LGarces

Organic unfortunately is not an animal welfare standard. It is more about the environment and not using chemicals on crops, which are fed to animals.

In any farm their can be good management and bad management. I've seen terrible management even is a pasture raised farm. You have to think about a farm's potential for good welfare. A factory farm has very low potential, even with the best management. A pasture raised farm though has tremendous potential for good welfare. But certainly if you chose to eat animals, then you should care as to whether a farmer is given guidance and standards that they are actually held to. So third party auditing systems are your best option, with the most potential for good welfare.

This is a great question. We'd love to talk to BK about this. Looking for third party certifications is a key way to find the right producers. Global Animal Partnership is one I work with closely and has some options at volume.

We actually need companies like BK to work with large integrators to to improve their practices. There are some that do have better practices and already have 'models' of practice. But they won't expand this production until food services and supermarkets give them 'shelf space' to put the better chicken on. Please pm me if you want to talk about this more. We can certainly provide more detail and help you find it!

Consumers can also let supermarkets, and anywhere that chicken is sold, and let them know you want better chicken. You can also go to our website where you can petition supermarkets directly. www.better-chicken.org At the end the day you make a choice three times a day what sort of meal you will eat. Consumers can, and do, make a difference.

The cost of factory farming is not the cost at the supermarket. If we would take into account the cost for environmental clean up, for health related problems and destruction of local communities economies, the cost would be much more. But we also have to take into account that we currently eat far more than we need to eat in terms of protein. We should aim for higher quality of life for animals (and thus for farmers and ourselves) and less consumption of meat products.