opinion
The animal-rights movement hasn’t made many headlines recently, but that doesn’t mean farmers should get complacent.
Animal-rights groups are still determined to bring an end to almost all types of animal agriculture, and they are working hard toward that goal.
One priority target for them is the public school system.
Their greatest success so far has been persuading teachers to help campaigns against the use of animals in research. The Wall Street Journal reported last fall that some impressionable third-graders were shown propaganda photographs of disfigured laboratory animals and were assigned, as a class project, to write protest letters to a personal-hygiene company that uses animals to test the safety of its products. Similar assignments were done by older grades in schools across the U.S.
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There was no mention of such assignments being given in Canadian schools, but the same propaganda is available to Canadian students.
Sometimes the propaganda comes courtesy of respectable mainstream organizations. In a “resource guide” prepared last fall for Alberta high schools, the Alberta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals included material from extremist U.S. groups in its list of videotapes available for classroom viewing.
Although the Alberta SPCA suggested that students see videos on both sides of the debate about using animals in research, its catalogue contained disparaging remarks about videos defending the practice. “Unfortunately, the video emphasizes the benefits of using research animals and ignores the many possible alternatives,” one listing says. Meanwhile, Dr. Neil Barnard is described as making “strong arguments” in another video arguing against animals in research. (Barnard is a controversial anti-meat fanatic. He recently helped produce a “study” asserting that the habit of eating meat is as costly for health care as smoking.)
Why should farmers care if schoolchildren get a biased view of using animals in medical research? Because the animal-rights organizations and individuals involved in that issue gain credibility to use in their longer-term war on animal agriculture.
In glossy magazines, emotional videos and, most recently, Internet web pages, animal-rights groups are providing so-called information like this: “Cattle farming is destroying habitats on six continents. … Livestock agriculture is also the single greatest cause of world-wide deforestation.”
To avoid being run over on the misinformation highway, all sections of the livestock industry need to work together to find ways to strengthen their educational efforts.
