well I just typed out a huge diatribe about the humane farming initiative I helped fight for a few years back...and how/why it was defeated...but I got logged off and it disappeared! Wish Mudcat had a way to safehguard our rants!

anyway, the humane farming initiative (in Massachusetts) would have helped small farms by allowing them to sell certified organically-raised, cruelty-free animal products to consumers willing to pay more for such things. The bill was defeated by a very visible counter-campaign known as the "Save the Family Farm" movement. Only thing the family farms didn't know: that expensivce campaign was paid for by none other then THE FARM BUREAU: one of the organizations which represents the huge corporate agribusinesses which have been systematically putting American farmers out of business for decades.

The humane farming initiative would have forced huge agribusinesses to stop all their production-boosting practices: forcing slaughter of tumor-ridden animals (instead of allowing the carcasses to be trimmed of pathological growths and sold for pet food and sometimes human food); forced decrease of use of antibiotics and hormones; larger cages for hens; better treatment of veal calves; cleaner conditions on pig farms, etc.

It lost. It lost and the people who voted against it don't even know why they were against it. They thought its supporters were a bunch of vegetarian outsiders with no interest in the local farming community. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since then I have realized the insidious profit motive that lies behind farming in the US. It is all about the bottom line. Hence, more and deadlier pesticides, lower and more competitive milk prices forcing farmers to dump milk, "government-donated" dairy commodities like cheese and butter for the poor (a good thing but these surpluses only exist because of wrong-headed government subsidies to the farmers who needed them least)...

It is with a heavy heart to see the situation in the UK and western Europe. As a confirmed anglophile and UK traveller, I usualy think of England as a placew of pastoral beauty, where locally-grown and raised food is available in every corner shop. Sadly, in recent years, I see more and more litter in public places, more and more hypermarkets, more and more Americanization (especially the beer and music in pubs, ick!!), more and more Burger Kings and McDonalds', more and more supermarkets with the meat all packaged prettily in plastic, as opposed to "on the hoof" like in the local butcher shop...

You'd think it was turning into America. What happened??? How can we help?