Sanders, Warren, Booker sponsor bill to ban factory farming by 2040

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This week, former presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) signed on as a sponsor of the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA). Vegan Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced FSRA in December. FSRA aims to transition animal agriculture away from factory farming by banning the opening of new large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and limiting the growth of existing CAFOs in the meat and dairy sector. The bill also aims to phase out the largest CAFOs—as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency—by 2040 and hold large meatpackers accountable for the pollution they create.

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FSRA is gaining traction amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exposed the inefficiencies and zoonotic disease potential of the heavily consolidated meat industry—which is controlled by only a few multinational companies in a virtual monopoly. “Factory farming is not only an urgent environmental, justice, and ethical issue but also an issue of public health,” Michael Webermann, US Executive Director of nonprofit ProVeg International, said. “Mega-farms have taken over the agriculture sector, leaving fewer choices for consumers and creating a breeding ground for future pathogens because animals are cramped tightly together in severe, unsanitary conditions. We’ve long known that factory farms pollute the air, contaminate water, and destroy biodiversity. But now that we are living the consequences of a global pandemic, we can no longer stand idly by without change.”

Veg News

Major kudos to the sponsors for taking up this issue which is rarely talked about outside animal rights circles.

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Sounds like there are some major problems with this bill and it should get more input from farmers who could be affected by it before going forward.  But if farmers have to have such insanely large numbers of animals just to make a decent living, that sounds like a problem that needs to be addressed one way or another.  Maybe tariffs on imported meat is part of the solution.  All this may lead to making meat more expensive, but Americans could probably stand to eat a lot less meat anyway.

Some good points here.  Factory farming as we know it now will probably (hopefully?) be on its way out by 2040 when synthetic meat goes mainstream.  Breaking up those farms would obviously be a complex process, but boosting small family farms while simultaneously improving the conditions of the animals is a worthwhile goal as we transition to "real" factory farms that are efficient but also more humane and safer for workers.

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I actually find the prospect of mass produced lab grown meat pretty disturbing. Seems to me it is devaluing animal life by treating it as merely raw material without its own identity.  I would prefer we go to eating only as many animals as we can raise or hunt while allowing them good lives of their own.

I'm not sure I understand.  How are we devaluing animal life by not killing animals for our food?

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I actually find the prospect of mass produced lab grown meat pretty disturbing. Seems to me it is devaluing animal life by treating it as merely raw material without its own identity.  I would prefer we go to eating only as many animals as we can raise or hunt while allowing them good lives of their own.

I'm not sure I understand.  How are we devaluing animal life by not killing animals for our food?

I'm not sure that's accurate: it involves creating and killing something which, on a cellular level, is animal.

3D printers are steadily advancing to the point of creating cells and biomaterials that make up human tissues and organs.  On a cellular level, yes, the meat would have animal DNA, but the meat would already be "dead" to begin with.

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If improving the standard of living of an animal comes at even a slight expense to human standards of living, there's no reason to implement that change.

I really want to f#ck a dog.  Why should some dog's standard of living come at the expense of my raging boner?

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If improving the standard of living of an animal comes at even a slight expense to human standards of living, there's no reason to implement that change.

I really want to f#ck a dog.  Why should some dog's standard of living come at the expense of my raging boner?

Ejaculation, unlike access to affordable and healthy food, is not directly related to one's standard of living.

You can get both those things without eating meat.

I am not a vegan/vegetarian and I do not believe that animals and humans are entitled to the same rights, but you are setting a very cruel standard by disregarding the animals' welfare completely.