Given our tag line – a research-based guide to the structure and impacts of U.S. factory farming – this site and its monthly blog posts necessarily detail the casualties inflicted on nature and society by industrial animal ag. So, it can be a challenge to feel the optimism one normally longs for as we enter that period of the year known for the dark, the cold, and the spiritual. And yet, we keep thinking we do have the power to end this madness. We each have a vote. We all can protest.
Recently, we spent about a week researching the mass killing events euphemistically referred to as “depopulations” that have been perpetrated on more than 180 million sentient creatures in the past few years. These may be the cruelest and yet most avoidable practices ever devised by industry and sanctioned by government. All to deal with the spread of a virus that is perpetuated, even accelerated, by the factory farming system itself. Investigating such intense and unnecessary suffering was a depressing time for us. Here are a few brutal facts.
Our hope has always been that when enough people allow themselves to grapple with the realities of factory farming, the scale will finally tip. There is one empowering aspect to this devastating system of pain and pollution. No one is forced to participate in it. Everyone can discontinue their support and express their disapproval as soon as next mealtime.
In a political landscape where many feel powerless to stop the callous destruction of the natural world and the reframing of empathy as weakness, a simple vote of protest can reverberate throughout our lives and the wider world. A commitment to no longer support factory farming. That prospect of decisive, meaningful, and practical change beckons like a light at the tunnel’s end.
At Inside Animal Ag, we don’t focus on solutions. We see our mission as presenting the realities, thereby encouraging others to explore the healing side. Maybe it can be a tradition, once a year, to say that we have the power to end the institutionalized cruelty of factory farming. We have the power to end the mass killings. Our vote matters. The work matters. Keep showing up.
Chart banner photo: Glass Walls/We Animals
For more info and references, see Mass Killing of Poultry (Avian flu)