HSUS takes the welfare road - or does it?

Sunday, June 3, 2012

When U.S. based Burger King announced in late April that it will source all eggs and pork from cage-free and gestation stall-free hen and pork operations by 2017, its partner in the announcement, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) took an apparent high road focusing on animal welfare.

"We endeavour to help companies like Burger King improve over time," Matt Prescott, HSUS's food policy director in Washington, told CBC Radio's As It Happens show.

Prescott went on to say that HSUS "wants a safe, effective, robust food supply that waives animal welfare to at least some degree."

However, agricultural consultant Leslie Ballantine, who monitors animal welfare and animal rights groups, says Prescott's statement should be approached cautiously. She questions what "cage-free" really means. HSUS and the United Egg Producers in the United States have agreed to work together to mandate colony cage production, where hens are housed in groups of as many as 30.

A colony is still a cage, Ballentine points out. She believes the ultimate HSUS goal is to ban meat, eggs and dairy from diets, and agricultural groups and their suppliers are being gradually co-opted. "Rome wasn't built in a day," she observes. BF