Letter to Mother Jones Editors

I’m writing to you about the piece you allowed to run on your website (about “DIY Slaughter”). I’m one of the founders and organizers of Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter, and I’m proud of the work we’re doing to prevent harm and protect animals in Oakland. We are in complete support of urban farming and of the policy changes Oakland recently made to allow people to grow crops to feed themselves or to sell as an additional source of income. We think that’s fantastic, but we also think it’s a very bad idea to sanction and encourage people to keep and kill animals.

Despite what appeared to be an attempt at investigative journalism in a clearly biased opinion piece (though Mother Jones didn’t position it as an Op Ed), the author got several things wrong. Megan Webb, the director of the city shelter (Oakland Animal Services), has formally expressed concerns on the shelter’s website about the “influx” of “farm” animals appearing at the city shelter. The shelter also just closed the night drop to reduce animal intakes. If our city’s shelter director’s concerns are not enough of a warning of what’s to come, all we need to do is look at what other cities are experiencing. The Minneapolis-based animal rescue group, Chicken Run Rescue, says the number of hens surrendered and abandoned since the city passed a law allowing chickens has tripled. We can’t even take care of dogs and cats in our underfunded shelter in Oakland, despite there being laws and regulations about how pets should be treated. The last thing we need to do is add more animals and more potential problems. The Precautionary Principle alone begs for such prudence.

Also, the home occupation permit that the author mentioned in her post (and that I mentioned above) allows people to sell PLANT-based crops only. It absolutely does not include eggs and honey. Having one slaughter hobbyist get (mis)information from another does not “good journalism” make, though that’s exactly what Mother Jones says is one of their values. Did no editor check this contributor’s “facts”?

As for the author’s dismissal of our perception that this is elitist foodie-ism and her guess that eggs from backyard hens “would likely be cheaper,” that’s also not what the facts show. When you factor in the costs of building/buying a coop and building fencing and protection from predators, we’re talking about $4,000. And that doesn’t even include the care and feeding of the birds – if they stay healthy – which amounts to between $250 and $300/year. People will inevitably cut costs so that they’re not paying over $2.00 per egg, and the animals will suffer for it. We stand by our perception that allowing animals in backyards increases bragging rights and locavore cred but does nothing to alleviate the issues that people living in food deserts in Oakland currently face.

Finally, the author’s inclusion of El Cerrito also warrants a correction. City attorneys provide guidance; they do not make “rulings.” The Supreme Court case cited by the El Cerrito City Attorney during guidance dealt with a ban on ritual slaughter specifically targeting the Santeria religion.  The case clearly upholds the principle held by the Supreme Court that laws that are neutrally crafted and generally applicable do not violate the religious clauses of the First Amendment.  An outright ban on all slaughter (as opposed to only ritual slaughter) would meet the requirement of being “neutrally crafted” and “generally applicable.”  This information has been provided to the El Cerrito City Council, and they have agreed to revisit a ban on slaughter.

The bottom line is that there is no problem Oakland has that the proliferation of farmed animals in backyards will solve, and I encourage Mother Jones to cover this important issue in a thoughtful, responsible, unbiased article.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Stop Slaughter in Your City

El Cerrito City Council decided on February 6, 2012 to take no further action on banning animal slaughter or crafting meaningful animal welfare regulations. Three out of five council members were present, two of which seemed to support the idea of animal slaughter in El Cerrito, California.

Previous iterations of the “Animals Ordinance” in El Cerrito did not address slaughter at all, and most attendees of city council meetings saw the ordinance as a law created to allow people to have pet chickens or pygymy goats.

Until slaughter was raised by El Cerrito resident and business owner Judy Hardin at earlier meetings, slaughtering animals was conspicuously absent in the text of the proposed new law.

The Mayor seemed genuinely surprised the first time animal slaughter was mentioned — as if she had never considered that an animals ordinance might have been spearheaded by people with the intention of killing the animals instead of caring for them.

It is unfortunate that El Cerrito chose to go down this path, moving forward we hope that El Cerrito will continue to research the issue, and craft a reasonable animals ordinance that doesn’t encourage residents to kill as a hobby.

Couldn’t Make the Meeting? You can still help:

• Help spread the word about slaughter in El Cerrito, share this post on Facebook and on Twitter.
• Email the El Cerrito City Council and Mayor. Tell them (politely) that you support a ban on slaughter in El Cerrito. Send your message to the following email addresses: acheng@ci.el-cerrito.ca.us, jabelson@ci.el-cerrito.ca.us, rbenassini@ci.el-cerrito.ca.us, bjones@ci.el-cerrito.ca.us, glyman@ci.el-cerrito.ca.us, contact@noslaughter.org

Dangers of Urban Farming

Originally published in VegNews

By Ian Elwood

As the urban-farming movement grows in popularity, the importance of animal husbandry as a piece of the puzzle becomes a must-act issue.

In the past few years, independent bookstores in cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and Portland have sprouted new urban-farming sections. Sandwiched between celebrity gourmands and sustainable gardeners are newly minted books covering a range of topics relating to hobby-scale urban agriculture. Covered with colorful pastoral graphics overlaid on a gritty urban backdrop a reader can find an artsy watercolor painting of happy farm animals or images of a rooster atop a graffitied brick wall, a metropolitan rendition of American Gothic.

Urban farming is a growing trend and has captured the imaginations of many people. City planning scholars, food writers, environmentalists, activists—basically anyone with a political interest in food is now likely interested in urban farming. Because of its newfound popularity in such a wide variety of intellectual disciplines, urban farming is often written about glowingly and with uncritical praise. It is often portrayed in sweeping terms as a panacea for the problems of the inner-city poor, with urban farms held in the same esteem as community centers, city parks, or public libraries.

So what’s the problem? Providing access to healthful fruits and vegetables for people in low-income communities is crucial to address the inequities in the distribution of nutritious food. But in the haste to create laws to encourage farming in cities, many city governments are making one fatal mistake: deregulating animal farming.

Animal Farm

Of all the community gardens and farms in cities across the country, generally less than 10 percent include animals. Some cities such as Boston, Detroit, and Washington, DC prohibit keeping animals within city limits, and others including Denver, Chicago, and Long Beach, CA prohibit the slaughtering of animals, which precludes raising animals for meat. In the past five years, the majority of cities that have deregulated animal husbandry in some way have done so because people want to have backyard chickens as “pets with benefits”—specifically, using the chickens for (urban) farm-fresh eggs. The practice of breeding, keeping, and killing other animals is an afterthought in many locations, without any real scrutiny of the larger impacts on animal welfare, human health, the environment, or city livability.

If the problem we are trying to solve is food injustice, breeding animals for slaughter misses the mark. Even keeping hens for eggs is of questionable benefit. Given the costs, risks, and dangers involved in animal farming, cities should focus on creating exclusively horticulture-based urban farming systems.

Out Back

What, exactly, are the risks of raising animals within city limits? The vast majority of urban farming’s shortfalls result in unnecessary suffering on the part of backyard poultry and other food animals. In his recent book, editor in chief of Make magazine Mark Frauenfelder recounts how his backyard chickens Rosie and Daisy were eaten by coyotes because the coop they were kept in was not predator proof, and later posted a recording of the neighborhood coyotes to his blog. Botched slaughter is all too common, but even slaughter that is performed “correctly” is still no treat to witness or hear happening next door. Free-roaming animals are often attracted to “livestock” enclosures, which cause conflict with human neighbors. The list of problems goes on. With so much that can go awry in backyard husbandry, communities need to evaluate what, if any, problem the practice actually solves.

Sprouted Solution

Urban farming can be a positive step for people in cities who are trying to feed themselves, but if changes to city policies are not crafted with great caution they could have a large negative impact on animals. So what is the solution we should be advocating for as people who care greatly for all animals and for all people?

Food Empowerment Project is doing great work to help create food systems that are just, humane, and sustainable—goals which are most effectively realized by creating food policy that is based exclusively on horticulture, leaving the controversial business of animal husbandry and slaughter aside. A 2010 study on the inequities of food distribution in California’s Santa Clara County called “Shining a Light on the Valley of Heart’s Delight” details some of the major problems that people in the inner city face with regards to accessing food that is healthful and sustainable.

No one disputes the health benefits of a diet that includes copious amounts of fruits and vegetables, which can be grown on urban farms with some education and a little hard work. If our cities want to solve the very real problems of food justice and food insecurity—and not create a host of additional problems—urban horticulture should be vigorously promoted and incentivized, while animal farming and slaughter in cities should be specifically prohibited.

El Cerrito Considers Slaughter

El Cerrito is considering a law that could potentially allow people to slaughter animals on residential property, by way of omission.

While considering allowing new types of animals into the city at a March 2011 City Council study session, El Cerrito City Council members held an informal vote and unanimously agreed that slaughtering animals should not be allowed.

The proposed changes as they currently stand do not address animal slaughter, which will leave ambiguity in what people are allowed to do. This ambiguity will inevitably cause animals to suffer. El Cerrito needs to take a stand and make policy that reflect its convictions. El Cerrito needs to ban animal slaughter.

On November 21, several residents spoke out against backyard slaughter at the El Cerrito City Council meeting.

Now they need to hear from you.  Tell them you support a ban on slaughter in El Cerrito. Killing chickens, goats, rabbits and other animals has no place in the city of El Cerrito.

Take Action

• See our more recent post to get the update on where El Cerrito stands now.

114 rabbits were confiscated from a bunny mill in November of 2011. Many of the rabbits were living outside in the cold and rain, with no food and water, living in their own filth. This is an all to familiar story for animal rescue workers — when animals are thought of as a commodity they are rarely treated well. Save a life, adopt a bunny.

The Atlantic - Should Urban Farmers Be Allowed to Slaughter Backyard Animals?

Originally published in The Atlantic

By James McWilliams

In Oakland, where officials are now overseeing a zoning update for urban agriculture, interest groups are preparing for a bloody battle

As anyone who reads Marion Nestle knows, industrial food thrives on obscuring the truth. Exaggerated health claims, selective labeling, and misleading scientific qualifications underscore the sad reality of big food’s habit of obfuscation, a habit that refuses to let accuracy interfere with profit. Given the depth of this problem, and the need for genuine reform, it’s especially disturbing when groups who oppose industrial food — organizations that conscientious consumers count on to provide the straight dope — engage in the same sort of duplicity to promote their own interests.

The authors attempt to portray keeping backyard animals as if it were as common and innocuous as growing potted herbs in the windowsill.

This is exactly what’s happening in Oakland, California, where a major battle is underway over whether or not urban homesteaders should be allowed to slaughter animals on their backyard “farms.” With interest groups on both sides making impassioned cases — opponents highlight welfare, safety, cleanliness, and quality-of-life concerns; proponents argue that it’s a basic right to produce one’s own food — the city of Oakland, which is undergoing a zoning update for urban agriculture, is seeking accurate information about urban livestock and backyard meat processing. Thus far, the leading attempt to provide such information — a report put out by advocates of urban homesteading — does little more than thumb its nose at public opinion in order to satisfy the interests of a small minority of slaughter hobbyists.

The 12-page report (adorned with seven footnotes and qualified with the term “preliminary”) — titled “Urban Livestock in Oakland” (PDF) — is visually appealing. The animal coops are architectural gems; the feed and compost bins are clean and secure; the animals are happy; the people are diverse; the sun shines. The only problem is with the numbers. They’re a mess. To wit, in order to provide an accurate reflection of “ownership and management practices” on urban animal farms nationwide, the authors relied on a mere 134 urban farmers, 36 of whom were from Oakland.

Inevitably, reported opinions and habits on a variety of urban livestock practices are derived from statistically meaningless samples. The keeping of rabbits and goats nationally are reflected in the responses of — no joke — eight rabbit owners and five goat owners. Information about manure disposal among backyard farmers nationwide comes from the reported practices of 22 farmers. As for the “positive” impacts of keeping and killing animals in Oakland, “education” is listed as one of the five community-oriented attributes. This supposed benefit is based on a grand total of three responses. Three. I could go on. But the point should be clear: Every claim in this report is rooted in a sample size that would flunk a middle school science project.

Beyond this anemic sample, there’s also the matter of inherent bias. The report notes that 44 percent of the Oakland respondents claim that their neighbors were “supportive” of their “onsite meat processing.” Do the other 56 percent have neighbors who are “unsupportive”? Indifferent? Unaware? Totally pissed? With the exception of the mention of six complaints (in another section of the study), this critical question is never addressed. Of even greater concern is the fact that an urban farmer quizzed about urban farming is automatically less likely to report negative neighborly reactions. It’s not as if the authors were facing a monumental research challenge on this point: they simply had to step next door and ask a few questions of the neighbors themselves.

There’s also the problem of omission. The authors routinely attempt to portray keeping backyard animals as if it were as common and innocuous as growing potted herbs in the windowsill. They explain that their national sample comes from 48 cities and that it reflects the increasing popularity of urban agriculture. They also remind us that over 20 cities in the United States have “recently passed ordinances to support and regulate the keeping of urban livestock.” In other words, “Oakland, you better get with the times”!

Conveniently omitted is the much longer list of currently existing municipal bans and restrictions on backyard animals. Shouldn’t the Oakland municipal government be alerted to the fact that in neighboring San Francisco slaughter can only happen in a “permitted commercial slaughter facility”? Or that Washington, D.C., has a complete backyard chicken ban? Or that one cannot kill a chicken on residential premises in Columbia, South Carolina; Milwaukee; Duluth, Minnesota; Portland, Maine; State College, Pennsylvania; Waxahachie, Texas; or Chicago (among many other cities)? Shouldn’t the report have noted that hundreds of municipalities actively restrict animal agriculture by regulating their possession, designating certain animals as “pets” (and thus making their slaughter illegal), or prohibiting slaughter outright? It seems only fair that this information should have been included.

The one thing the study does get right is its concluding remarks on history. “Historically,” the authors explain, “urban livestock, like other forms of urban agriculture, was an integral presence in many urban households, providing city dwellers not only with companionship, but also with food and income, particularly during periods of economic hardship.” Putting aside the questionable motivation of “economic hardship,” this history lesson is certainly correct. Urbanites did keep their own animals. But if the authors took a moment to visit the municipal records of major American cities between 1700 and 1900, they would see exactly why urban livestock were eventually dispatched to the countryside: manure, odor, sanitation problems, noise complaints, zoonotic disease, and the problem of deadstock. There’s a reason why there are so many restrictions on animal agriculture in urban environments today.

If Cargill ever put out a report designed like this one — say, a report arguing that there were numerous benefits to eating cheap junk food — the homesteaders, not to mention the food movement as a whole, not to mention the foodie media, not to mention pretty much everyone, would roll their eyes in ridicule. That’s the kind of deception we’ve come to expect from the purveyors of big corporate food. To see similar forms of deception at work in the food movement is all the more distressing. One only hopes the government of Oakland is more thoughtful in its assessment of this critical issue than are those purporting to tell it like it is.

Oakland’s animal slaughter proposal meets the national audience

And locals aren’t the only ones appalled.

The Oakland planning proposal to deregulate animal slaughter and officially sanction backyard “husbandry” is the focus of James McWilliams’ blistering critique in the Atlantic.

It turns out that reconstructing the city’s yards and vacant lots as “sustainable” animal farms and urban “homesteads” is a bit problematic. (Warning: some descriptions are graphic.)

Judging from the comments, the proposal is just as contentious outside the East Bay.

And to absolutely no one’s surprise, vegan perspectives expressed online are greeted with frenzied blathering and digital tantrums.

The article, on the other hand, is great!

Framing the local issue for a wider audience, McWilliams makes an important point early on:

As matters now stand, Oakland could very well alter its urban agriculture code in order to allow virtually any urban homesteader not only to raise goats, chickens, rabbits, and ducks, but to slaughter them on site. And what happens in Oakland — a test case of sorts — is bound to be replicated elsewhere.

This point is important for a number of reasons. For better and for worse, the locavores of the Bay (and the East Bay, in particular) have positioned themselves as the leading voices and public representatives of Urban Homesteading and Sustainability (TM). They and those deeply influenced by their thinking would like to see this proposal put into practice, and replicated elsewhere.

For better because it’s enormously important to encourage local, organic food production, address the lack of access to fruits and vegetables in urban food deserts and schools, and foster community self-sufficiency and empowerment. These are all issues that have been championed by the likes of Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and their acolytes. They deserve credit for bringing them somewhat into the mainstream.

But it’s most definitely for worse: interwoven with this vision, and sometimes eclipsing the original goals, there’s a creepy fixation on the necessity of killing animals, despite such killing being less necessary now than at any time in recorded history. What’s more, the killing is meant to be somehow virtuous and right, a matter of social justice and cultural reclamation. Even if the amateur butchers themselves are not always particularly skillful and humane at the killing part; even if it means more inputs and less land to grow food on; even it means expensive animal products rather than the fruits and vegetables basically everyone agrees need to be made cheaper and much more accessible; and even if the push for deregulated animal slaughter is coming less from those most screwed over by the broken food system than from best-selling authors, upper-middle class hobbyists, and, bizarrely, young, usually white progressives and radicals. 

The backyard slaughtering vision is wrong on multiple levels. It aspires to be an alternative to factory farming but really only offers an addition to it. And alongside the egregious and predictably “excessive” violence against animals, there’s also a crucial insight that’s been hijacked: Our food system really is in bad shape. We really could be feeding ourselves in ways that make much more sense, while also not destroying the world. Addressing food security and access were the original, stated reasons for initiating the food policy discussion in Oakland in the first place, prior to the sudden emphasis on killing animals. 

A key point of McWilliams’ piece is its first paragraph, which has gone totally unremarked in 201 comments and counting (as of the time of this writing):

Over the past ten years the United States has undergone a revolution in the way we eat. Communities throughout the country have localized food systems, placed power back in the hands of local farmers, and shortened the distance between farm and fork. The benefits of this trend have been considerable. Consumers have become more critical of overly processed food, better aware of the connection between diet and health, and more appreciative of eating seasonally. I’ve been critical of this movement from the start, but I admit it has been a cultural achievement of historical significance.

This is absolutely true, and something to be recognized and appreciated.

But what we strive to put in place of the broken and ultimately self-destructive food system shouldn’t replicate its cruelties, desensitization, and inherent inequalities of access. There is at least a bit of common ground to meet on – specifically, how we need to grow hella food as much as we can – and we should take advantage of those points of agreement.  

Locavores certainly need to stop being so fixated on the virtues of “honest slaughter,” for starters, not to mention on fictitious “closed systems” that ignore the existence of the rest of the world, to all of our detriment.

And vegans need to engage with these policy debates, because they’re happening with or without us. In our absence, we should probably expect a bunch more proposals like Oakland’s.

Rick Kelley is a recent transplant to the Bay, having fled the brutal Minnesota winters for warmer climes. He spends his days at a Oakland workers’ rights nonprofit and his evenings probably playing moderately accurate renditions of Propagandhi songs with his awesome partner and their rescued pup, Bandit. He’s also currently active in organizing against Oakland’s “Let’s All Kill Some Chickens in Our Yards For Fun” proposal. He used to blog, and might do so again someday. The adorable chickens above were rescued by Animal Place and they’re not for eating, they’re for feeding grapes to! And hugging maybe if you’re lucky.

Animal Place Magazine - Blood in your neighbor’s backyard?

Urban farming, not so good for the animals

When a neighbor heard the screams, she panicked thinking a child had been injured. She raced to her backyard and looked frantically for the source of the blood-curdling cry. Peering over the fence, she was horrified to find a man restraining a piglet, blade raised to cut her neck. For months, she had snuck the piglet treats, fascinated by the idea of having a farm animal in her urban neighborhood. Before she could protest, the piglet lay dying on the lawn, her blood staining the grass red…the color of urban animal farming.

Urban animal farming - a growing problem

In the past several years, the interest in raising and slaughtering animals in non-traditional settings, like one’s backyard, has grown dramatically.

Proponents argue it’s a sustainable alternative to industrial farming, a way to be closer to one’s food source. Opponents argue animal farming has no place in urban areas, that it is poorly regulated and fraught with health and animal welfare problems.

While it is important to recognize the growing awareness of how detrimental industrial animal agriculture is to the animals, environment and human health, is urban animal farming the answer?

Animal welfare

In late June, Oakland Animal Services and the East Bay SPCA received a call that rabbits were being abused in an apartment complex. When officials obtained a warrant and entered the premises, they found 21 malnourished rabbits stacked two high in wire cages. The animals were being raised for their flesh on a diet of white rice, a diet that left many deformed. The person responsible for the rabbits did not have any permits to raise the rabbits.

A few months prior, we took in a 5-month-old piglet from a small suburban backyard. The pig was being raised illegally for slaughter. It was the concerns of a neighbor that led to an investigation. The piglet would eventually save herself by breaking out of the yard – police and animal control confiscated her. Although the piglet, Sally, was saved she was the second pig this family had raised for slaughter, despite its illegality.

Backyard slaughter is not regulated well, if at all. Animals can be killed using any means, and almost always causing great suffering. The care of livestock is poorly monitored. Rarely do animal control agencies have the resources to investigate cases of farm animal abuse. And when they do, it is even rarer that the animals will be confiscated and placed into safe homes.

Health concerns

In July, dozens of children and adults were sickened during a Salmonella outbreak. The source was chicks and ducklings purchased from a hatchery (and sold at feed-stores) and mishandled by the general public. The animals were all being sold for egg production and their flesh to fill the growing market of “backyard farmers.”

Unfortunately, neither the hatchery nor feed store put much effort into educating the public about the possible health problems with mishandling farmed animals, especially chickens and ducks. At Animal Place, for example, adoptable chickens are de-wormed, handled properly, and adopters are educated on the pitfalls of backyard chickens, including possible zoonotic diseases, like Salmonella.

Hatcheries and feed stores that profit off the mass sales of living animals do not have the time or inclination to bother with education…not when the bottom line is money, instead of health or welfare.

Other human health concerns of raising animals in urban areas include E. coli, increased number of flies who carry disease, increased risk of asthma due to poor waste management, and the psychological trauma some may endure from watching or hearing the screams of animals being killed.

This is not the solution, for anybody.

This article appeared in the Fall, 2011 issue (PDF) of Animal Place Magazine.  Please consider making a donation to support Animal Place and their ongoing commitment to helping abused and neglected animals.