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| Social Cause Activist Groups: Demosclerosis and Managing the Mob |
| Written by Dr. Terry Whiting | |
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Manager, Animal Health and Welfare Programs Office of the Chief Veterinarian Manitoba Agriculture Food and Rural Initiatives This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Introduction Democratic governments have increasingly developed mechanisms for consulting with the public and food processing industry in the development of laws intended to protect the environment, public health, and to assure sustainable livestock production, and animal welfare. “Consultation” in developing public policy is, in part, a response to a trend for non-profit or special interest groups to challenge government policies. Direct challenge of government and government food policies by public interest groups has been justified by and somewhat encouraged, subsequent to the valid public criticism of the British governments handling of the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) outbreak in the UK. Science as the preeminent underpinning support of good public policy has come under challenge from public opinion, which often contains a component of fear or moral outrage. Science, in its intended form, is a directed linear process designed as an objective search for truth; public opinion on the other hand by nature vacillates, is subjective and temporary. The media has been instrumental in feeding, and is a beneficiary of, public concern over perceived food safety risks, e.g. “unnatural” farming practices, animal welfare questions and possible environmental dangers of agriculture practices. The expectation that government will respect “moral and ethical” concerns of the public, is well established in common law. The articulation of the moral connotations of food purchase, consumption and production and the political positioning and lobbying of those convictions has become a significant growth industry in Europe and to a increasing extent in North America. If the function of democratic government is to protect its citizens from dangers outside of the control of the individual and as government resources are limited, good government policy (law and enforcement) would be directed at controlling real risks to individual welfare and educating the public against the misuse of resources to control issues that generate fear but are not actually a real risk. Social Cause Activist Groups (SCAG’s) in contrast, have identified that fear and moral outrage can be profit centers for a thriving business model. This paper will explore current parameters and evolutionary trends in public policy development with an animal welfare focus. A “Good” Law Government decisions in the areas of food safety and farming practices are increasingly affected by widely divergent views of the general public. As food consumption and food production practices have taken on moral importance and are no longer the lone purvey of individual choice, there is increasing pressure if not justification in democratic societies for regulatory intervention in livestock production, for example the emergence of the environmental farm plan. Regulatory intervention is one expression of the will of the people. A new law results when society decides it is appropriate to surrender some aspects of individual choice and freedom for the benefit of the whole. In application of the rule of law, the will of the society directed through some arm of government forces certain behaviour in the individual by common consent of the majority. Implicit in law is either the compulsion that “thou shall or thou shall not” do some thing and is often described either as an outcome (manslaughter) or as a specific behaviour (speeding). Describing laws, especially defining what is a “violation” can be exceedingly difficult. For example The 10 Commandments contain 297 words; The Bill of Rights (USA) is stated in 463 words and the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Minimal-Risk Regions and Importation of Commodities; Final Rule and Notice Federal Register: January 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 2) contains 107,648 words. Law may be defined as that institution or set of institutions in a given society that adjudicates conflicting claims and secures compliance in a formal, systematic, and orderly way. Law is one of society’s responses to communally held values. The core of a law is the desire to, by proscribing human behaviour, prevent an avoidable human injury whether it is injury of the person, injury of property, or an injury or offence against generally held standards of society. Moralization: Step 1 of the Regulatory Process In some social circles the act of eating has progressed from being a source of nutrition and sensory pleasure to being a social marker, an aesthetic experience, a source of meaning and a metaphor, and often a declaration of moral entity. “Moral (Ethical) Vegetarians” claim to be mindful of both short and long term consequences of individual choice and although personal health is recognized as a partial motivator for a vegan choice, there is a much broader commitment to vegetarianism as a way of life. Moral vegetarians view meat avoidance as a moral imperative and are upset by others who participate in meat consumption. This is in stark contrast to health or religious motivated vegetarians who are generally neutral to the food choices of other people. Recent study of adolescent vegetarianism identified a largely female phenomenon characterised by meat avoidance, weight loss behaviours and a high concern with body appearance. Teenage vegetarians are more likely to be: Caucasian, from a higher socio-economic stratum, practice various weight control strategies and also have an increased concern for the environment, animal welfare, and gender equality compared to non-vegetarian peers. Vegetarianism among teenage women is different from traditional western culture vegetarianism, which has primarily a nutritional or religious basis. The prevalence of vegetarianism (those who do not consume red meat) in one South Australia study is 8-10% for teenage women and 1-2% for teenage men. The prevalence of vegetarian tendencies however was 32-37% for teenage women. Teenage vegetarians believe that meat production is morally wrong, for animal welfare reasons, and because it harms the environment. Moral vegetarianism may be seen as an extreme example of a general trend in public opinion of farming practices. It is based on a mix of animal welfare, human health and environmental quality concerns and is in fact a manifestation of a philosophy of life. This gender related, anti-meat focus should be of concern to livestock producers as women may have a disproportionate future influence in food purchasing patterns for families, as is currently the case. Moralization is a process that works at both individual and cultural levels and involves the acquisition of moral qualities by objects or activities that previously were morally neutral. Moralization is the process where a preference is converted into a value. When behaviour becomes moralized the individual will seek multiple justifications for the relevant conviction. In the antifactory-farm movement a combination of justification arguments including the destruction of the family farm, environmental concerns, animal welfare concerns and revulsion at “un-natural” husbandry practices are evoked in rationalizing and articulating an anti-intensive farming world view. Moralization is a gradual conversion of individual preference into societal values. A critical difference between preferences and values is that values are much more likely to be transmitted within the family environment and values are subject to institutional and legal support. The primary problems for the modern food evangelist is that personal injury, generally, which can not be mitigated by personal preventative action, is a prerequisite to recruit the machinery of the state to protect you. Secondly, sometimes the potential convert can not be testified to because of social or economic separation. An excellent current example of this is the anti-horsemeat campaign in the United States. Essentially SCAG’s are encouraging state and federal legislatures to ban the sale of horses for slaughter into the export market. If this initiative becomes law it will result in financial injury to all horse owners in the United States and result in increased animal welfare concerns for low value and abandoned horses. Although marketed as an animal welfare issue, the American aversion to other people eating horse meat can only be seen objectively as a fetish at best or ill conceived cultural imperialism at worst. The rational question remains; how am I injured by Belgians eating horse meat? This is an important regulatory issue to monitor. If this initiative becomes law then it will demonstrate that food law and animal use can be based solely on public opinion. The Social Cause Activist Group (SCAG) and Demosclerosis The number of interest groups engaging in political lobbying has increased dramatically since 1970. It is estimated that the number of interest groups doubled in the United States from 1955 to 1970; doubled again from 1970 to 1990 and reached 20,000 identified interest groups in 1995. Such groups are often given to expressions of moral outrage over single often new-value issues. The motivation for membership in such groups is often not collective material benefit but an individual expressive reward realized by solidaristic interaction with like-minded or prestigious people within the group. Demosclerosis is a term coined in the United States to describe in increasing inefficiency within government to clearly identify the public good and protect that public good in policy development. If, as often suggested, an astute democratically elected administration identifies which way the mob is going and then positions itself as the leader; it has become increasingly difficult to clearly identify the consensus of the electorate on many issues of social conscience. In the operation of government, so many conflicting consumer and public interests groups vie for political consideration that effective decision-making is prevented. In the recent past, social cause activist groups (SCAG) have emerged which no longer rely on traditional-legislative means to achieve their political ends (Figure 1). Instead of lobbying primarily for better laws or better enforcement of laws they have focused on the marketing chain and affecting consumer choice or generating fear in the manufacturer that consumer choice may be affected (Figure 2). The increasing effectiveness of SCAG food directed campaigns in part result from three converging forces in food production in North America; congestion in legislative channels, rising affluence of the consumer allows for preference for products with specific attributes and the concentration of the consumer food markets make targeting far easier. People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA) is a non-profit SCAG that has an excellent template for success (Table 1) with 2005 annual contributions of $25 million USD. A non-profit organization that collects $25 million a year must spend $25 million a year and this organization has a proven track record for achieving visibility. An example of a successful SCAG environmental campaign is the “Ronald McToxic Campaign” originating with the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste (CCHW) in the early 1980’s. The campaign targeted a single goal, that of forcing McDonalds to eliminate the use of polystyrene packaging within the fast food chain. By 1989 school children, the backbone of McDonald’s customer base had been recruited as part of the “Kids Against Polystyrene” movement and Burger King had switched to paperboard containers. A more holistic goal or campaign target such as decreasing the overall disposable packaging is not in the best interest of the SCAG. A topic such as “minimizing packaging waste” does not meet the standard of an unambiguous and achievable objective in the business model for a successful SCAG campaign. The outcome of the McToxic campaign can be viewed as a success. McDonald’s Corporation completely reviewed its environmental strategy and was able to initiate remarkable decrease in packaging used, primarily by source reduction. In the 1970’s an average meal of Big Mac, fries and a shake required 46 grams of packaging, in 1995 it required 25 grams, a 46% reduction. The CCHW went on to become a very solvent SCAG with a 1990 budget of $689,908.00 and changing its name to Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) reflecting a new mandate to deliver a broader line of products (www.chej.org). A current active campaign in livestock production is one to eliminate the use of sow gestation stalls by regulatory prohibition in Australia (www.animallib.org.au/docs/sowstall.shtml), and Manitoba (Quit Stalling, www.quitstalling.ca/). It is possible that this unambiguous and achievable objective could be reached and the actual overall welfare of sows in pork production not be improved. Assessing the welfare of gestating sows is a multifactor issue plagued by considerable uncertainty as the scientific assessment of many potential alternate systems is lacking. Regulatory actions affecting structural standards with high capital investment such as housing can be predicted to have severe financial implications for the producer. International Trade Law The World Trade Organization ("WTO") was established on January 1, 1995 by the Marrakesh Agreement creating an international organization to supervise international trade policy. As of December 2000, the WTO had 141 member governments. The WTO is located in Geneva and led by a Director-General. Unlike some other international agencies (such as the International Monetary Fund), the WTO is a consensus-based institution driven by the member governments themselves, rather than by the Director-General or the staff of the Secretariat. Thus, in some ways, the WTO is directed not only in Geneva, but also in each of the national capitals from Tirana to Harare. The economic model (dogma) behind the WTO Agreement on Agriculture is that open markets in food will allow the low cost producer access to all markets and the citizen consumer will benefit. As part of this free flow of goods the poor in wealthy countries benefit and the increase world agricultural productivity assists the poor of developing countries. This assertion is very difficult to test using scientific principals. Rigorous scientific or experimental testing of most economic theories is problematic. At the second special session of the WTO Committee on Agriculture in June 2000, the European Union (EU) submitted a proposal on Animal Welfare and Trade in Agriculture calling for the issue of animal welfare standards to be addressed. The EU Commission is pursuing this controversial proposal from a two-fold motivation; concerns expressed by EU consumers pertaining to the production methods used to rear their food and EU producers regarding the effect on their international competitiveness of regulations enforcing costly animal welfare standards within member countries. The proposal, to consider animal welfare in method of production, as a viable international trade issue has not received widespread support among WTO members. The WTO Committee on Agriculture has delegated all decisions on standards for food safety to the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Principles of justified trade restriction inherent in the activities of the Codex Alimentarius include the existence of at least an imaginary risk to human health of some food or food process. When considering human health risk in relation to animal welfare and methods of production, it is difficult or impossible to establish the link between the product (food) and the injured persons. In fact, many of the most vocal farm animal welfare lobby groups are largely made up of non-consumers of meat (vegetarian/vegan), and are protected from direct product source injury. Satisfying European consumers’ desire to know about foreign animal welfare standards will require the labeling of imports. Labeling of imports for animal welfare purposes is not consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations, which are currently limited to issues intrinsic to the safety of the commodity traded. The Office International des Epiozities (the OIE) has been recognized by the World Trade Organization since 1994 as the international organization for animal health and serves the parallel function of the Codex Alimentarius Commission only in relation to zoo-sanitary standards for trade in live animals and animal products. Due to the essential relationship between animal health and animal welfare, the representatives of its 164 Member Countries asked the OIE to take the lead role in developing international animal welfare standards. The Director General of the OIE convened an Ad hoc Group in April 2002, bringing together the best experts in the field from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. The International Committee of the OIE unanimously adopted the recommendations of the Ad hoc Group on animal welfare during its 70th General Session (May 2002). A permanent Working Group on Animal Welfare with the same membership was then established which held its first meeting in October 2002. The initial international OIE “Global Conference on Animal Welfare” held in Paris, 23-25 February 2004, invitation only, attracted more than 450 participants from 70 countries. The WTO, through the OIE working group on animal welfare, is positioning itself to facilitate animal welfare as a potential trade issue. Future of Intensive Livestock Production Many discussions on animal welfare regulation have focused on the lack of objective science to clearly demonstrate that one method of production is superior to another method. The focus on the science basis for animal welfare standards may in fact be missing the yet unresolved point. Regulation is not based on science but on a need to protect human welfare. Science is one of the major tools used to measure the potential for human injury if free enterprise or other forces were to run amok. The major question to be answered in the next few years is; are people significantly injured by the way animals are raised to provide food for human consumption? If the answer to that question is “yes”, people are injured by the presence of production systems that they consider inhumane, and the magnitude of that injury due to the presence of those systems is a non-trivial injury, then governments will be compelled to draft regulatory frameworks that protect the public from that harm. Perhaps Joe living in Idaho is injured when Vito in Italy enjoys a horsemeat sausage. Well-funded and well organized SCAGs can produce effective and convincing rhetoric. There is evidence that the general public will believe a “negative-spin” story originating with a special interest group over an accurate and balanced story from an unbiased source. As in all social movements, there is a range of proponents within the animal welfare community from the law abiding to those committed to violent direct action. In the near future those who strongly believe that there are serious moral concerns related to animal welfare will be frustrated working through the legislative channels. Anti-intensive livestock farming has had some success with initiating regulatory intervention in the area of environmental protection, where there is some possible link to human injury. This success is unlikely to be repeated in the area of pure animal welfare. One has only to look at the recent extremely slow movement of Bill C-22 the proposed amendment to Criminal Code cruelty of animals’ provisions, for an example of how the legislative process is inadequate or at best extremely slow to address rational concerned debate on the issue of animal welfare. Bio-terrorism If an individual (or SCAG) truly believes for example that sows are better dead than in gestation stalls and chickens are better dead than in cage-layer confinement then the logical course of direct action is clear. Any social cause activist group that claims in it’s literature, a desire to “To inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals” (ALF 2004) should not be treated as trivial considering the previous range of targets (ALF 2002). Bio-terrorism and the threat of purposeful introduction of foreign animal disease is a real risk for our livestock industries. Conclusion There are a variety of possible policy options that could be pursued to deal with the farm animal welfare issue. All policy decisions are derived from moralization of the issue at hand; that is the electorate that has come to believe that the public good is served by government intervention. Bennett outlined three policy options to achieve a balance between the production of livestock products and farm animal welfare that would represent the wants of society: 1. Use market mechanisms along with government intervention to supply information primarily via a registered method of production label program, to verify animal welfare and alternatives to standard production products that would allow people to make informed choices about what they consume. The CFIA has recently initiated a consultative process intended to develop a verifiable system for method of production labeling in Canada. Others have argued that the Consumer is in fact unable to make a free choice at the checkout counter when the decision in individual purchase is confounded by simultaneous competing concerns. If animal welfare is a public good, vegans are disenfranchised as they are prohibited from democratic participation in policies that are limited to the marketplace. The WTO has clearly indicated that this sort of labeling is not supported in international trade negotiations. 2. Government could regulate the production of livestock products through legislation or codes of practice to ensure that the wants of all citizens who are concerned with animal well-being are considered. Regulation has at least two regressive costs for society. Firstly, the cost of licensing a large farm is the same as a small farm and cost of new programs works against survival of small operations. Secondly; if food costs increase incrementally, due to new regulations, the future cost of food represents a greater proportion of income for poor people than for the wealthy representing an unfair burden of public policy. 3. Government could tax producers who cause the poor welfare and/or subsidize those producing goods that are thought to result in good animal welfare. For example, if a tax or subsidy were applied to egg production so that free-range eggs were of equal or lower price than standard production eggs, fewer “cage eggs” might be sold or produced. Ultimately, Bennett argued that legislation combined with subsidy payments as incentives would be the best policy approach. This author is working from the European model, which has a long history of government support to animal agriculture. Some predict future market forces may play an increasing role as demonstrated by the Freedom Food success in the UK. Supermarkets and large single desk buyers such as McDonalds can influence how farm animals are treated. One UK chain has adopted the RSPCA’s “Freedom Food” label and markets standard production and free-range eggs at the same price despite the decreased profit to the store and producer. In Canada the development and market share of cost-focused retailers such as Wal-Mart, in the past five years, would argue against the potential impact of method of production labeling programs on the majority of consumer choice decisions. In a democratic society, the public expects to have its opinion count. The public in considering the complex processes in agriculture and food processing are likely to approach political questions posed, using significantly different parameters that current regulatory structures are prepared to include. Considering societal trends; it may be prudent if decision makers in livestock production methods were to take into consideration or at minimum acknowledge factors other than science in a long term vision of sustainable and ethically supportable agricultural production systems. Over time, consumers will probably accept genetically modified products and food irradiation as critical scientific assessment has been made and is possible in these areas. The same consumers likely will conclude that some forms of livestock production are unnecessary or not reflective of societal values and will support regulatory intervention to address those concerns. As regulatory bodies currently claim a sound science base for decision making, more discussion is needed on how society will make decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty in food production or in the case of animal welfare, in the face of moral conviction. In highly contentious issues there will be some science on both sides of the argument and the final policy decision will be based on ethics. If the statement made by the late Harrison McCain in relation to GM potatoes “We are in the business of giving our customers what they want…..” is representative of food processing industries, it is unlikely that significant science or ethically based leadership in animal welfare or similar issues in food production will originate in that quadrant. Table 1: Five Components of a “Good” Law 1. Prohibited behavior is casually related to a negative outcome (intuitive) 2. The violation is easily & objectively measured 3. The violation is related to a modifiable human behaviour 4. The violation is a concept easily understood by all languages and cultures. 5. The violation may be adapted to local circumstances without a change in law. Example: “it is an offense to exceed the posted speed limit” Table 2: The lessons for corporations to be taken from examining PETA's career to date include the following five-step process: 1. Campaign must have unambiguous and achievable objectives 2. Utilize a range of tactics, and never underestimate the Internet 3. Segment your target audience into defined targets a. “Cruelty to Go” (Target: house-spouse, weakness guilt for purchase of fast food) b. “Meat Stinks” (Target: Vegan leaning Teens) c. “Don’t be a Milk Sucker” (Target: Young Teens message milk causes acne) d. “McUnhappy Meals” (Target: Direct to children <10 years old) 4. Organize campaigning to maximize the domino effect (minimum cage size for laying hens in the McDonalds supply chain triggered slightly larger minimum cage size in the Burger King supply chain) 5. Keep the pressure constant |
