The chicken industry has had a rough year, its wings clipped by pricey feed, reduced demand, and financial trouble. Even after a recent rally, Pilgrim's Pride -- which slaughters and packs 24 percent of U.S. chicken -- has seen its share price plunge nearly 90 percent.
As if the industry didn't have enough to squawk about, enter Oprah Winfrey, whose show today at 4 p.m. EDT peers into the dark heart of industrial poultry production, reportedly contrasting it with the organic, free-range system at Natural Acres Farm in Pennsylvania.
This is potentially massive news for the sustainable-food movement. The talk-show queen's opinions move mountains; people have been wondering for years when she would train serious attention on the food system. Today's show reportedly focuses on animal welfare, discussing California's Prop. 2, which would improve some of the more egregious conditions faced by factory-raised chickens. (Look for a Grist piece on Prop. 2 soon.)
I applaud Oprah for taking on this topic -- and hope in later shows she also exposes the rotten labor conditions in factory slaughterhouses and reveals the mind-bending environmental disaster of factory chicken farming. Couldn't happen to a nicer industry.
Climate Citizen: Michael Pollan on agriculture and health care
Tweet for the bees
Comments
View as Threaded
Annimal Posted 7:58 pm
14 Oct 2008
I have written a piece on farm animals at my blog :
http://annimal.bloggsida.se/diverse/sweden-and-new-zealan ...
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 12:28 am
15 Oct 2008
This time, perhaps, her lawyers assured her that Big Chicken could not touch her in court. Or else, perhaps, she is beyond caring about that sort of thing.
Nice blog, Anna!
My dentist's wife just lent me the spectacular WWF publication, "Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic," with images of animals etc. by Mireille de la Lez, and text by her husband Fredrik Granath. She is presumably French, but he is Swedish, and they live in Stockholm.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
redambrosia99 Posted 12:58 am
15 Oct 2008
Permalink
KarenLOrr Posted 2:55 am
15 Oct 2008
There's a great deal about the Texas cattlemen suit against Howard and Oprah Winfrey on the internet. If you'd like to read about it on Howard's website, click here:
Texas Cattlemen vs. Howard Lyman & Oprah Winfrey
http://www.madcowboy.com/01_BookOP.000.html
Also see ~
Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat
http://www.madcowboy.com/
and
Listen to Howard Lyman at the 2007 Animal Rights Conference here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt6vYpILydk
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 5:45 am
16 Oct 2008
Hopefully, in the American legal system there is by now enough precedent to make charges of libel, by reason of "defaming" a product, extremely difficult to prove in court.
George Bush #41 got the broccoli growers upset, didn't he, when he made it known that he did not like broccoli. That is not at all the same as libel, and there was no possibility of a law suit; nevertheless, as a Republican politician, he felt some pressure to apologize to a sector of the business community.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
Permalink
Annimal Posted 8:32 am
16 Oct 2008
I read somewhere that young people nowadays think that beef etc that are found in supermarkets are made in a factory!
Permalink