Tag: Farmed animals

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

At the Vancouver Vegan Festival held at Creekside Park, we launched a new form of animal advocacy and outreach through virtual reality. We’re excited to partner with Animal Equality to offer their iAnimal 360 virtual experience to Metro Vancouver.

For the first time, you can see what they see, as you take the place of either a chicken, cow, or pig as you experience their entire farmed lifecycle in a matter of minutes in a narrated 360° video. Filmed with the consent and approval of modern farms and slaughter facilities who are proud of what they do, you can see what the average day looks like through the eyes of an animal, rather than focusing on the most graphic footage we could find, or relying on hidden cameras. We believe that simply showing you what happens as the animal would see it is powerful enough to stir compassion in even the hardest heart.

The feedback we received was amazing. There were questions (“and this is legal?” “and this is normal?”), there were tears, and there was no one who left looking at farmed animals, or their manicured meat products, the same way.

I’m not someone who’s easily impressed. I didn’t get excited about Avatar in 3D or the Tupac hologram. But the experience of immersion that VR can give us is almost incomparable to film or gaming as we know them today. It can open up new possibilities in the way it’s able to transport you seemingly out of your own body. I’ve tested out virtual rollercoasters that make your stomach drop, I’ve swum with pre-recorded sharks and dolphins, and they’re all pretty incredible. 

In the history of ideas “the virtual” is more complicated than the usual pop culture sense of the term. We usually think of “the virtual” as “the fictional” or “the illusory,” something that appears real but isn’t. Philosophers have used the term more broadly though to mean “the possible” or “the potential” (I actually wrote about this in a philosophical dictionary released a few years ago) and it’s this broader, more experimental notion of “the virtual” that really interests me.

It’s no wonder that even rodeos and circuses are playing with the ideas of virtual animals and experiences. We’ve talked in our office about the possibilities that virtual reality and animal holograms could bring to antiquated institutions such as zoos and aquaria. You can even experience something like an existence in one of these facilities through a virtual prison experience. I can only imagine what an iAnimal take on modern zoos would feel like, putting you in a boring box for unending observation in an alien environment, surrounded by other animals you couldn’t possibly understand. You’d be able to take off the headset if you felt claustrophobic or anxious —  a luxury the animals don’t get.

Of course, we don’t have to have sophisticated camera equipment or advanced technology to empathize with these animals. Ethicists have put themselves in the place of the animal for thousands of years through thought experiments and observation, and come to the realization that their pain is difficult or impossible to justify given our own capacity for physical, psychological, and emotional suffering and knowledge of other animals.

The moral question of whether we are justified in killing and eating other animals for our survival is hard enough before you factor in the thought and planning that goes in to modern farming, the cunning it takes to commodify animals in order to think of them in terms of pounds and energy cost rather than as individuals with bodily autonomy and emotional awareness. We would never invent such a brutal system today, it would never make it past market research. Paul McCartney once said that if slaughterhouses had glass walls then everyone would become vegetarian. I don’t think that’s entirely right, but I don’t think it’s possible to justify what happens to any animal on modern farms if you’re capable of seeing them, if even for only a moment, as animal selves with feelings and wants. 

No, other animals aren’t people, but who decided that only people count for anything? Killing another person is wrong, whether it’s the law or not. Is it sometimes justifiable? Maybe, but that doesn’t make it “good” or “right.” Are we justified in killing animals for food? Maybe sometimes. Everyone seems obsessed with some Castaway scenario where they’re forced to eat their only friend (a pig usually) in order to survive. Would I eat a pig to survive? Maybe, but that doesn’t make it “good” or “right.” (Besides, the modern Western world gives us a reality that is the exact opposite of the aforementioned island: we live on an island with an abundance of choices that don’t require animals to suffer and yet we as a society demand more meat and cheese!) 

I also don’t buy in to the idea of purity politics though; ethics are about character and doing the best thing in the given situation, not about calculating how to extract the most utility out of a situation or blindly following a moral code. The best thing to do in a given situation may be to defend myself from someone, or to eat an animal in order to survive so I can once again continue living up to my own ethic. 

Just like the iAnimal videos, what we ask of our supporters and the greater community is to put yourself in the situation of the animal. What is good for them? What is for the “greater good” knowing that human beings starve every day while we feed soy and corn to cows in one of the most inefficient ways to generate food energy? What is moral, and what is justifiable, given that we throw away such huge quantities of food, while continuing to produce more animal products than we know what to do with?

Ethics and politics are lived, not calculated, and as we get better and know better, we should always aim to do better. This is obvious when it comes to other people, and should be obvious to anyone capable of imagining being in the situation of suffering, regardless of species. Is it “better” to kill a rat than a dog? It might be more justifiable, but when the question is of morality, it’s not so easy to answer. Do we want to live in a world where decisions about what’s easy or okay to kill go unquestioned? The answer should be a resounding “No,” but we don’t even get to ask the question. It’s unthinkable to some people, like trying to question the air that we breathe. Shouldn’t we be concerned at this mass failure of imagination? Of generations of people so divorced from the fact that they’re paying to breed and raise animals to be killed weeks later out of pure habit and convenience? Let’s at least give the animals we eat the five minutes it takes to see the world from their eyes. We owe them that much. There’s something truly powerful in a person’s capacity for empathy, something we share with many other animals, even if we often forget.

Article originally published in the Vancouver Sun.

Once again, the veil has been lifted on a B.C. farm to expose sickening cruelty being inflicted on animals. And once again, animal agriculture representatives say it’s not the norm — it’s just a few bad apples.

But last week’s release of an undercover video taken by animal activists at an Abbotsford hog farm, that allegedly shows sick and dying pigs living in filthy conditions alongside dead and decomposing animals, graphically illustrates why the livestock industry cannot be trusted to care for animals humanely.

The farm is owned by a director of the B.C. Pork Producers Association, whose spokesman told media: “I think it’s important to know when people see this footage this isn’t all completely normal on most farms.” Yet, the ease with which undercover investigators find and reveal abuse suggests that animal cruelty in intensive farming is not the rare occurrence that operators claim.

In 2014, activists released video that exposed horrific cruelty inflicted on cows at Chilliwack Cattle Sales, Canada’s largest dairy farm. At the time, Jeff Kooyman, one of the owners of the farm, said he was “shocked” and claimed he had no idea his staff were abusing the cows. In 2016, Kooyman and five members of his family were charged with causing or permitting animals to be in distress.

In June 2017, video footage released by animal activists showed chickens at a Chilliwack poultry operation being mangled, stomped on and thrown against a wall. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency laid charges under federal regulations against Elite Farm Services and its president, Dwayne Dueck, for allegedly beating chickens and loading them in a way “likely to cause injury or undue suffering.” When the video first appeared in the media, Dueck said he was “sickened” by the footage.

In 2018, the B.C. SPCA announced it was again investigating Elite Farm Services in what it said was “another situation where chickens have allegedly suffered as a result of what appears to be a blatant disregard to adherence of the industry’s own agreed-upon standards of care…”

These undercover animal cruelty cases, and many others that have exposed similar abuse across Canada, show that industrial agriculture cannot provide humane conditions for animals. The system is designed to mass produce cheap meat, eggs and dairy, not to provide good lives for animals.

Working with large numbers of animals on an intensive farm must be desensitizing. Each animal, as science has shown, is sentient and has its own individual personality yet on the factory farm they are by definition a commodity. This contradiction cannot be squared. Cruelty occurs when there is no empathy and factory farm workers cannot empathize with animals as individuals. If they did, how could they keep on working?

Many Canadians do not realize that animal farmers in Canada largely police themselves. There are codes of practice for the care and handling of farm animals, the creation of which are largely industry-led, but there are no on-farm government inspections to ensure they are enforced.

For a growing number of people, the real answer is to turn away from animal-based food products. As more plant-based alternatives to animal products emerge, the easier it is to transition to a plant-based diet. In the short-term, even just reducing meat consumption sends a market signal to livestock producers that factory farming is becoming unacceptable, thus forcing reforms.

In the longer term, bolstered by the need to end the environmental damage and poor health outcomes of a food system based on animal consumption, the plant-based diet may finally bring an end to factory farming and all the animal suffering it causes.

Article originally published in the Georgia Straight.

The global livestock industry—already under attack for damaging the environment, causing mass animal suffering, and exacerbating climate change—now faces a calamity that should have us asking: isn’t there a better way to feed the world?

Fortunately, there is.

The spread of African swine fever has forced China to cull 200 million pigs, a loss of 30 percent of the country’s pork production—the equivalent of the entire annual pork supply of the European Union. The mass slaughter is expected to cause a protein shortage, rising meat prices, and investment losses.

The devastating impact of the worldwide spread of the virus perfectly illustrates one of the many economic risks inherent in the meat and livestock industry. Livestock-disease outbreaks are a constant threat—think of mad-cow disease, avian flu, or hoof-and-mouth disease—and they are economically damaging.

They are also costly to taxpayers. Federal and provincial governments paid $4.3 billion in compensation to Canada’s cattle industry for losses stemming from the 2003 BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) outbreak. Governments around the world pick up the bill for the consequences of animal-disease outbreaks and for trying to prevent them. This year’s federal budget included $31 million for more sniffer dogs to detect African swine fever entering the country. (Although vegetables are also subject to contamination and disease, the causes are often traced to livestock.)

The risks of catastrophic disease outbreaks in the livestock sector are in addition to the environmental costs, public health risks, and animal-welfare concerns that come with industrialized animal agriculture. While animal advocates and environmentalists have raised these issues for decades, some in the investment community have woken up to the industry’s risks.

The FAIRR Initiative, a consortium of investors representing more than $12 trillion in assets, is drawing attention to the negative impacts of factory farming and, according to its website, “believes that intensive livestock production poses material risks to the global financial system and hinders sustainable development”.

FAIRR has highlighted the livestock sector’s role in issues such as climate change and the overuse of antibiotics, and it has urged food companies to diversify their protein-sourcing away from a reliance on animal proteins. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that some companies are doing exactly that.

Maple Leaf Foods, Canada’s largest pork processer, recently announced plans to build the largest plant in North America for plant-based protein (sadly, in Indiana, not Canada). The company, which previously acquired two plant-based food businesses, is not alone in its interest in nonanimal proteins: major meat companies such as Cargill and Tyson Foods have also invested in meat alternatives.

At the retail level, chains such as A&W and White Spot have jumped on the plant-based bandwagon, and consumers have welcomed their new meat-free offerings.

Ultimately, the success of new plant-based foods will depend on consumer demand and their capacity to compete on price, taste, and convenience. But as the meat industry and its investors confront the disastrous consequences of yet another global animal-disease outbreak, perhaps more sustainable and less risky food products will have greater appeal.

As for China’s shortage of pork (a traditional staple of the national diet), there may already be a plant-based product ready to help fill the gap. A Hong Kong-based company called Right Treat produces a meatless pork alternative called Omnipork that is proving popular. Developed by food scientists based in Vancouver, Omnipork is made from peas, soy, shiitake mushrooms, and rice.

When contrasted with the need to slaughter millions of pigs, dispose of their carcasses, and guard against the next animal-disease outbreak, such products seem to offer a more benign alternative to what is, quite literally, a bloody mess.

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

Is the rising popularity of vegan and vegetarian food just another diet fad? Evidence is emerging that it is not only taking root in a growing number of home and restaurant kitchens but also deep in the food industry.

Diners in Metro Vancouver have seen more vegan eateries opening and more plant-based options at many other restaurants. Shoppers are finding new meatless products appearing on supermarket shelves. Even fast-food joints are pushing veggie burgers. Who didn’t hear about A&W selling out of its new plant-based Beyond Meat burger within hours last summer?

The same is happening across much of the developed world. In Britain, the recent launch of a vegan sausage roll caused a national media sensation, as the product quickly sold out and pundits debated the merits of changing an iconic British snack (The U.K. overtook Germany this year as the world leader for vegan product launches).

Even France, the home of Brie cheese, has seen a rise in meatless eating. French supermarket sales of vegetable protein surged by 82 per cent in 2016, and are set to grow by another 25 percent a year through 2020, according to one study.

Nevertheless, some are skeptical about the attention being paid to plant-based food. The U.K.’s Times newspaper reported last year that the meat industry was scornful of the increased interest in vegan food, stating: “Livestock farmers are being told not to panic about the rise of veganism because it is a passing fad for many young people who are merely following the latest fashion.”

But there are clear signs that the “plant-based revolution” is real.  And it’s not because of a few more vegan cafes and some popular veggie burgers.  The real evidence of change can be found in food business journals, which are reporting a quiet but fundamental shift within the global food industry.

Last year, Ingredion, a giant U.S. food ingredients company, invested US$140 million in manufacturing facilities in Saskatchewan and Nebraska to create flours and concentrates from peas, dried beans, chickpeas and lentils. The company’s CEO explained why: “We’ve identified plant-based proteins as a high-growth, high-value market opportunity that is on-trend with consumers’ desire to find sustainable and good tasting alternatives to animal-based proteins.”

Other companies are doing the same, creating animal-free protein for use in bakery products, cereals, pasta, batters and meat substitutes.  In 2017, the global plant-based proteins market was valued at US$ 10.5 billion and is estimated to reach a value of around US$ 16.3 billion by the end of 2025, according to analysts Persistence Market Research.

The egg industry is also being disrupted, as food companies seek to avoid the market volatility of egg supplies and prices, which are affected by disease outbreaks (avian flu) and recalls (salmonella). Many have turned to plant-based alternatives that fulfil the same function of eggs in baked goods or sauces without compromising flavour.

Other food companies have focused on improving the taste and texture of the new plant-based ingredients, such as removing the bitterness of pea protein or giving non-dairy ice cream the same creamy mouthfeel as the real thing – thus creating the potential to “veganize” just about anything.

These advances come on top of the already successful introduction of non-dairy milks, the launch of popular meat substitutes and high-profile investments in the sector by billionaires like Bill Gates and Li Ka-Shing and Richard Branson.

While many ethical vegans and vegetarians welcome these developments, which open up the possibility of a future without animal slaughter, there are concerns about Big Food’s involvement, especially its over-processing of food.

That’s why many influential vegans and vegetarians advocate for a “whole foods” plant-based diet and recommend keeping processed foods to a minimum.  Desiree Nielsen, a Vancouver-based registered dietitian and host of TV’s The Urban Vegetarian, has said “You can be a junk-food, cheesy-carb vegetarian, or you can be an Oreo- and candy-obsessed vegan.” She says eating processed meat substitutes once or twice a week is fine but diet mainstays should be simpler options like beans and high protein vegetables, preferably home-cooked.

Such advice is certainly having an impact. The rise in meatless products has been matched by an explosion in plant-based cookbooks and recipe blogs, suggesting many people are at least trying to avoid an over-reliance on processed foods.

Whether it’s led by convenient meat substitutes or homemade whole foods, the plant-based revolution looks like it’s here to stay.  And keeping animals off your plate has never been easier.

Article originally published in the Georgia Straight.

A controversial gene-editing technology may soon be widely applied to animals, with the livestock and biotech industries claiming that animals will be better off as a result. The truth is more complicated—and perhaps more disturbing—than they would have us believe.

A Chinese scientist stunned the world last month when he revealed he had created the first gene-edited babies using CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), a powerful new technology that can remove specific genetic traits. The scientist, He Jiankui, has been widely condemned by the scientific community as reckless and unethical, and the case has stoked public fears about the creation of “designer babies”, but CRISPR raises wider ethical implications—in particular, its use with animals.

Researchers have already used CRISPR to edit the genes of a variety of animals, and the creation of gene-edited farm animals is poised to become a commercial reality. The livestock industry and the biotech companies behind it are promoting CRISPR as a boon to animal welfare.

For example, CRISPR can create cows without horns, which are currently removed through painful procedures (e.g., cutting or burning) to reduce risk of injury to other animals and human handlers. CRISPR advocates say the need for those procedures would disappear. Genes can also be altered to make cattle more heat-tolerant or to produce pigs that are resistant to disease, suggesting a future with healthier, more resilient farm animals. Animal-welfare benefits are prominent in media coverage of CRISPR’s potential—and it’s no accident.

Recombinetics, a U.S. biotech company, has been careful to promote these benefits as opposed to the advantages to production. As the company’s chief executive officer, Tammy Lee, told Associated Press: “It’s a better story to tell.”

There is another, more ethically complex, story. While some of the applications of CRISPR to farm animals may improve certain aspects of animal welfare, there are fears that, taken together, they will be used to further intensify industrialized animal farming. Hornless, disease-resistant, weatherproof animals are easier to manage, transport, and keep in crowded conditions. There is little incentive for producers to invest in more humane husbandry. In short, cruel factory farming remains. It will just be more efficient.

Researchers are also promoting gene-editing as a means to create “double-muscled” animals (for more meat), but this could also cause unintended health problems. One attempt to produce meatier, gene-edited pigs resulted in deformed piglets that were unable to walk, dying shortly after birth. Double-muscled cattle produced by conventional selective breeding are more susceptible to respiratory disease, lameness, stress, and difficulty giving birth. Gene-editing will make it easier to create such animals, but the welfare consequences will be the same.

Any attempt by Big Agriculture to paint gene-editing as an amazing breakthrough in improving animal welfare should be treated with skepticism. Remember, these are the people who—through selective breeding for more meat—brought us chickens that grow so fast they are crippled by their own weight, leading to heart disease, skeletal disorders, and lameness. They are the architects of a system that has crowded billions of animals into cages, crates, feedlots, and transport trucks, causing incalculable suffering. Can they and their biotech partners really be trusted when they claim that they’re advancing a world-changing technology just to make animals happier?

Even if these industries are sincere in their promotion of gene-editing to improve farm-animal welfare, their proposals amount to applying technological, piecemeal quick fixes to the cruelty of factory farming, a problem requiring abolition, not tinkering.

Industrialized animal agriculture has been shown by science to be not only cruel to animals but also devastating to our environment and detrimental to human health. It’s a system that can’t be fixed. But it can replaced—by one that focuses on the production and consumption of plant-based foods.

The rise in popularity of plant-based alternatives to meat has been well-documented. Vegan and vegetarian foods are now competing with animal-based products on taste, price, and convenience. Investment and innovation in plant-based foods have exploded in the past few years and look set to continue. (The Economist magazine is calling 2019 “the year of the vegan”.) These developments offer a different path forward, one without mass animal suffering, environmental degradation, and the negative health consequences of a meat-heavy diet.

The other path, which maintains our dependence on animal incarceration and slaughter, promises only to further commodify animals by engineering them to suit our needs and desires. It’s a path to a world in which animals have no value beyond their use to humans.

By perpetuating the treatment of animals as products we not only diminish them but also ourselves and our humanity.

Article originally published on Daily Hive.

Charges against two B.C. businesses for animal abuse may serve as a warning shot to other companies in the agriculture industry that they, and not just individual employees, are accountable for any mistreatment of the animals they raise, transport and slaughter.

Last week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) laid charges against Sofina Foods, Elite Farm Services and Elite’s president, Dwayne Dueck, for allegedly beating chickens and loading them in a way “likely to cause injury or undue suffering.”  They are scheduled to appear in court today, December 18.

The charges stem from video footage released by animal activists in June 2017 that showed chickens at a Chilliwack poultry operation being mangled, stomped on, thrown against a wall, and smashed into transport crates. The BC SPCA, which described the abuse as “absolutely sickening,” recommended charges, but a year and a half later Crown Counsel has still not prosecuted anyone.

The CFIA, however, has pursued charges under federal Health of Animals Regulation, which may financially penalize the companies.

When the alleged offences became public, the companies involved were quick to distance themselves from the revelations.  Sofina Foods called the footage “horrifying” and said it had requested that all of the employees involved be dismissed immediately.

Elite’s Mr. Dueck stated: “We are sickened with the footage and want to ensure all our suppliers and producers that this is not reflective of who we are, our fundamental beliefs or behaviours we accept from our employees.”

Six of Elite’s employees were fired but now it is the companies that are being held to account for alleged animal abuse, a development that should send a signal to others in the livestock industry that they can’t escape responsibility for what happens to the animals they profit from.

For too long, industrialized animal farms have been in a state of denial about animal suffering that occurs in their business.  When the 2017 undercover video emerged, the B.C. Chicken Marketing Board said: “It does not represent in any way, shape or form, how we do our business, not only here but anywhere in Canada.”

Yet, for years, undercover animal activists have exposed numerous cases of animal cruelty on farms across Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere.

The ease with which the undercover investigators have been able to find and reveal abuse suggests that animal cruelty in intensive farming is not the rare occurrence that operators claim.

Media coverage of animal cruelty on industrialized farms in the United States has become so commonplace and damaging to the industry that it has lobbied for “ag-gag” laws criminalizing undercover videos of the cruelty.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that some of these videos expose not only illegal acts of cruelty but also standard practices on industrialized farms that result in misery for animals.  For decades, millions of hens have suffered in cruel battery cages, that are only now being slowly phased out (and may be replaced with only marginally better “enriched” cages). Pigs and chickens are routinely transported in cramped trucks over long distances in extreme heat and cold.

Much of the suffering on factory farms is invisible to the public.  Science has shown that poultry raised for meat experience painful skeletal disorders and lameness as a result of selective breeding for fast growth. And despite the images of happy cows in pastures on milk cartons, most dairy cows in Canada are kept indoors, never feeling the sun on their backs.

Even animal agriculture’s own internal monitoring systems reveal poor animal welfare.  In 2016, inspection reports from the B.C. Milk Marketing Board, made public by media, showed that one in four farms in the province failed to comply with the provincial animal-welfare Code of Practice. During an 18-month period starting in January, 2015, the inspections revealed cases of overcrowding, lame or soiled cattle, tails torn off by machinery, branding and dehorning of calves without pain medication, and other examples of poor welfare.

The CFIA’s charges against Sofina Foods and Elite Farm Services should be welcomed, as they may encourage others in the industry to do more to prevent the kinds of extreme cruelty seen in undercover video footage.  However, no one should forget that this is an industry that incarcerates, transports and slaughters animals in conditions that compromise animal welfare but are not illegal.

Ultimately, the best way to help these animals is to reject factory farming entirely and stop buying the products this cruel industrial system produces.

Article originally published in the Georgia Straight.

The blurb on a local tourism website says B.C.’s Fraser Valley “is known for its historical roots, agriculturally rich soils, and awe-inspiring vistas.”  Sadly, it’s also becoming known for some of the most horrific cases of farm-animal cruelty in Canada.

In June, undercover video released by animal activists showed horrific conditions at three Abbotsford egg farms, including footage of chickens, some still alive, buried up to their necks in feces. The video was turned over to the B.C. SPCA, which said it was “investigating another situation where chickens have allegedly suffered as a result of what appears to be a blatant disregard to adherence of the industry’s own agreed-upon standards of care and a failure to either comply with or put in place processes to ensure this type of suffering does not occur”.

It has since emerged that one of the operations being investigated by the B.C. SPCA is chicken-catching company Elite Farm Services, which was named in a major animal-cruelty case in Chilliwack last year.

In that case, footage obtained by animal activists showed chickens being mangled, stomped on, thrown against a wall, and smashed into transport crates. The B.C. SPCA recommended charges, but more than a year later Crown counsel has still not prosecuted anyone.

Crown counsel did charge dairy company Chilliwack Cattle Sales and several of its employees in a shocking animal-cruelty case in 2014.  Again, undercover animal activists obtained video, this time revealing dairy cows being beaten with chains and kicked and punched in the face by workers. Other cows were shown with open wounds and infections. Chilliwack Cattle Sales was fined $300,000 and some of the employees received jail time.

The response from the dairy and egg industries to these cases was predictable.  “I want the world to know that the overwhelming majority of dairy farmers were very disappointed by what happened,” said one leading Chilliwack dairy farmer, adding that what happened at the Chilliwack Cattle Sales farm was not the norm. 

A spokesman for Egg Farmers of Canada, commenting on the chicken cruelty in Abbotsford, told media: “By no means do we tolerate any animal mistreatment. Care of our hens is a top priority. And we take this allegation very seriously.”

Yet across much of the world, exposés of farm-animal cruelty have become almost routine. The ease with which the undercover investigators have been able to find and reveal abuse suggests that animal cruelty in intensive farming is not the rare occurrence that operators claim.

Media coverage of animal cruelty on industrialized farms in the United States has become so commonplace and damaging to the industry that it has lobbied for “ag-gag” laws criminalizing undercover videos of the cruelty.

Despite the cruelty scandals, industrialized animal farming continues unabated in the Fraser Valley. Even the most horrific cases seem to fade from public memory. Is it compassion fatigue or perhaps cognitive dissonance, as many of us don’t want to associate the cruelty with what we eat? And “livestock” don’t attract the same empathy as puppies or kittens, as evidenced by the ongoing Chilliwack Fair rodeo, which sees calves, steers, and bulls routinely brutalized for entertainment.

One answer, for many animal advocates, is to keep pressing government and the animal-agriculture industry to improve animal-welfare standards on Canada’s farms. For many others, the most effective action is to eliminate, or at least reduce, the consumption of animal-based products—a notion that would have been farfetched a few years ago but now seems entirely plausible.

For example, global dairy consumption declined by 22 percent between 2006 and 2016, largely because of the rise of nondairy alternatives. The continued introduction and improvement of plant-based products—such as A&W Restaurants’ recently launched Beyond Burger and even egg alternatives—suggest the same could happen with animal proteins across the board.

As these products become competitive on price, taste, and nutrition, one crucial question could arise in consumers’ minds: if I can eat well without cruelty or slaughter, why not?

It’s a question that may ultimately have as much impact on the Fraser Valley’s factory farms as the cases of shocking animal abuse for which they have become notorious.