This is regarding the recent letter to the editor “Proud farmers” (Voice of the people, Aug. 19).
In this letter, the writer, Ray Campbell, stated that a previous letter writer unfairly characterized agribusiness as a barbaric industry in which animals are treated as production units rather than sentient beings.
An important clarification is needed.
Campbell took exception to that statement.
And he asserted that on family farms, animals are treated humanely.
But he surely realizes that there is no such thing as a family farm anymore since his letter stated that his father and brother, who operate a family farm, no longer raise animals on their farm because they can’t make enough money doing it.
The idyllic family farms where one could see “animals roaming freely in large, open pastures and barnyards with plenty to eat and drink” simply no longer exist.
They have been replaced by factory farms.
These factory farms are where cruelty and abuses, so eloquently documented in your articles on alleged abuse of chickens at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant, run rampant.
