Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Remember this spring, just about planting season on the farm, when little calves and pigs and chicks were being born and we all gathered around the JDA screen to watch "Farm to Fridge: The Truth Behind Meat Production"? It’s aheart-warming blood-curdling tale, shot in retching shakyvision and not for the squeamish, as JDA warned over and over again.
Seems this type of video was not appreciated by some in Iowa, who proposed legislation to make that sort of expose’ illegal. And now an effort is under way to block the bill.
A well-known Iowa City chef provided the Iowa Legislature today with a petition with 41,000 names in opposition to a bill that would criminalize undercover investigations of cruelty to farm animals.
Kurt Friese, the owner of Devotay restaurant in Iowa City and the publisher of Edible Iowa River Valley magazine, is behind the Internet-based petition drive. He is a board member of Slow Food USA, a grassroots international organization that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.
Friese, who met today with several members of the Iowa Senate, said well-managed farms should have nothing to hide.
“I don’t believe that this bill does anything to help farmers or to help the earth. It doesn’t protect our waterways or the rights of the people who would eat this food,” he said. He also considers the legislation unconstitutional because it would make it illegal not only to create undercover videos of cruelty to farm animals, but to possess or distribute them -”putting them on par with child pornography.”
Genius. Nice little political recipe of guilt and shame the chef cooked up for whatever group is behind trying to block investigations that uncover cruel treatment on farms.
If you’re inclined to have a taste of Iowa politics, Slow Food USA has its petition online.
And for further reading on food matters:
