© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
News
To contact us with news tips, story ideas or other related information, e-mail newsstaff@ideastream.org.

State Issue 2 and the Treatment of Farm Animals

If you've heard anything about Issue 2, it's probably the TV ad that supporters are airing. Amidst a pastoral family farm scene a mom is serving up a sumptuous breakfast with a little politics on the side.

SOUND: (ACOUSTIC GUITAR UNDER) The livestock we raise are healthy and well-cared for, because they feed our families and yours. Let's keep it that way.

The way to "keep farm animals healthy and well-cared for," the ad says is to vote amend the state constitution with Issue 2 which would create a new regulatory agency to oversee the standards and practices of livestock farming. It would cover chickens, pigs, cattle and the like.

Issue 2 has the backing of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation - the state's largest farm industry association. Jack Fisher is (? President).

JACK FISHER: We're very committed to the highest quality of animal care for all of our food production animals. We were seeing an erosion and some challenges to our efficiency and to the quality of our food production system, led by activists who were looking at our industry with a single point of reference.

Paul Shapiro is one of those "activists." He's (what position and organization) and he says Issue 2 isn't about protecting animals at all….. it's about protecting the status quo.

PAUL SHAPIRO: It's essentially creating an industry-dominated council that would allow the foxes to guard the hen house.

Shapiro and Fisher were guests on Tuesday's Sound of Ideas call-in program on 90.3 explaining why a food industry lobby says it wants more regulation while a group dedicated to humane treatment of animals is against it. Normally, those positions would be reversed.

Here's the backdrop. Animal rights supporters have been winning battles in some states….California being the latest…to more strictly proscribe the conditions farm animals can be raised under, requiring that all animals at least be able to turn around in their cage and be able to spread their limbs. Currently, it's not uncommon for chickens, for example, to be packed so tightly that they never can spread their wings and so-called "gestation crates" highly restrict the movement of pregnant sows.

Having succeeded elsewhere, the Humane Society began to target Ohio next. That spurred the Farm Bureau and its allies to take a pre-emptive step.

JACK FISHER: Your choice of what you eat and what's available is at stake here.

The constitutional amendment the Farm Bureau wants would establish a livestock review board that would be dominated mainly by farmers and others sympathetic to their needs. Paul Shapiro thinks that's a terrible idea.

PAUL SHAPIRO: This is a real power grab, seeking not only to self-regulate but to put this in the constitution, which I think makes it an even more onerous proposal.

Candace Croney, a bioethicist from Ohio State University and another guest on the Sound of Ideas said both sides have valid points…but that both the Farm Bureau and the Humane Society are presenting oversimplified views of a complicated issue.

CANDACE CRONEY: The idea that animals should be more comfortable and have more freedom to move around is an idea that every behaviorist I know would probably support. The problem is that, to meet that reasonable request, requires retrofitting existing facilities that actually is really expensive.

That is the nub of the argument. That giving greater protection to farm animals ….could cost farmers millions. Recognizing that financial strain, contending faction in other states have compromised, including phasing in new regulation. That hasn't happened here.

David C. Barnett was a senior arts & culture reporter for Ideastream Public Media. He retired in October 2022.