Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Corruption grows in dark corners like mould but exposing it to bright light can spark action to clean it up.
Sometimes a bright light shining on the food system exposes things that shouldn’t be happening.
Muckraking undercover journalist Upton Sinclair illuminated appalling corruption and unsafe food preparation in Chicago’s meatpacking industry in the early 1900s.
Authorities said Sinclair’s work was misleading and false, but public reaction forced government action, leading to food safety laws in the United States that eventually became the Food and Drug Administration.
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Sinclair is one in a long line of muckrakers and whistle blowers who shone light on corruption and forced actions to improve lives.
Today, Sinclair’s undercover tactics have become the favoured tools of animal rights movements. They gain access under false pretences to abattoirs and intensive livestock operations and video record how animals are treated.
The results, sometimes showing shocking animal abuse, are all over the internet.
Pushed by agricultural organizations and companies that feel threatened by this, legislators in several American states are acting to make such undercover operations a crime.
In Iowa, the largest pork and egg producer in the U.S., provisions are being drafted that would make it a crime to enter an agricultural operation and have a recording device.
Trespassers would have whistle-blower protection only if they report abuse to authorities within 72 hours and turn over the video and all copies.
The legislation would also apply to crop farms.
Farmers and processors complain that the video and photographs are selectively edited to misrepresent their operations.
It is true. Light can illuminate reality, but it can also be manipulated to create illusion.
The vast majority of livestock operators are conscientious people who deeply care about the welfare of their animals.
Videos that show cruelty reflect aberrations, not standard industry practice.
Some of these groups are motivated by a radical desire to end meat consumption. There are allegations that in some cases the abuse seen in these video was staged and that the proliferation of undercover investigations by animal rights groups is motivated more by a desire to outrage the public and help raise money than concern for livestock.
But some of the videos are legitimate and no criticism of animal rights groups legitimizes legislation designed to criminalize undercover investigations and give special protection to agricultural operations. We hope this overzealous lawmaking does not spread to Canada.
Remedies are already available to those unfairly treated. There are laws against trespass, libel and property damage. Livestock operation owners can sue if edited video gives false impressions that damage their business and hurt its ability to earn. Companies can ask job seekers for references and check them.
Incidents of animal abuse should be reported quickly to authorities to prevent continued abuses and allow investigation. But those who film abuses must also have the right to disseminate the recordings to the public.
At a time when livestock operations and slaughterhouses are getting larger, work is done by employees who are not always well trained and oversight is done mostly by corporations, not government inspectors, it is important that people who see abuses are able to tell the public.
Otherwise, these outrages fade into the court system and, in many jurisdictions, face only modest sentences. They deserve to be brought into the sunlight and face full public condemnation.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Joanne Paulson collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
