We found this article interesting. Although it’s out of the United States, the findings would be mirrored in Canada - OFAC
http://www.dairyherd.com/news_editorial.asp?pgID=675&ed_id=11876&news_id=28210&ts=nl2
July 15, 2010 – Research presented recently at the American Dairy Science Association annual meeting looked at consumer-purchasing decisions when it comes to animal welfare.
What would happen if all consumers were informed about the different types of egg and pork production systems available, and were allowed to purchase egg and pork products from these different systems? asked Bailey Norwood, associate professor at Oklahoma State University. The only difference between the food products would be the level of animal welfare. And, suppose that the price premium attached to products with higher standards of animal care exactly equals the estimated cost premiums. What would happen?
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Posted by OFAC on July 30th, 2010 :: Filed under
Animal care,
Consumers,
Education and public awareness,
Pork,
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eggs
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.07
I left the Great Lakes packing plant on May 12 with four boxes of meat piled onto the back seat of my car. Piggy — my pig, the pig I had helped raise and care for — was packed inside those boxes.
Six months of his life, six months of my life, all reduced to four cardboard boxes on my back seat.
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Posted by Admin on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under
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Consumers,
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pigs,
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Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.06
The use of battery-powered electric prods to get hogs moving is a controversial animal welfare issue.
The prod is poked into the back or rump of the pig and with a push of a button, a flash of electric current jumps between two contacts. It’s enough to elicit a loud squeal in some pigs.
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Posted by Admin on July 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under
Meat/slaughter plants,
Pork,
TransportationTags ::
animal welfare,
economics,
labeling,
meat,
Ontario,
pigs,
Pork
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator,2008.06.06
It’s Friday, May 9. I didn’t need my alarm clock this morning. I was wide awake by 4 a.m.
I admit that I was a little apprehensive. This is Piggy’s last day. This morning, he’s being shipped from the Littlejohns’ farm in the hamlet of Glen Morris to Great Lakes Specialty Meats, a small packing plant in Mitchell, about half an hour north of London.
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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
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TransportationTags ::
Farmers,
meat,
pigs,
Pork,
slaughter,
Transportation
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.06.04
I’m playing a word game with Temple Grandin. It’s fascinating to hear her describe how her brain works.
Temple Grandin is a professor of livestock behaviour at Colorado State University. She also happens to be autistic.
You could make the case that she’s the world’s most highly functioning autistic person and I wouldn’t argue with that.
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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
Education and public awareness,
Family vs factory farming,
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animal welfare,
beef,
livestock,
meat,
pigs,
Pork,
slaughter
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.05.30
It’s 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 21, and it’s one of the coldest mornings of the winter so far. The snow crunches under foot, there’s just a hint of grey light along the eastern horizon and an icy mist rises off the nearby Grand River.
Two gleaming silver tanker trucks from the Wallenstein feed company have already started emptying their loads into the metal silos at Curtiss Littlejohn’s pig farm in the hamlet of Glen Morris.
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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
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fuel,
hormones,
misconceptions,
nutrition,
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technology
Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.05.28
Six months, 250 pounds. That’s Piggy’s destiny in life.01 At first, he’ll double his weight in a few days, then it will double in a week, then every couple of weeks, then every month. It’s incredible, isn’t it, to think that a barnyard animal is capable of growing so large, so quickly.
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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
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artificial insemination,
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Steve Buist, Hamilton Spectator, 2008.05.27
It’s 6:30 on a Sunday morning and daylight hasn’t yet cracked the horizon as I head west along Governor’s Road on the far side of Lynden. I drive for miles without passing another car, but almost every barn I pass is already lit.
No one has said it better than John Kenneth Galbraith, the renowned economist and maybe the most famous graduate of the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph.
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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
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Canada,
Farmers,
pigs,
Pork
Luisa D’Amato, Waterloo Region Record, July 12, 2008
The hogs are just a few minutes away from death.
High-pitched screams pierce the warm air at Conestoga Meat Packers, a pork processing plant near Breslau.
Men with plastic paddles push the dusty animals, each as heavy as a football player, toward a covered, metal passageway.
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Posted by Admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under
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Farmers,
food,
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Source: CBC News
Last Updated: Thursday, March 13, 2008
Animal health experts are concerned about the spread of disease from backyard chicken flocks in British Columbia.
The risks associated with keeping poultry was a key topic for discussion at a seminar Wednesday in Abbotsford, hosted by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).
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Posted by Admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under
Animal health,
Canada,
Education and public awareness,
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backyard flocks,
eggs,
influenza,
Poultry