It is no secret that large-scale (and some smaller scale) livestock production values efficiency over animal welfare. Chickens are regularly debeaked, dairy cows are confined in close quarters, and pregnant sows are confined in “gestational crates,” which basically make it impossible for the sow to turn around. Animal welfare advocates, such as the Humane Society, have long called for changes to these production practices. The typical response is “no,” and reading between the lines, the reason given is inevitably related to higher production costs.
McDonald’s uses pig products in breakfast sandwiches (sausage), salads/burgers (bacon). Yesterday, the corporation stated that it intended to work with its suppliers in developing plans to reduce its reliance on gestational crates for sows.
Personally, I would have liked to see stronger language, because McDonald’s did not make a commitment to eliminating confinement of pregnant sows. However, this is an important first step. Big companies have the power to make a significant difference in how suppliers produce food, particularly those who raise food under contract. And once a big corporation like McDonald’s takes a meaningful stand in eliminating practices that violate an animal’s welfare, others are likely to follow suit. My hope is that these types of practices will be entirely eliminated from livestock production. After all, it is bad enough that McDonald’s food is unhealthy (in the extreme, think of Supersize Me), and reduces our health and increases our waistlines. But why should animals have to endure this type of treatment, just so we can have a cheap meal?
Not to mention the fact that as Michael Pollan reminds us in the Omnivore’s dilemma, US is by far the cruelest of nations when it comes to treatment of animals it consumes. Europe and most developing countries already enforce more humane standards. One way to legislate for this would be to legislate for greater transparency, again echoing Pollan, by changing the concrete veil for clear plastic looking glass walls in the broiler houses and gestational crates. If we are able to look, seeing the reality will swing the course of what the market demands.
Of course it would also hugely help if the WTO and countries’ trade rules stopped seeing a cow as just a cow and a potato as just a potato, essentially and preposterously treating higher labour, animal welfare and environmental standards as ‘barriers to trade’.