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Lee Hall, author of "Capers in the Churchyard" and a key member of Friends of Animals, wrote a good essay for Dissident Voice this week about how welfare reform efforts by so-called animal-rights groups often work against the goal of ending animal exploitation and, in fact, work as marketing triumphs for the meat and dairy industry.

In a passage that really reflects the differences between animal advocates who seek "victories" to solicit more donations and animal advocates who truly want to see an end to the exploitation of animals, Hall quotes Priscilla Feral in regard to animal activists working with the meat industry to create more profitable and slightly less abhorrent ways of killing animals: "I’m standing for people who expect us to ... challeng[e] the exploitation of animals. It’s a serious mistake to swap a commitment to justice for short-term, media-grabbing performances that pretend animals win even as they’re being slaughtered and consumed. That trivializes everything animal rights stands for. The animals win? The animals are betrayed twice — once by the profit system, and again by the non-profit system. Animal advocates can do better than that."

You can read the full essay here; this is an excerpt:

And what of the ramifications of activist groups approving — as the Hormel resolution does — certain methods of husbandry and killing as painless and humane? Worldwide, this is a public-relations boon for an industry that’s become particularly vulnerable, in this time of climate change, to serious, root-level critique.

In the book Alternative Health Practices for Livestock (Blackwell, 2006), editors Thomas F. Morris and Michael T. Keilty focus on ways farmers can deal with the controversy over whether animal agribusiness is environmentally sustainable. In the chapter “Economics of Niche Marketing in Alternative Livestock Farming,” Gary L. Valen describes alternatives to typical confinement systems — the low-cost, rounded-top and open-ended hoop barns, for example — as “a marketing strategy that draws attention from consumers with special interests” to support certain production methods.

For example, writes Valen, “Hoop barns are also endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) as ‘a humane and environmentally friendly methods [sic] of housing pigs’ (HSUS, 2001). This is a strong example of how alternative livestock farmers receive marketing assistance at no cost from national organizations that promote animal welfare, environmental sensitivity, and public health.”