The bare minimum

Citizens of California will weigh in on a referendum this November to set minimum standards for confinement space of farm animals. Proposition 2, officially called the California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, would ensure that farm animals were not confined in such a way that they are unable to stand, sit, lie down, stretch their limbs, or turn around.

It seems absurd that such a law is needed to protect those basic life activities, but livestock confinement if full of absurdities.

California voters should approve the measure, and every state in the union should follow suit. For a hen to spend its entire life in a cage so small that she can never stretch her wings, stand, or turn herself around is a level of cruelty few humans could endure. For a pregnant sow to be locked in a two-foot-wide box unable to stand or move in any direction is a scene worthy of Edgar Allen Poe. The confinement of veal calves is also like a scene from Dante's hell. Yet this is the norm in the food production system we call "factory farming."

 If you don't believe you'd ever contribute to such practices, ask yourself where the meat in your supermarket comes from.

Yesterday, I bought 3 pounds of lamb form an upstate New York farmer. Her table at the farmers market showed pictures of sheep roaming on her acreage, hooves treading on soft earth, young ones chewing on fresh, green grasses, and the whole flock wandering from hill to hill in search of favorite pasture. A handful of sheep dogs were their only confinement.

The lamb I bought was slaughtered and butchered right on the farm, in the presence of a USDA inspector. It never saw the inside of a cattle car. That's the kind of meat I'll buy. Yes, it cost twice the price of meat at the supermarket. It was worth every penny.

California's Proposition 2 won't ensure that all livestock in California live bucolic lives like the humanely-raised lamb I bought, but it will protect them from the most egregious practices of modern animal husbandry, which should have been outlawed decades ago. To find growers in your area raising humanely-handled beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and even veal, go to www.localharvest.org and click on your own state.

Jay Weinstein's blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.