Word: arizonas
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...raising practices. According to Michael Markarian of the Washington-based Humane Society of the United States, the common farm practice of confining sows in 2-ft. by 7-ft. metal pens where they cannot turn around for most of their four to five year breeding life is "especially egregious." Arizona's major newspapers have endorsed Prop 204. And the message was reinforced in a television commercial featuring Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio cooking a pork chop while declaring that, nonetheless, "I believe that animals raised for food deserve humane treatment...
...Arizona is not the first state to address the issue. Florida approved a ballot initiative in 2002-despite jokes about the constitutional "Hamendment"-which forbids the confinement of pregnant pigs. And New Jersey, after passing the nation's first law requiring humane standards for all farm animals, is battling a lawsuit seeking to outlaw sow crates as well as the confinement of veal calves and the force-molting of hens through two-week starvation-a practice which increases egg production. Meanwhile, more than 100 college cafeterias nationwide, under pressure from students, have switched to so-called "cage-free" eggs from...
...nation's major pig-producing states are North Carolina, Iowa and Nebraska. Arizona has only one industrial pork operation, Pigs for Farmer John, a subsidiary of Hormel Foods Corp., which ships a quarter-million animals to slaughter each year and houses, on any given day, about 13,500 pregnant sows. The gestation crates, according to a spokesman for Pigs for Farmer John, keep the sows safe from other pigs and allow individual feeding and care. Prop 204 opponents, led by Jim Klinker of the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation, have erected billboards around the state dissing the initiative as "hogwash." Outside...
...says Singer, noting that the European Union has banned narrow crates for sows and veal calves. "A lot of people who eat meat would like to feel that the animals had a good life before they were killed." Once the Arizona initiative passes, he adds, "then the movement will roll on." The eventual goal of animal activists? Federal legislation banning cruelty to farm animals. Already, a bill has been introduced in Congress requiring that producers who sell food to the federal government must meet a basic set of humane standards, such as adequate space, adequate food, and adequate veterinary care...
...November surprise? On Election Day, the millions of dollars poured into campaigns in states such as Ohio and Missouri may pale in value compared to the power of a simple buck. That's about the amount by which the minimum wage would increase under ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio. And as support for the initiatives hovers at around 70%, according to polls in those states, analysts expect widespread backing for the measures to help drive voter turnout on behalf of progressive candidates...