You can bet that if all the animals in America had televisions — as they do in San Francisco’s SPCA shelter — they’d be tuned in to California’s election returns on Nov. 4.
A free-range chicken.
On the ballot is an initiative — Proposition 2 — that is as potentially transformational for the treatment of farm animals raised for food in the United States as the presidential vote could be for the nation itself.
Watching closely will be the nation’s big meat and egg producers. Because if Californians embrace Prop. 2 — and scant polling on the initiative suggests it’s a runaway hit — they will be sending a message that goes far beyond the relatively modest changes required by the measure: Consumers really do care about where their food comes from and how it is raised, and they’re willing to set limits even if industry isn’t.
It’s not just another one of those far-out Left Coast things. The Prop. 2 campaign is playing on a mainstream, national stage. Oprah Winfrey devoted a show to the issue of food-animal care and Prop. 2 last week, and the New Yo... Read more
