The misplaced priorities of animal rights organizations
Monday, February 4, 2013
by RANDY DUFFY
The recent news involving animal welfare at Puratone's farm in Manitoba and the ongoing demonstrations that Quality Meat Packers faces in Toronto from animal rights activists are just two examples that show the Canadian pork industry is facing the same challenges as the U.S. pork industry.
Humane Watch does a good job of informing people about the largest American animal rights organization known as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which had approximately US$149 million in total revenue in 2010. Humane Watch reveals how the HSUS really spends its money including how only one per cent actually goes to local pet shelters. More of the HSUS budget goes into fundraising and their own pension plan than is given to pet shelters (www.humanewatch.org).
Industry sources suggest that when you include other U.S. animal rights groups the combined revenues are estimated to exceed $200 million annually. The HSUS funds the Canadian group called Humane Society International Canada, which has been taking aim at the Quebec pork industry. Other groups in Canada include World Society for the Protection of Animals, Humane Society Canada and Canadian Federation of Humane Societies. The similarity in these group names is intentional to cause public confusion. It is important to point out that the focus of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies is ensuring animal welfare. However, because of the confusion with the group names, donations may end up going to the other three groups which have an animal rights focus but whose primary goal is to stop people from eating meat.
Wouldn't that $200 million provide greater value by using it to buy food for undernourished people in the world? A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) called The State of Food Insecurity in the World, estimates that almost 870 million people worldwide are chronically undernourished. Most of these people (15 per cent of the world's population) live in developing countries, while about 20 million live in developed countries including Canada. Even within Canada, approximately 300,000 to 400,000 people are potentially undernourished. The two African countries of Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone have 34 million people in each country (twice the population of Canada) that need more food.
The FAO report noted that as incomes rise in developing countries, diet diversity increases, and the contribution from animal-source foods increases significantly. People in these developing countries wish to eat more meat. With the increased volatility of food prices in recent years, it would provide more value to society if the funds collected by animal rights groups were used to help the world's population get enough to eat rather than trying to persuade North American people to not eat meat.
As an example, $200 million could have purchased about 194 million kilograms of rice, based on the local price in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the summer of 2012. That is enough rice to provide each of the 34 million undernourished people in that country with almost six kilograms of rice. That may not sound like much, but to an undernourished person it may mean everything to have that additional food.
I recently read The Wealthy Barber Returns by David Chilton. One of the points he makes in his book is the power of perspective. Chilton writes "Keep in mind that one in six people in the world goes to bed hungry every night." Our pets live more comfortably than half the Earth's population, for heaven's sake!
The perspective and priorities of the animal rights groups are misplaced and their self-interested actions are not in society's best interests. BP
Randy Duffy is Research Associate at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus.