R.S.P. C.A. Attacks Factory Farms

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 13

R.S.P. C.A. Attacks Factory Farms

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, Feb. 2.

The “scandal of animal slavery” has come under fire from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In a fierce attack on factory farms, the council of the R.S.P.C.A. told the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Fred Peart, that there was no need for this exploitation of animals.

The council says it regretted the Brambell Committee did not recommend the banning of battery hens.

“It goes on simply because; it is commercially profitable," says the counsil. The R.S.P.C.A. said it was in agreement in general with the main recommendations of the Brambell Committee which last December proposed a law to safeguard the welfare of animals kept under intensive rearing systems. It has rejected claims that intensive factory farming was needed to feed the hungry. In fact the output did not go to the hungry, it said. The herding of large animals in factory conditions produced bad results. The world food problem was to feed the hungry and economise in land.

Properly farmed, the land now used for livestock could produce five to 10 times as much food.