is no benefit to the influenza virus evolving the capacity to make a duck cough or sneeze, since the virus is easily spread when one bird poops and another drinks the poop-infused water.) But integrated farms housing both birds and mammals, means a chance mutation in the virus that enables it to spread in land birds (by making them sick and they cough or sneeze) can be its first step on the way to humans. Once the strain learns to live and spread in chickens it can more easily jump to pigs (swine flu) making it far more likely to successfully pass to humans. This is because once it adapts to a living in a pig's body, it is more capable of living in a human. This is why most influenza epidemics originate in areas of the world where lots of people raise their own animals.
- Keep in mind -- Almost every communicable infectious disease that has ravaged humanity, (eg. TB, Measles, Leprosy, Smallpox) we got from using/killing/domesticating animals. So everyone’s personal well-being is needlessly put at risk by people who make the personal "choice" to eat meat/dairy/eggs when they have other options.
For comparison -- consider how the media frames a similar concern relative to the vaccine issue. The media does the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry (making record profits from vaccines) when they persuade governments that someone's personal choice to not get a particular vaccine is putting the whole community at risk (even though many vaccines don't actually even have a theoretical basis to suggest they prevent the spread of the disease from person to person -- ie Pertussis, Tetanus, Diphtheria and killed polio vaccine to name a few, and some vaccines actually INCREASE the risk of harm to people who come in contact with a recently vaccinated person -- like live polio and chickenpox.) Yet the public buys into the perspective that helps pharma, while being silent about the one choice that clearly has far more science to support it's harm in the community: An individual's choice to eat meat does present a huge public health risk to everyone else.
4) Prime will increase the number of people
making a living from killing, while further
perpetuating violence upon those deemed,
“other.”
Learning to justify violence against those we arbitrarily define as, "other" (ie based upon skin color, sexuality, religion, or species) has been a critical piece of every major social injustice perpetrated by humans. Killing is fundamentally at odds with most people's moral sentiments. Though society might, "approve" of it under certain conditions (ie when we send soldiers to war, or hire people to work in slaughterhouses) evidence suggests that those who learn to, "overcome" their natural repulsion to killing are at much higher risk for poor mental health and engaging in domestic violence.
Young people I know who have been raised on small local farms who have been involved in killing animals -- when challenged about why it's ok to kill pigs and not dogs -- without even blinking tell me that they see nothing wrong with killing dogs and cats for food either -- it's just not their custom, but they seeing nothing wrong with raising and killing dogs or cats for meat.
Do we really want a new law that would facilitate the normalization of killing even more species of animals?
making a living from killing, while further
perpetuating violence upon those deemed,
“other.”
Learning to justify violence against those we arbitrarily define as, "other" (ie based upon skin color, sexuality, religion, or species) has been a critical piece of every major social injustice perpetrated by humans. Killing is fundamentally at odds with most people's moral sentiments. Though society might, "approve" of it under certain conditions (ie when we send soldiers to war, or hire people to work in slaughterhouses) evidence suggests that those who learn to, "overcome" their natural repulsion to killing are at much higher risk for poor mental health and engaging in domestic violence.
Young people I know who have been raised on small local farms who have been involved in killing animals -- when challenged about why it's ok to kill pigs and not dogs -- without even blinking tell me that they see nothing wrong with killing dogs and cats for food either -- it's just not their custom, but they seeing nothing wrong with raising and killing dogs or cats for meat.
Do we really want a new law that would facilitate the normalization of killing even more species of animals?
5) Prime encourages and affirms meat eating at
a time when we have more options than ever
to allow people to live happy healthy lives
without exploiting other beings.
When my local food coop formed, (The Lawrence Community Mercantile) it was vegetarian. But then it moved to a bigger space and started selling local and organic meat as a way to increase sales. Coop advertising worked to legitimize meat and grow local demand for it in our community. This opened the door for the coop to sell CAFO meat, dairy and eggs alongside the supposedly "humane" versions.
Almost every year since they introduced meat, I have watched the percent of shelf-space dedicated to products from exploited animals, increase. Rather than providing an alternative to CAFO products, local animal farming legitimizes meat consumption. PRIME can only be expected to further this process.
Sadly, coop member-owners who justify their meat/dairy/egg consumption on the grounds that they consume "ethically" produced products, have permitted CAFO meat to also be sold there. And I have repeatedly witnessed people who personally raise and kill their own animals, still eating CAFO products served at public events. When I went on the local farm tour, one local “humane” farmer even boasted that she tells her children, "it's ok for THEM to eat CAFO meat" because it's going into their, "happy bellies."
a time when we have more options than ever
to allow people to live happy healthy lives
without exploiting other beings.
When my local food coop formed, (The Lawrence Community Mercantile) it was vegetarian. But then it moved to a bigger space and started selling local and organic meat as a way to increase sales. Coop advertising worked to legitimize meat and grow local demand for it in our community. This opened the door for the coop to sell CAFO meat, dairy and eggs alongside the supposedly "humane" versions.
Almost every year since they introduced meat, I have watched the percent of shelf-space dedicated to products from exploited animals, increase. Rather than providing an alternative to CAFO products, local animal farming legitimizes meat consumption. PRIME can only be expected to further this process.
Sadly, coop member-owners who justify their meat/dairy/egg consumption on the grounds that they consume "ethically" produced products, have permitted CAFO meat to also be sold there. And I have repeatedly witnessed people who personally raise and kill their own animals, still eating CAFO products served at public events. When I went on the local farm tour, one local “humane” farmer even boasted that she tells her children, "it's ok for THEM to eat CAFO meat" because it's going into their, "happy bellies."
We have more vegan options than ever, yet record numbers of animals are being physically and sexually assaulted before being killed for profit. The growth of "humane" "organic" or "pasture-raised" options for meat/dairy/eggs has played an important role in this. Eating “Happy Meat” is now a form of virtue signaling for people unwilling to give up an archaic, socially irresponsible, violent tradition. Please contact your elected officials and ask them to vote, "NO" on this bill.
