Design against Fur is launching a new site soon at designagainstfur.com. This is from the people who brought you the Design Against Fur competition at infurmation.com. Why is fur on a website about meat and dairy? Simply because the fur industry is yet another part of the mass production meat industry. It is great to see worldwide artistic talent being used as a weapon aginst this trade.

Rabbit fur comes from two sources - rabbits raised specifically for their fur, and rabbits raised primarily for their meat. The conditions in which the animals are raised (usually factory farming where they are crammed into bare wire cages and denied the ability to perform natural behaviours such as jump, run or dig) are similar, as is their death. Death is usually by neck-breaking or the throat being slit. The rabbits will also suffer when being transported between farm and market and / or slaughter, and are often roughly handled.
Source - CAFT (Coalition to Abolish The Fur Trade)

With no conclusive link found between badgers and bovine TB it seems only sensible to have an expensive cull of badgers. As long as the farmers are kept happy why not add more deaths to the list of horrors performed by the dairy industry.

A CULL of badgers as part of a £27m, three-year drive to eradicate bovine TB in Wales has edged closer following an inquiry by AMs into the disease.

The Assembly’s rural development sub-committee recommended trial culls in a clearly defined pilot area as part of a broad push against bTB, including annual testing of cattle, increased biosecurity and continued cull of reactors.

But rural affairs minister Elin Jones wouldn’t confirm if she would act on the cull recommendation.

“We have £27m set aside for the next three years to create a programme to eradicate TB,” said the minister.

“It’s high on my agenda and it’s a commitment of the One Wales Government to move forward on this.”

The report highlights a “real link” between bTB in cattle and wildlife, and says the disease cannot be controlled, let alone eradicated, by one method alone.

Around 6,000 reactors are removed in Wales each year with compensation costs estimated to reach £15m this year.

Badger Trust Cymru welcomed the recognition that bTB is primarily spread by cattle and exacerbated by an inadequate TB testing regime.

The incidence of bTB in Northern Ireland was reduced by 40% in one year by improving the testing regime.

Trust spokesman Mike Sharratt said a badger-culling trial in Wales would serve “no useful purpose”.

Instead it would make more sense to spend the money on grants to help farmers keep badgers out of farm buildings. Research showed 94% of farm buildings are currently accessible to badgers.

“A cheap electric fence is all that’s needed to prevent direct contact between cattle and badgers,” he said.

Remainder of article

Stop War On Badgers
Petition at Animal Aid
Information at Animal Aid

Tesco will phase out continental  white veal and only buy rose veal from the UK. The dairy farmers that supply the chain in the UK now will be kind enough to not ship excess (for exccess, read ‘male’) calves off for live export to Europe. Instead they will be reared here until slaughtered at a young age.
Now all we need is for them to phase out dairy sales altogether and there won’t be any excess calves in the first place and the calves’ mothers won’t spend their lives in pain and hunger.

Tesco phasing out foreign veal 2 days ago Britain’s biggest supermarket chain has pledged to phase out its sales of imported veal. Tesco will instead stock British meat from calves bred to higher welfare standards.

The switch is possible because farmers which supply the supermarket with milk have agreed not to export their dairy calves. That means the calves will stay in the British supply chain instead of being reared abroad. Tesco said its beef suppliers were ready to take on dairy calves from the 930 dairy farmers who have agreed not to sell their animals for export. Tesco dairy category director Kari Daniels said: “The fact that these calves will stay in the UK is good news for British farmers and shoppers alike because it makes a lot more top quality British beef available. “In addition shoppers will be able to buy British veal - which will be reared to high welfare standards. Calves will have straw beds, a balanced diet and access to plenty of natural daylight.” Tesco is due to start selling rose veal from British-reared calves from April, when it will start phasing out imported veal.

Source and remainder of article

Farmers that farm animals are cost money by the outbreak of disease that affects farmed animals. An obvious solution would seem to be to stop farming animals.

Farmers’ £40m foot-and-mouth bill

The foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2007 may have cost Welsh farmers more than £40m, a Welsh assembly committee has found.

The finance committee also highlighted an ongoing dispute between the governments in Cardiff and London over who should pay any compensation.

A separate assembly report concluded the UK Treasury should compensate Welsh farmers.

The foot-and-mouth outbreak was discovered in Surrey in August, but there were no cases in Wales.

However, the outbreak had an impact on the rural economy across the whole of the UK.

Restrictions were placed on the movement and trade of animals following the August outbreak and a second one in September.

Farmers in Wales did not automatically receive compensation because no animals were slaughtered due to the disease, but the Welsh assembly’s finance committee said “the effect on the Welsh farming industry was immediate and severe”.

The restrictions meant animals could not be sent to the abattoir which lead to a loss of income and the additional cost of feed.

Hill farmers are facing a winter having lost half their income Dai Davies, NFU Wales president

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) Wales put the cost “in excess of £40m”.

The finance committee, which is made up of AMs from all parties, pointed to evidence the outbreak came from a research facility at Pirbright that was licensed by the UK government.

The assembly government has already agreed extra funding for aid schemes including one to promote red meat.

But the AMs noted that just over half of the £7m allocated to the schemes had actually been spent.

The Remainder of the story at BBC

Here at meatismurder we have done our fair bit of celebrity-chef bashing - and long may that continue - but in the atmosphere of equality we must highlight the current stance being taken by three of these chef-du-jour against battery farming.
Although these guys are not going vegan and so taking the step that would stop the abuse industry in it’s tracks, they are pushing the animal welfare message into the gaze of a public that often do not get exposed to vegan campaign materials but may well see an article in their paper or a program on the television. These will show just how a living breathing individual becomes a cog in the food machine.

Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnely-Wittingstall launch TV assault on eating habits

Jamie Oliver hopes his new Channel 4 show will help to end battery farming

Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent

The “three tenors” of British cuisine — Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall — are joining forces to take on the supermarkets and change the nation’s eating habits.

After forcing an improvement in school dinners, Oliver now has battery farming in his sights. The public face of Sainsbury will demonstrate the “hideous realities of industrial chicken production”, for a special Channel 4 season on food.

In Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, the celebrity chef will host a dinner for food industry bosses and celebrities. During each course, Oliver promises to “demonstrate graphically” how battery-farmed eggs and chickens reach the dinner plate.

Channel 4 has filmed Oliver’s meetings with Sainsbury’s where he lobbies the chain to improve standards of chicken production. The retailer is to phase out the 150 million battery eggs it sells a year but stocks a mixture of free-range and conventionally produced frozen chicken.

A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman said: “We do not sell caged chicken. We insist that all animals destined for Sainsbury’s meat are reared to good standards of animal welfare.”

Oliver is seeking action to improve the conditions in which birds destined for all supermarkets are kept. On some farms up to 40,000 birds are kept under artificial light in closed sheds.

Andrew Mackenzie, head of factual entertainment at Channel 4, said: “Jamie’s message will be, ‘If you knew what happens to a chicken before arriving on your plate, would you still eat it?’

“Our standards are not as good as some in Europe. Even people who buy free-range chickens may not be aware that every time they eat cake, the eggs aren’t likely to be free-range, so they are essentially endorsing the battery hen. Jamie reveals how chickens go from the farm to the fork.”

Remainder of article at timesonline

Learn about another kind of farmed animal , often not talked about over at rabbitfur.org

The killing of rabbits for their fur is the fastest growing part of the global fur trade yet little is known about it. 50 million animals are slaughtered worldwide each year for their fur but this figure does not even include rabbits as accurate figures are hard to come by.

Around the world most systems of animal factory farming - such as battery hen cages, farrowing crates for pigs, ‘veal’ crates, foie gras production, mink fur farming - have been the subject of detailed scientific studies, campaigns by animal rights groups and even government bans. Meanwhile, the factory farming of rabbits for their fur and flesh has received little attention …. until now.