Progressing from “Agriculture” to “Food”

California recently passed a new law ending (in 2015) the most intensive forms of confinement for pigs, calves and egg-laying hens.  Now, California’s senate has renamed its agriculture committee the  “Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture”.

The committee will tackle the issue of how farmed animals are treated in state farms, and is requesting feedback from the public on exactly what issues it would like examined. I encourage everyone to contribute. Its website includes a poll asking which of 4 issues the reader cares about most. One choice provided is “animal welfare”.

This change is significant because, as the article cited above implies, the committee used to be “exclusively the domain of growers and food producers.”  Now it will expand its purview to include, as the article states, “consumer-related issues… and the treatment of farm animals.”  Senator Dean Florez, D-Shafter, will be heading the new committee. He states, as quoted, “animal welfare issues will be very much at the forefront. There’s no doubt that Proposition 2 was a wake-up call.”

And so the dominos keep falling: one progression leads to another.

-Suzanne McMillan