Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act on the Nov. 4 ballot, is a very modest measure that would stop some of the cruelest practices of factory farming.
For example, caged egg-laying hens have less space than a sheet of letter-sized paper on which to live for more than a year before they are slaughtered. Many of them die and get seriously ill in their confinements. Some animals cannot even walk anymore because their bones have become so weak.
The ballot initiative simply ensures that pigs, calves and hens would be able to at least turn around in their cages and extend their limbs. In my opinion, this is the least we owe to farm animals.
The egg and meat lobby is pumping millions of dollars trying to convince California voters against the initiative and to keep their big profit margins. In reality, large-scale factory farms have displaced many small family farms in our state. Californians hopefully will follow other states and vote to ban the cruelest factory farming practices most of us are not even aware of -- for the protection of our own health and safety, our beautiful state and our animals.
-- Verena Sabine Sichert, Calabasas