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Efficient or Cruel? Californians will vote in November on use of battery cages at factory farms
AP Photo
Jill Benson, the president of J.S. West and Cos., checks one of the company’s egg-processing lines at a plant in Atwater, Calif.
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Published: October 10, 2008
ATWATER, Calif.
At the J.S. West and Cos. poultry farm, 500,000 chickens are squeezed six at a time into wire cages where they must share 2 square feet of space.
Beneath them, conveyor belts whisk away excrement as 1.2 million eggs travel from hen to carton each day without touching a human hand.
California voters will decide next month whether this kind of operation is an example of factory farming at its most efficient -- or the cruel farming practices of producers concerned only about the bottom line.
If approved in the Nov. 4 election, Proposition 2 would prohibit ranchers from keeping chickens, veal calves and breeding pigs in pens or cages that are too small for the animal to move. It is the furthest-reaching measure dealing with farm-animal treatment ever put before voters in any state.
Ranchers would have to ensure that their animals can stand up, turn around or stretch.
But since producers have voluntarily phased out the caging of newborn calves and breeding sows, debate over the measure has centered primarily on California's 19 million egg-laying chickens, 90 percent of which are housed in battery cages such as the ones at J.S. West.
Major egg producers oppose the initiative and say that the current method of mass production is the most efficient way to deliver inexpensive eggs. They say that egg producers will move out of state or across the border if voters approve Proposition 2.
The J.S. West farm in Atwater, about 110 miles southeast of San Francisco, has already delayed expansion plans as it awaits the voters' decision.
"Even if I had money to make all of the changes, we would not be competitive with the rest of the nation," company President Jill Benson said. "Eggs would be outsourced. We don't have the consumers for more expensive eggs."
The California initiative would be the first in the United States to include battery cages used to house egg-laying hens, which are being phased out across the European Union because of cruelty concerns.
If it passes, supporters hope that it will trigger a national movement aimed at poultry producers.
Supporters of Proposition 2 say that it will give small egg-farming operations a better chance to compete. But large egg producers say that the small farms cannot meet California's demand for eggs.
State law already requires that animals in enclosed areas have adequate food and water, plus room to move freely.
Benson said that the health of their hens is of foremost concern to farmers.
"Ask them how they know our chickens are unhappy," Benson said. "They're making emotionally based decisions about what chickens want."
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