The cage-free eggs campaign is still prominent in North America it seems. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), enthusiastically supported by vegan advocate Erik Marcus, are trying to get college cafes and restaurants to switch from battery to non-battery eggs. Oddly, when Gary Francione challenged Marcus about his championing of the cage-free campaign, Marcus didn’t seem to know a great deal about what cage-free facilities were like, yet insisted that cage free marks a major step forward for bird welfare. It seemed as if anything not battery should be taken to represent a huge victory for hens.
In a recent podcast debate between Gary Francione and Erik Marcus,[1] the latter said he’s seen a picture or two of cage-free facilities but that was about it. Francione argued that he had received reports of such systems and the conditions were said to be horrendous. Francione suggested he would benefit by getting inside these facilities to have a shufty. One might have imagined that those in the business of recommending some systems over others would have thought of that themselves. In the meantime, the British media have recently shown a series of films showing the shocking realities of cage-free “freedom foods” systems and they are horrible.[2]
Ever since the Francione/Marcus debate I’ve been intrigued by the notion that even cage free advocates may not know much about the systems in question. For example, I would have expected the HSUS campaign material to be replete with pictures showing a most clear and marked differences between systems they wanted students to boycott and those they wanted them to support. Surely students would need a little more than not battery as the reason to drive through and support the switch, especially as claim and counter-claim is the order of the day? While USA Today [3] quote the HSUS’ Paul Shapiro asserting that, “the quality of life of a cage-free hen is much better than the quality of life of a battery-cage hen,” Janice Swanson, animal behaviour specialist at Kansas University, argues that, if the aim is high standards of animal welfare, then “hens running free in a barn or on a range may not be as well cared for as more confined birds.”[4]
Every time I get news about "cage-free" I see more of the problem: the problem of neo-welfarism – and it highlights the general difficulties for animal welfarists who end up getting involved in monitoring, regulating and recommending various exploitation systems. One particular problem for new welfarists is making sure that current campaigns do not support the systems they say they seek to destroy. New welfarism is based on the notion that welfare + welfare + welfare + welfare = animal rights, a formula criticised and rejected by abolitionist animal rightists. Since there continues to be press coverage of the numbers of vegetarians "returning to meat" because meat is now "humane enough" to satisfy their concerns about animal cruelty and not causing "unnecessary suffering," neo-welfarists must make damn certain that their latest wheez isn’t encouraging more consumption of animal produce. We already know many animal welfarists oppose rights-based approaches to human-nonhuman relations but often their welfare campaigns seem potentially counter-productive from a utilitarian point of view too, as Gary Francione pointed out in a blog entry.[5]
The US regulatory system seems to be so loose that it would cost many millions if animal welfare organisations wanted to try to monitor the types of production they are effectively advocating. In the meantime, of course, the businesses concerned ~ be they McDonald’s or the egg industry ~ are not slow off the mark to publicise themselves as leaders at the forefront of the humane movement, thereby getting into the heads of the teetering vegetarians who do not appear to have principles strong enough to tell them what to do with their reforms. The problem, as revealed in British cases, is not only that less than 100% of facilities are monitored but also that even those inspected may subsequently deteriorate.
To recommend a system as "humane" or "more humane," it would be necessary for animal welfarists to implement an efficient system of continuous oversight. Animal welfarists really do get themselves involved in a complicated and very messy business if they seek to intervene in day-to-day exploitation operations. For example, the American Humane Society monitors the "free-farmed" eggs produced by the prisoners of Egg Innovations, a farmer’s co-op.[6] Here animal welfarists appear to have been suckered into endorsing lies and distortions. Egg Innovations claim its eggs are removed from chickens, “free from any unnecessary fear and distress; free from unnecessary pain, injury and disease… and free from unnecessary discomfort.” Since human animals do not need to eat the eggs produced by other animals and therefore do not need to purposely breed such birds in order to steal their eggs before, as "spent" hens, they are shipped off to be killed, all of that is likely to be false.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for the regulation of US domestic egg production, but does it rather sloppily according to freelance writer Starre Vartan.[7] Apparently the North American egg industry, represented by the American Egg Board (AEB), regards non-battery eggs, "specialty eggs" and non-battery comes eggs under a bewildering number of types, variously labelled “free range,” “cage free,” “organic,” “fortified with omega-3’s,” “natural,” “free-farmed,” “all natural” and, rarely, “pasture-fed.” (Which of these are "humane enough" for animal welfarists?)
Consequently, Vartan describes the debate about what these systems mean as "pretty nuanced." "Organic Valley Farms" is given as an example of "free range" systems: these are farms and make up "a family of farms" throughout North America. What "free range" means in this case is “five feet of green space per bird outside and two feet inside, as well as natural sunlight inside the hen house.” Paul Shapiro and Erik Marcus are likely to claim that such a system is clearly "much better" than battery cages, even though cage free hens can still be debeaked and force moulted and, of course, transported to be murdered in slaughterhouses. It is also not at all clear what "green space outside" means, especially when Vartan reports that hens able to forage outside for wild plants and insects are very few and far between. Moreover, Vartan was told by one "cage free" farmer that it was unrealistic to allow birds out in the winter.
It seems that the USDA does not monitor any other claim on egg packages than whether or not the eggs can be described as "organic." Therefore, it may be incredibly difficult to ensure that diner managers, always under budgetary constraints, get a consistent Organic Valley supply - assuming that’s the one welfarists might want to recommend. For one thing, Vartan says such eggs are as much as double the price of battery eggs, so there are bound to be other "cage-free" systems that can offer better prices for worse "welfare." The animal welfarist, it appears, may need to monitor both the farms and the week-on-week, month-on-month, year-on-year supply to college and university diners.
Starre Vartan’s article contains one big mistake when it is suggested that some people will pay up to double for cage free eggs "because they care about animal rights." No! You will not (or should not) catch animal rightists eating an egg, cage free or otherwise. Vegetarian welfarists may eat eggs, but animal rights is about shutting down the businesses that breed and exploit nonhuman domesticates and rights-based advocates do that by following a vegan diet and lifestyle, thereby boycotting animal user industry produce.
While many animal welfarists get involved in the extraordinarily messy business of trying to organise how human beings exploit other animals, vegan rightists advocate veganism in a simple, honest, and perfectly straightforward manner as the baseline position of their rights-based perspective. No-one can eat the eggs stolen from rights bearers without committing a rights violation: this applies whether the victims are held in cage free prisons or otherwise.
[1] http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/audio/erik-marcus-debates-gary-l-francione/
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzLTsA8Rf-4
[3] Elizabeth Weise, ‘Cage-free hens pushed to rule the roost’, USA Today, 02/10/2006.
[4] Rod Smith, ‘Egg industry lets science ‘speak’’, Feedstuffs Food, (2006), vol 78(42): October 9th.
[5] http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/2007/03/28/what-battle-are-we-winning/#more-25
[6] Starre Vartan, ‘Happy eggs: “free range”, “cage free”, “organic” – what’s the story? – Eating Right’ (2003): http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_ml594/is_3_14/ai_101763358/print
[7] ibid.
