Hey, I don't know if this was already talked about but, I'm reading the book 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Safran Foer and I was wondering how much of the descriptions of factory farms and their conditions were accurate about Australian farms as well?
I realise it is n't a question of whether or not the basics applies because I'm pretty certain they apply everywhere...just how much, for instance do our farms regulate themselves?
Thanks for any responses xx
That's a very big question to try and answer
Probably the simplest (and most important) answer is that for the animals themselves (particularly in factory farms) their experiences are very similar.
In Australia the animal industries usually have a fairly dominating influence on the animal welfare guidelines that are recommended to the government for implementation. When they didn't get their way in Tassie recently (on sow stalls) they threatened to remove funding for the review of welfare guidelines (yes the industry partly funds the review of welfare guidelines). The removal of funding by the industry for these reviews would effectively put all associated guideline reviews on hold - which is pretty big leverage for them to have up their sleeve.
As for inspections. I believe that in most cases farms must be given prior notice of inspections.
The other issue worth considering is that the national minister responsible for animal welfare is the Minister for Agriculture (it's the same case in many states). This seems like a pretty big conflict of interest if you ask me!
