Saturday, March 30, 2013

What's an Ag-Gag Law?

Mad cow disease. Do those words bring video footage of sick and staggering cattle to mind? 

Or maybe you can’t stand to think about it.

When AG-GAG bills pass, you won’t have to -- until you’ve bitten into a tainted burger. Then, brain damage is on the way. 

2013 is the year of Ag-gag laws which ban photographing or videotaping farms without the farmers' consent. 
Most bills make it a CLASS ONE FELONY, even if images show criminal behavior that violates food safety laws. 

Ag-gag legislation has cropped up in: Iowa, Florida, New York, Minnesota, Indiana Utah ,Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Wyoming.
I may have missed a state or two, but I know that this month  California joined the list.


When CBS "60 Minutes" partnered with U.S. Dept of Ag in to document food safety violations on chicken farms, they discovered an "eight-foot-high vat of water ..where as many as 10,000 chicken carcasses were...left to soak up moisture to increase their selling weight. Dried blood, feces, and hair” floated around the dead birds. Diane Sawyer later called it 'fecal soup.'"  

Under Ag Gag laws, journalists or concerned employees would be jailed for revealing what happened before those chickens were sealed under plastic at your grocery store. Some bills are so stringent that Dept of Ag inspectors could be prosecuted for not announcing their presence before taking photographs. 

Just a heads-up, for people who eat. 

Labels: Ag Gag laws, chicken farms, food safety, mad cow

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Posted by Terri Farley @ 7:51 AM

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