Israel has a long and complicated history when it comes to oppression. Regardless of your political leanings, simply hearing the word Israel itself is often enough to evoke images of those battling for their freedom- whether it be Jews escaping the tyranny of anti-semitism or Palestinians fighting back from behind the imposing wall. Currently, there’s a new breed of fighters in Israel longing to shake off their shackles and spread their wings. While their rallying cry might just be a squawk, the message is clear: the poultry reform is spreading.
Policy makers in Israel are currently pushing to increase the cage space of poultry by 60%.
- Chicken Run!
The current standards for chicken coops in Israel are far behind those of the EU and in America. However, those calling for improvement find current measures to be far too small of a change, arguing that reform must go beyond simply enlarging cages. In other areas of the world, chickens seem to be moving on up- while they might not be living in the posh gated homes of Beverly Hills, their new digs are an improvement from the tenement housing of yesteryear. In November, California passed “Proposition Two,”, essentially banning caging poultry, as well as freeing calves from veal cages and sows from gestation crates.
The EU passed similar legislation that will make battery cages illegal by 2012. Better living conditions for poultry is, undeniably, in everyones best interests. Farmers have nothing to gain from unhappy poultry; when chickens are stressed or unhealthy their egg production suffers. The Humane Society, which spearheaded the efforts in California, argued that chickens need the ability to nest, take dust-baths and move around. However, simple reform does not take into account the fact that “cage free” does not necessarily equate to “free range.”. Many cage free chickens are still kept inside barns, often overcrowded, and with an influx in of disease and stress. Forcing farmers to do away with battery cages does guarantee enhance the well being of the chickens- or the well being of our environment.
Farmers have found ways to amend their egg production based on the recent changes in legislation. Those who simply removed their cages from already built structures now house fewer hens in the same amount of space. Besides creating a scenario where more energy is used per chicken, some of these farms might also become, in the eyes of the law, “small operators,”, with less rigid pollution standards to follow. Other farmers are forced to build new structures, and are faced with the financial burdens of having to discard expensive equipment. Large chicken farms pose other environmental problems as well. If mid-sized farms are forced to consolidate, we could have chicken farms that are creating 500 pounds of ammonia daily through their large amounts of waste. While small doses of manure can be utilized, it is nearly impossible to deal with quantities that large; much of the waste contains antibiotics and heavy metals, and ends up in our water. Poultry reform must address the impact of such industrial farming on the health of the environment as well. There also is is also an exceedingly large amount of energy needed to run such a farm– 600,000-hens require 200,000 gallons of gasoline a year, for example.
The laws of kosher set a precedent for caring about what we eat, and not just in the way we prepare our food. Precedents are set for treating animals as something holy by requiring that farm animals also to rest on Shabbat. We are taught to treat animals with respect, and not to take a mother birds eggs from her while she watches. Our rules of kosher dictate how we prepare an animal for slaughter and ensure that the practices are as pain- and terror-free as possible. These laws protect not just the health of the consumer, but also the health and well-being of the animals themselves itself. While we can’t cannot expect all farmers to be held to the standards of Jewish law, we can take a lesson from these holy texts.
These creatures are not just a source of food, but, are key to our nourishment- both physically and spiritually.
Poultry reform is not a simple question of treating chickens more humanely better. Caged or free, large industrial farming complexes are creating more problems than they solve. Israel is on the right track by examining how their livestock are is treated, but policy makers (and consumers) everywhere need to reexamine their priorities. Paying a dollar more for a cartoon of eggs might seem like a heavy hit to the pocketbook, but ensuring that chickens are kept in safe, clean and in uncrowded homes is a small price to pay for healthy food and a cleaner environment.
(My credentials here are impeccable. While I might be guilty of having had a hard boiled egg for breakfast this morning, I did write these words sitting safely inside an old turkey run that is now my office at the Arava Institue . Please stay tuned for my next post: “Free the Interns!”)
This is great! You’ve highlighted a moral imperative in Judaism that we can apply to environmental justice. Important food for thought and action.
I had a really hard time reading this post without having scenes from “chicken run” come into my head.
But really this would make for a great cartoon series. Well, it would at least help bring the topic into conversation.