The Humane Society International/Canada has stepped up its campaign
against livestock and poultry farming, claiming that a national poll indicates
82 per cent of Canadians want labels to indicate how animals and birds were
raised.
The poll was conducted by Environics Research Group and the Humane
Society International is using it to lobby the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
to require labeling that would indicate “whether they were confined in cages,
had access to the outdoors or were “able to express natural behaviours during
their lives.”
"The poll comes as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency conducts a Food
Labelling Modernization Initiative to address weaknesses in the current food
labelling framework,” the organization says in a news release.
It has not revealed how the polling questions were phrased or whether
people were provided leading information in connection with the polling.
Sayara Thurston, campaigner with Humane Society International/Canada,
said “Canadians care about how farm animals are treated and want to improve
animal welfare with their purchasing decisions.
“Unfortunately, current food labels do not provide consumers with enough
information to make an informed choice at the grocery store.
“We . . . hope to see
clear, mandatory labels indicating how animals were treated during their
lives.”
Its
news release says Food manufacturers selling their products in Canada currently
have no obligation to label their products with information that indicates how
farm animals were raised, including whether they were confined in cages, had
access to “approximately 700 million animals are raised and slaughtered for
human consumption in Canada every year. The vast majority of them spend
virtually their entire lives locked inside intensive, indoor housing systems,
with tens of millions permanently confined to cage housing systems such as
barren battery cages (laying hens) or gestation crates (breeding sows).”
The
organization is not to be confused with the Humane Society of Canada. It is
linked to the Humane Society of the United States which is campaigning
vigorously and effectively to ban sow gestation crates and caged laying-hen
housing.
