Compassion in World Farming has released a series of films claiming that factory farming has an impact on our food and health.

The films, which are available online at www.factory-farming-facts.tv, show, what CIWF calls the "many animals that have to endure horrific conditions in order to feed millions worldwide".

What are your thoughts?

I was in the office today and had a look at the video on the FW home page.

Can we get a legal definition of "factory farming" out of CWIF. When do my beef finishing cattle stop being "natural" and start being a "factory"? Is it at 30, 300 or 3000? I finish cattle off forage. Why is the gross simplification of complex systems allowed in such drivel from CWIF? I did think if all we need is the EU for grain for livestock tyhe system was pretty efficient however.

How the hell do you get from a cubicle shed to Amazonian deforestation.

Disgraceful propaganda that will damage my business. I would like to sue them. Any lawyer out there fancy a no win no fee case?

 We live in a world where you can make any claim you want to about farming no matter what the truth is.  Sad part is, lots of reasonable people believe some very outlandish claims. 

Compassion in World Farming does not attack farming. Our founder was a dairy farmer himself who was concerned with the direction post-war farming was taking. We work to improve the welfare of farmed animals and thereby food quality. We work with all stakeholders in the food system to ensure that animals are treated with the respect they deserve and not subjected to unnecessary cruelty.  

As for a definition of Factory Farming, the one that we use is; where animals are treated like production machines rather than individual sentient beings with welfare needs. It involves ‘intensive’ farming, characterised by the use of close confinement systems such as cages and crates, or overcrowded sheds or barren outdoor feedlots. It also involves the use of fast growing or high producing breeds where the animals are prone to painful production-related diseases. Factory farming is energy-intensive, using concentrated feed, high mechanisation and low labour requirements. Intensive farming is often practised on a massive scale and is sometimes referred to as ‘industrial’ agriculture.

 

Best regards,

Philip Lymbery

By that definition all agriculture everywhere on the planet is factory farming. My Angus beef is fast growing I would not survive otherwise. I use diesel. All organic arable farms use diesel powered cultivations for weed control so they are factories too. All world agriculture is energy intensive not one system I can think of is free of fossil fuels. Even the Masai have motorbikes.

What on earth is high mechanisation anyway? Should I get a shotgun dark glasses and a chain gang to please you? Idiotic drivel from a group that has lost the plot totally.

Philip Lymbery:

Compassion in World Farming does not attack farming.

Each one of those vidoe's attacked farming! No member of the uninitiated general public could have watched those video's and come away with any other opinion than that famers were terrible people, and modern agriculture would eventually kill us all!

The smarmy, wax jacketed, presenter was even standing on an obviously British farm, with what were clearly happy, healthy cows in the background, doing happy cow like things, and he made no attempt to differentiate that happy senario, of typical of UK agriculture, from what you claim to be factory farming! The audacity is mind boggling and these films are shamefully misleading!

If you wish to influence agriculture, happily you have scored a massive own goal!

Philip Lymbery:

As for a definition of Factory Farming, the one that we use is; where animals are treated like production machines rather than individual sentient beings with welfare needs.

This is not a definition, it is simply the opinion of a group of people with vested interest in maintaining controversy to keep their organisation alive and their wages rolling in.

Philip Lymbery:

characterised by the use of close confinement systems such as cages and crates

Cages now enriched and larger. Crates banned. Next?

Philip Lymbery:

overcrowded sheds or barren outdoor feedlots

Strict rules, dreampt up by the likes of yourselves and enforced by Assurance schemes, RSPCA and DEFRA etc ensure this does not happen in this country. Next?

Philip Lymbery:

fast growing or high producing breeds

 

Breeds have been bred to grow faster since the dawn of domestication. It is the basis of all livestock farming. Even Organic cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry are bred to grow faster. It's basic genetics and what keeps food being produced. Next?

Philip Lymbery:

Factory farming is energy-intensive

Organic Farming uses more Diesel than conventional. Look at Newcastle Uni study. Next?

Philip Lymbery:

Intensive farming is often practised on a massive scale and is sometimes referred to as ‘industrial’ agriculture.

A stupid and pointless generalisation with no grounding. Define "often", define "Massive", define "Sometimes" and again, define "Industrial"? Utter crap!

People like you are parasites, feeding off the paranoia of the uneducated and peddling your own brand of pseudo-science that will, of course, save us all! So donate today and keep Phillip Lymbery in a job!!!

well said cornish,very well said.

cymro:

well said cornish

I thought the video of the ex vegan interesting and one must give CWF some credit for allowing the meat eating case to be put so cogently.

    I wrote a comment accusing Philip Limberly of being completely out of touch with modern farming and blatantly insulting British farming. However, when asked to give my email address to reply, I chickened out thinking my inbox would be completely taken over by these gullible idiots posting in praising Limberly like a religious fanatic.

Ally if you set up an address with yahoo or hotmail then if you are inundated with replies you can just let the address lapse.  Would be interesting to see if you actually got a reasonable response!

   I wondered about that, Lizzy, It would be handy to have a spare email address just for this sort of thing. A good idea. This time I will sit back and enjoy the Cornish B's very excellent post. Well done, CB.

After crying wolf for so long, people no longer listen, this will happen to CIWF, as it will in all the other organisations that use very selective facts and figures to reinforce their argument.

l meet many people from all walks of life during my working day, the vast majority view CIWF, RSPCA , Animal Aid and the like, as untrustworthy and alarmist.

Of course the people l see don't pop up on the radar as they are happy to keep their heads down away from trouble, fortunately for those of us involved in proper agriculture, they are the majority.

I was hoping our new friend Phillip would have replied by now. It is most unlike them to just give up like this!

 Whenever anyone speaks to us about factory farmed dairy cattle, we invite them to come and see our farm and judge for themselves as to whether they are factory farmed or not, gained a lot of customers for the milk like this.  Whenever people speak to farmers about inaccuracies published by anti-farming organisations, don't just tell them they are wrong, show them.

Me too Dan. I used to take groups to a local egg producer. I would ask before the visit what type of eggs they bought and the majority bought free range. After visiting both commercial free range and battery houses and repeating the question they all changed to battery!

 I watched a very interesting programme on the Australian TV programme "Landline" the other night regarding this very problem of fringe groups making outragious claims about farming. They interviewed an American couple who had been victims of these claims, so they set up a facebook page refuting the claims and showing video's of how and why their stock were treated as they were. I think that it was called Agcovacy but the main thrust of the interview was that we are dealing with an ever increasing

number of people that have no idea how a farm operates and that social media is the strongest and quickest way to deal with these claims.

The biggest problem is getting up to speed with using Facebook and the time to actualy follow the threads