Research Paper draft

Thesis:

Although many farmers and ranchers consistently take care of and treat their livestock with care and concern, the media likes to take the few rare cases of animal abuse and portray the entire cattle industry as being one large factory farm that abuses and mistreats cattle with no remorse.

Abuse Cases in the Media

In 2008, United States largest beef recalls occurred.  When people hear about a recall, especially on food, everyone panics because it typically means the food is unsafe or someone got sick from eating it.  The beef recall was recalling 143 pounds of beef from across the nation.  Most of the beef being recalled was sold for school lunch programs.  The largest U.S. beef recall was not because the beef made anyone sick, but was because the cattle were abused in the harvesting process.  According to the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, "It is extremely unlikely that these animals were at risk for [mad cow disease] because of multiple safeguards," he said in a statement. "However, this action is necessary because plants violated...USDA regulations"(US News).  The company responsible was Westland/ Hallmark.  They had a large harvesting operation that involved the processing of many old dairy cows.  In the process of harvesting the cattle a worker for the Humane Society caught on tape footage of workers at the facility picking up downer cows with fork lifts and chains to force them through the harvesting plant.  The video of the animal abuse went viral.  Media stations everywhere were playing the footage of a downer cow being forcefully moved.  The media went on to show the acts of cruelty across the nation making it look like every cattle processing facility ran in an inhumane manner.  The media wants America to think that all animals used for human consumption are abused, ”The abuse of non-ambulatory cattle at a California slaughterhouse has renewed calls for a ban on the slaughter of such animals, and newly released government records show such mishandling in past years was more than a rare occurrence”(USA Today).  As the media spreads the words across America that, “mishandling in the past years was more than a rare occurrence,” people start to wonder how their food gets to their dinner plate.  People do not like to hear that their nice, juicy hamburger was once a cow that was beaten and mishandled simply so the processing facility could make more money.  That makes everyone in the beef industry look bad when that is not truly the case. 

How Cattle Effect the Environment

In November of 2006 the United Nations came out with a report called the “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”  This report was about the raising of livestock’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.  In this report it states that the raising of animals for consumption contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than all cars; “When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 per cent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2” (UN News Centre).  This claim states that raising animals for consumption is the most dangerous and harmful things, we as humans do, for our environment.  This report specifically targeted the beef industry as being the main culprit for most of these emissions, “And it accounts for respectively 37 per cent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain” (UN News Centre).  They don’t specifically say cattle in this statement but cattle and sheep both have ruminant systems.