I'm sick of this recent celebration of (and campaigning for) moves to replace caged eggs with cage-free eggs (yes, this from someone who used to be convenor of Free-Range Canberra).
What if Animals Australia, RSPCA and their ilk eventually convince a million consumers to swap from cage eggs to cage-free? Firstly, it's no good a million people changing their preference tomorrow - there are simply not enough cage-free eggs being produced. No effective change can occur until the producers change their infrastructure and such changes may take some time which is why Woolworths have set themselves a 2018 target to remove cage eggs from their shelves nationally. Even when the changeover is complete and a million people who used to buy cage eggs now buy cage-free eggs, NO chicken will have been saved from a life of cramped use and early slaughter. Not one! Instead of being held in wire cages they will be held in barns that are just as cramped and disgusting as the cages.
And with those million consumers now enjoying the warm feel-good glow of 'humane consumption', their consciences salved by 'Happy Eggs' we'll be stuck with this new status quo for decades after.
But what if these bodies ran an uncompromising campaign for a stop to egg consumption instead? What if they came clean and said that there is no way to commercially produce eggs without death and suffering? Based on the average Australian consumer eating over 200 eggs per year and each hen producing about 240 eggs over her one year of 'productive' life (before being slaughtered) every egg consumer is responsible for about 1.6 chicken deaths every year (counting the hen and her brother who was killed on day one). So even if the 'no-egg' campaign only got one hundredth as many people to listen and act (that's 10,000 - and I think that's a very conservative figure), that will save 16,000 chickens per year from being bred and slaughtered. And the effect will be much quicker - producers don't have infrastructure to change - they just breed fewer chooks.
Please don't support any of this pointless 'ban battery cages' rubbish. Promote an egg-free diet instead. Promote veganism.
2 comments:
Whilst I agree with you here Mike, I thought you would have realised that these campaigns are more about 'brand awareness' than they are about the issue itself.
By promoting these token gestures, it hoodwinks the consumer and 'animal advocates' into thinking that they are actually 'doing something' for the animals.
Remember speciesism and sexism is rife in the animal 'advocacy' movement.
Yes, of course. But though we might not make a dent in the organisations themselves my hope is that some of their followers might think about things a little more.
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