I remember reading through the oral arguments from the US house of representatives Office of the Clerk website for a bill about banning aerial photography near meat processing plants . The republican speakers only talked about “national security”, and how drones could be used to target our nations vital factory farming infrastructure, while the dem speakers talked about this being a push to hide factory farm conditions from customers. Neither side seemed to consider the possibility of scaring cattle to do damage a relevant matter in this case, especially considering that intentionally causing damage to equipment and cattle is already a legal offense, so there would be no need for further regulation. So it does seem like the intention is to hide the conditions around the welfare of factory farm animals.
Meat processing plants are a very different environment from a “factory farm” aka feedlots. They haul the animals in, pen them for a short time under tight quarters with just water. Then push them through the killing line. Due to the tight quarters they don’t have much room to move around and injure themselves. There is also only a couple of mega-companies that own these facilities today. They do care very much about their image to the public.
Feedlots or dairies are where cattle are confined for years. They are extremely skittish of anything new due to lack of exposure. Since there are thousands of these around and they are more removed from the consumer, they tend to care more about immediate monetary losses more than PR.
I remember reading through the oral arguments from the US house of representatives Office of the Clerk website for a bill about banning aerial photography near meat processing plants . The republican speakers only talked about “national security”, and how drones could be used to target our nations vital factory farming infrastructure, while the dem speakers talked about this being a push to hide factory farm conditions from customers. Neither side seemed to consider the possibility of scaring cattle to do damage a relevant matter in this case, especially considering that intentionally causing damage to equipment and cattle is already a legal offense, so there would be no need for further regulation. So it does seem like the intention is to hide the conditions around the welfare of factory farm animals.
Meat processing plants are a very different environment from a “factory farm” aka feedlots. They haul the animals in, pen them for a short time under tight quarters with just water. Then push them through the killing line. Due to the tight quarters they don’t have much room to move around and injure themselves. There is also only a couple of mega-companies that own these facilities today. They do care very much about their image to the public.
Feedlots or dairies are where cattle are confined for years. They are extremely skittish of anything new due to lack of exposure. Since there are thousands of these around and they are more removed from the consumer, they tend to care more about immediate monetary losses more than PR.