We are kept in the dark about the true origin of the food we eat. The package imagery on meat, eggs and dairy, might conjure up and validate an eat-me-with-a-clear-conscience-food, but these are marketing ploys. Customers look for labels such as ‘organic’ or ‘free-range’ to reduce animal suffering but there is also ‘outdoor reared’, ‘outdoor bred’ and ‘cage free’ which might also give that perception. Many products have vague claims like farm fresh, ‘farm assured’, ‘farm raised’, (could still mean a factory farm), ‘locally sourced’, ‘pasture reared’, ‘humanely raised’, ‘outdoor access’, ‘grass fed’, ‘corn fed’ or ‘country fresh.’ The fact that we have all these labels, in the first instance, attests to their relevance.
Organic farming focuses on the avoidance of pesticides and GM ingredients. It can often be principally more concerned with consumer satisfaction, as opposed to animal welfare. The guiding principle of free-range is that animals are able to roam freely. However, it may be they are allowed access outside, but the quality may not be grass or the size of the area and length of time is not regulated. Also because they have the option, doesn’t guarantee they go. Suppliers can manipulate loopholes. Free-range pasture raised meat, might not have an organic label, just because the farmer can’t afford the expensive certification process. Alternatively, free-range farming might be difficult to distinguish from factory farming.
Both systems vary enormously, and are still profit-driven organisations which don’t always benefit animals. Much depends on the individual producer and production standards. Organic in other countries, does not necessarily mean the same as UK. Organic pigs for example may only have access to an outdoor run in some European countries or imported organic pork, might even come from animals which originated from non-organic sources, reared in barren concrete sheds. CIWF states that 88% of pork comes from tail docked pigs.
Britain imports large quantities of pig meat. Products marked British may merely have been processed in the UK. Low welfare is widespread in overseas farms. Horror stories of some farms in Eastern Europe are exposed by Pig Business at www.pigbusiness.co.uk. In the EU it is a legal requirement to label beef and veal by the country where the animal was born, the country of fattening and the country of slaughter. And to label the country of fattening and of slaughter on fresh or frozen meat from pigs, sheep and poultry. It would be much kinder, if meat was reared locally and organically, instead of shipping animals all over the world.
Christians Caring For Gods Creatures 