Letter to the editor
Issue date: 12/1/08 Section: Opinion
Columnist Glenna Sabo's November 21 piece about the gruesome practices routinely undertaken at factory farms was insightful and timely. It's made timelier by two executive orders from the Bush administration, which recently, shamefully, relaxed the already-weak standards under which factory farms operate. The first, set to take effect Dec. 22, would let runoff from factory farms' waste ponds pollute waterways without a permit, circumventing the Clean Water Act. The other, awaiting enactment at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), would exempt factory farms from even reporting air-pollution emissions from animal waste. As Sabo pointed out, factory farms are inhumane, harm family farms, threaten consumers through overdoses of antibiotics, and jeopardize the environment of neighbors and anyone unfortunate enough to live downstream. And for details on these two "midnight regulations" from Bush, check out the Natural Resources Defense Council story [www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081031.asp] or a brief from OMB Watch [http://ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4383/1/1?TopicID=1]. For general information on factory farms, check out the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) website [www.factoryfarm.org/home.php].
- Bill Knight
- Bill Knight
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Chris the Egg Farmer
posted 12/02/08 @ 9:55 PM CST
I am a small scale, free-range Chicken Farmer here in northern California. Some years ago I worked an internship at a California 'factory farm' raising chickens and, even though I served in the military and have travelled far and wide, done this and that and seen just about everything there is to see, never, in all my days have I experienced mankinds cruelty to animals as I witnessed in such places. (Continued…)
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