2022.12.06 Plant Based Treasure Valley VegNews Updates
Ken: “Walking with Petey”, Eric O’Gray
Pam: will share a MedScape article: “Highly Processed Foods as Addictive as Tobacco”. Andrea: has a few things to share as well.
VegNews Article:
● Cory Booker, Plant-based NJ senator, is on a mission to ban factory farming.
● In 2019, Senator Booker proposed the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA), a bill that aims to transition animal agriculture away from factory farming. It was not voted on in 2019.
● FSRA’s goal is to ban the opening of new large-scale concentrated feeding operations (CAFOs) and limit the growth of existing CAFOs in the meat and dairy sectors.
● FSRA also would phase out the largest CAFOs by 2040 and hold meatpackers accountable for the pollution they create.
● The current Farm Bill was 1st passed in 1933 (during the Depression) and it expires on 09/30/2023.
● Booker reintroduced FSRA in 2021 and has been working to gather support in transforming the US animal agriculture industry in light of the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill.
● The current version of the Farm Bill contains 12 chapters (“titles”), with only 4 of those chapters accounting for 99% of the bill’s allocated funds (nutrition, crop insurance, commodities and conservation).
● In the time between now and when Congress members who sit on the Senate & House Committees on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry meet to draft the 2023 Farm Bill, Booker along with many advocacy groups will seek to influence future priorities of the bill.
● Booker says that banning factory farms is a bipartisan issue.
● Since Congress authorized nearly $430 billion in public spending via the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, many crises have occurred such as the Pandemic, supply chain disruptions (Domestically & Internationally) and inflation.
● Booker states that “the 2nd-largest lobby after the defense lobby is the food lobby”.
● The current Farm Bill has been criticized for incentivising the meat and dairy industries to
create an annual surplus despite supply exceeding demand, meaning that there are
more unnecessary deaths of farmed animals while the meat industry earns huge profits.
● Booker continues to be a vocal advocate for ending factory farming and strengthening oversight of the meat/dairy industries practices, particularly as a growing body of research indicates that the consumption of animal products is linked to a higher risk of certain diseases, especially in minority communities.
● Lauren Tavar, Director of Farm Animal Legislation at the ASPCA echoes Booker’s ideas about the urgent need to transform our current food system by moving away from factory farming.
● Tavar told VegNews, “In addition to being the single-most influential piece of legislation on our food system, the Farm Bill also impacts the lives of billions of animals, including companion animals, equines and farmed animals”.
● Andrew Coriolis (Executive Director of non-profit Farm Forward) told VegNews: “We need a Farm Bill that’s focused on producing nutritious foods that people eat rather than subsidizing feed for factory farms or biofuels with environmentally dubious benefits. It’s past time that our agriculture policy put the long-term health and well-being of people over corporate profits”.
● Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and Farm Forward continue to gather research into consumer attitudes toward factory farming, meat consumption and their accompanying knowledge of where meat actually comes from.
● CIWF released the results of a survey it commissioned in October which found that 67% of American adults believe factory farming puts profits ahead of animal welfare and 59% believe profits are prioritized over the health of the people who eat animal products. Although these results might indicate that the public is becoming more aware of the problems with factory farming, the issue is more complex.
● Farm Forward’s deCoriolis explains that FF’s consumer research surveys continues to show that Americans are still falling for marketing tactics (ie. Humane Washing) that paint a bucolic, pastoral, beautiful image of animal agriculture.
● Humane washing is the practice of making false or misleading claims about the treatment of farmed animals (ie that they are raised in green pastures but in reality they
● “Ultimately we have a nation that is sick: One out of 3 of our government dollars right
now goes to healthcare for this explosion of diet-related diseases. Only 2% of our
agriculture subsidies goes to fruits and vegetables,” Booker said.
are raised in confinement). Claims may include the conditions in which animals are born, raised or killed.
● DeCoriolis stated that FF’s surveys wanted to see the extent to which humane-washing and deceptive marketing affects consumers.
● If the average meat and dairy consumer believes that progress is being made where it actually isn’t, the incentive to embrace a vegan lifestyle is lessened.
● Lauren Tavar (of the Farm Animal Legislation of the ASPCA) stated:
broadly deceived by labeling and marketing. FF discovered that the deceptive claims are
What they found is that consumers are
upholding rather than improving the status quo.
animals, stop propping up cruel factory farming, and accelerate the transition to a more
“The ASPCA is
advocating for several animal welfare provisions to be included in this bill to protect
humane food system. And we encourage the public to contact their members of
Congress and urge them to include these lifesaving protections in the 2023 Farm Bill”.