Writers group,
Here's is a great opportunity to share your knowledge of and show support for cage-free products. If you need some information for your letter, look at the cage-free section linked at http://www.ExploreVeg.org.
Letters up to 200 words can be submitted to: daily-iowan@uiowa.edu
Please check here for the next two weeks to see if your letter has been printed: http://www.dailyiowan.com/news/2006/01/24/Opinions/ and send all published letters to jason@ca4a.org so I can archive them.
Jason
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"Cage-Free Egg Era Arrives"
By Margaret Poe
The Daily Iowan
January 24, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/apjrq
(Free Registration Required)
Students polishing off omelets or airy cr?pes at UI dining facilities this
spring can roost happy knowing some of the eggs scrambled into their
favorite dishes come from cage-free chickens.
After animal-welfare groups lobbied UI Food Service employees,
administrators set up the semester-long pilot program - estimated to cost an
additional $1,500.
Food-service providers across the nation are adopting more animal-friendly
farming practices in response to "inhumane" farming practices, said Paul
Shapiro, the manager of the Factory Farming Campaign for the Humane Society
of the United States.
Ryan Miller, a UI graduate student and the manager of Farmer's Hen House in
Kalona, said the "cage-free" distinction means the birds frolic in the
barnyard, not in battery cages - the small confinements in which they often
reside. The eggs the UI buys are not organic, however, because the birds do
not receive organic feed.
The Factory Farming Campaign has reported that 75 U.S. colleges have reduced
or completely stopped purchasing eggs from caged birds. Grinnell College,
approximately 60 miles west of Iowa City, began buying eggs from the Kalona
distributor - which also supplies the UI - in September 2005, said Dick
Williams, the director of Grinnell's dining services. Besides the UI, he
said, Grinnell is the only higher-education institution in Iowa with a
cage-free policy.
But other universities are taking note of the project. Mona Milius, an
associate director of residence halls at the University Northern Iowa, said
that while students there have not pushed for a similar policy, UNI
officials will evaluate the UI's success.
"We're very committed to locally grown food," she said. "It's something to
consider."
Steve Parrott, the director of the UI's University Relations, said Hillcrest
and Burge Marketplaces, as well as the IMU Food Service, will use the eggs -
approximately 160 dozen each week - once the first shipment arrives near the
end of this month.
David Grady, the director of University Life Centers, said the cost of
cage-free eggs is approximately 5 percent more than the university usually
spends. Parrott said students will not make up for the price difference - at
least during the trial program. The UI has no plans to raise food prices to
accommodate the change, he said.
This program comes after months of prodding from university groups,
including the Farm Animal Welfare Network. Alyson Powers, the group's
volunteer coordinator who became interested in the issue in April 2005, said
her organization will continue to educate people about the issue to extend
the agreement past May.
"The more students are educated about the cruelty and environmental
devastation [of battery-cage practices], the more they will take a stance to
make this a permanent policy," she said.
A 1999 European Union directive stated that member nations will completely
cease the use of battery cages by 2012. After that time, all hens must be
confined in larger spaces with a nest, scratching area, and perches.
"There is a growing recognition that battery-cage eggs are simply too
inhumane for any socially responsible country to support," Shapiro said.
But Floyd Blakely, a retired Iowa City chicken farmer, does not support the
cage-free campaign. Chickens raised in cages often do have chances to roam
free, he said, and they do not need space to lie down.
"I think people got something started, and they don't know what they're
talking about," he said.
UI Student Government President Mark Kresowik disagrees.
"Trying to be a responsible citizen is an important step for the
university," he said.
