Animal Rights Legislation Would Make Eggs a Luxury Food
American Thinker: One day soon, America could wake up to a dozen eggs costing $8 or more. And unless you are involved in some aspect of farming or agriculture, you would never know that egg prices are about to skyrocket or the reason why. With food prices already increasing due to high grain and fuel costs, extraneous so-called animal welfare regulations are being imposed on U.S. food producers, large and small, by the animal rights powerhouse known as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).
With HSUS’ vegan animal rights platform as the motivations behind crafting a controversial egg bill, S. 3239 was introduced in the U.S. Senate on Friday, May 25, 2012, inching U.S. egg producers closer to a mandate which would require them to phase out conventional cages for egg-laying hens and transition to a system called “enriched colony cages” by 2029, at a cost to U.S. egg producers ranging between $4 billion to $10 billion.
And while most Americans shrug their shoulders and live their lives, they are completely unaware of how this regulation will affect the cost of food and its availability in the future. The current egg shortage in the U.K. should be a jolting wake-up call for Americans, illustrating that the onerous animal welfare regulations which have phased out conventional cages there have caused egg prices to quadruple, while diminishing egg supply to a “crisis” level. This is a glimpse of what’s coming to America if HSUS’ egg bill becomes law.
Instead of improving productivity for the American egg industry and supporting our farmers and ranchers, these imposed regulations will incrementally squeeze egg producers out of business. Fewer egg farmers means fewer eggs. Fewer eggs mean higher prices for the consumer, and importing more of our food from other countries where neither animal welfare nor food safety is top priority.
While these regulations may seem reasonable on the surface, the agenda behind them lies within the organization pushing these cleverly crafted laws, cloaked in a disguise of emotional propaganda used to advance these proposed regulations into law. HSUS is an organization that makes no bones about its mission to push anti-animal agriculture regulations, or any stiff regulatory reform on American farmers and ranchers. Just consider the goal of HSUS’ lead policy director and vegan activist, J.P. Goodwin, who has gone on record by saying, “My goal is the abolition of all animal agriculture.”
HSUS’ goal is to provide relief to chickens, not provide food for humans. Will enriched cage systems truly satisfy the vegan animal rights organization which has repeatedly wielded its bully tactics to gain a hold on animal agriculture? My prediction is no. After all, the ultimate goal of HSUS is about empty cages, not bigger cages.
At a time when jobs are scarce, and the looming possibility that affordable food may become more difficult to come by, now is not the time to stand by and allow an anti-egg-consuming animal rights organization to righteously dictate the future of U.S. egg producers and the future of our domestic food supply. Years ago, as an observation of foreign oppression, Henry Kissenger once said, “If you control the food supply, you control the people.” Today, Americans are facing food tyranny on our own shores, which must be stopped. I implore everyone to contact his or her U.S. representative and senator and urge them to vote no on this rotten egg bill, S. 3239, and its identical counterpart in the House, H.R. 3798.
Along with stocking up on ammo, guess I better go buy a couple of hens!
h/t Laura
DCG
Just tell them to shut their pie hole. I wouldn’t pay any attention to these jerks. If you want to raise chickens and have fresh eggs, then just do it.
God put plenty of food on this earth for everyone. It is government who starves people by making them slaves to the state. It’s a lose-lose situation when they are involved with it.
The guy who cuts my hair and his wife bought some chickens last year and it has been a good experience for them. Their daughters are having a blast. More like having five new pets for them; and they love to gather the eggs. City chickens!
I’m just weary of all this.
So so stupid! People need to wake the heck up! If a chicken farmer looses even one chicken…he looses money. It’s just like cattle. I cannot believe people do not get that! Your so right…These idiots are not worried about the poor little chicken. The farmer cares more about the damn chicken!
If most eggs were produced by farmers, I would agree, but they aren’t any more… They are raised, slaughtered and processed by huge corporations, using minimally paid and trained workers. I agree, however, that the HSUS bills go too far. They are unenforceable for one.
If we just enforced the rules we have, animal cruelty would go way down, and the safety of the meat would go way up. But we don’t even have enough inspectors to do that.
The solution ties in nicely with your comment… We buy eggs from a local cage-free coop. They cost about twice what the discount grocery store charges for regular large eggs. If more people bought from the farmers who DO care, the issue would resolve itself via the free market, at a much lower cost than the proposed legislation would cause…
Hey Flower Power! What’s up?
I tee-totally agree with you! I buy my eggs at our small grocery store which provides a local farmer’s eggs and her eggs are ALWAYS cheaper than WallyWorld’s. Honestly I don’t think the price would be that different…but you are so right…WallyWorld is not going to buy from local farmers and in the big cities the majority of small grocers did not survive. (monopoly???)
The small farmers should NOT be lumped in with the big producers. (Like the small pig farmers were) The small farmers cannot afford to loose even one chicken. I was really just talking about the small farmers.
(I still do not believe this is really about the chicken though!)
Left/libtards are insane.
Lots of people that we know in these mountains are starting to raise their own chickens. After regularly receiving wonderful eggs from a dear patient, I cannot stand store-bought eggs. Heck, maybe we will even try it–younger son is.
I don’t see why if HSUS had its way, eggs will cost $8 a dozen.
I refuse to support the cruel corporate chicken industry, where chickens are so cramped in cages, they hardly have room to even turn around. A lifetime of living in extreme stress leads them to viciously peck each other; their bodies produce stress hormones in response — which you are all ingesting along with the eggs and chicken meat. So I buy eggs from Trader Joe’s which are laid by free range (cageless) chickens. A dozen cost about $3 something.
Make Americans pay European prices for eggs (like gas) to encourage us to be more animal-friendly? They can have my Bacon Egg McMuffin when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Dear, dear Steve: Please be sure the chicken’s deceased & frozen before using it as a club. Thanks!
I buy all of my eggs from a local farmer. His chickens are all free range and the eggs are $4. a dozen twice the price in the store but worth every penny. He even delivers! This area has many many chicken farmers however and the government regulations and taxes are impacting everyone. Thankfully our county representatives are trying to maintain our agricultural economy. I want to protect the environment and have healthy food but I would like it if somehow the federal and state entities could maintain a sense of responsibility to the public and practice common sense. Well it probably won’t be in my lifetime but I can hope can’t I?
It is critical that everyone make their voices heard to their representatives! Evil happens because good men do nothing!!!
they passed a law in Madison wherein ALL animals
(including chickens ) would have a veri-chip…..
They ,of course ,excluded the corporate farmers. We the people
expressed our displeasure and told them where WE were going
to put their chips ….and they haven’t been heard from since.