A federal database of animals to fight disease outbreaks is a threat to privacy and family operations, critics say.

By Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

January 14, 2008WASHINGTON -- After days of parading around her beefy black steer in the dung-scented August heat at the Colorado State Fair, Brandi Calderwood made the final competition. For months, the 16-year-old worked from dawn well past dusk, fitting in the work around school, to feed, train and clean her steer. But just before the last round, when the animals are sold, fair officials disqualified her.

They alleged that Brandi had not properly followed a new and controversial rule that required children to register their farms with a federal animal tracking system. After heated words, the Calderwoods were told to leave. A security guard trailed Brandi and her mother, even to the restroom.

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N.C. State Fair’s ‘Farm Animal Frenzy’ contest

RALEIGH – A flashy bunch of roosters, horses, cows and pigs, decked out in brightly colored splashes of paint, plaster and papier-mâché, have been rounded up at local malls, competing with window mannequins for attention.

As part of the N.C. State Fair’s “Farm Animal Frenzy” contest, these animals have been corralled at Crabtree Valley Mall, North Hills Shopping Center and Triangle Town Center, where they will remain through the first weekend of October before taking their place at the State Fair Oct. 12-21.

Eighteen area high school art classes and clubs decorated the larger-than-life fiberglass animals in competition for prize money and bragging rights. The designs range from a wild and wacky roller coaster cow to a sophisticated horse inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”

At Crabtree, the creativity of the following seven schools is on display: Wake Forest-Rolesville; Wakefield High School; Southeast Raleigh High School; Sanderson High School; East Wake High School; Garner Senior High School; and Knightdale High School.

At North Hills, four schools’ entries can be found: Broughton High School (main entrance in front of South); Cardinal Gibbons High School (in front of Kerr Drug); Athens Drive High School (in front of McAllister's Deli); and Holly Springs High School (Lassiter Mills entrance).

At Triangle Town Center, the remaining seven schools’ artworks are on display: Panther Creek High School; Apex High School; Cary High School; Middle Creek High School; Cary Academy; Leesville Road High School; and Millbrook High School.

Each school’s decorated animal was judged at the schools by a trio of professional artists. The winner will receive $1,000, second place will earn $750 and third will get $500. All schools received $200 for participating. The results will be announced Tuesday, Oct. 9.

Online voting will determine a “People’s Choice Award” winner, which will be announced Thursday, Oct. 18, during the Fair. The public is encouraged to check out the animals at the malls and at the Fair Web site, www.ncstatefair.org, until midnight Wednesday, Oct. 17, and vote on their favorite animals.

For more information, visit the State Fair Web site at www.ncstatefair.org. The Fair runs Oct. 12-21 at the State Fairgrounds.

Forget fairness; let the judging begin

July 20, 2007

JERRY DAVICH

The two young teenage girls faced each other inside a 4-H barn full of dogs being judged.

"How do I look?" one asked, combing her dark hair over a pink tank top.

"Awesome," the other replied, applying lip gloss to her smile. "How about me?"

Both girls nodded.

Seconds later, they scampered from the barn, prepared for the dogged scrutiny of their image-conscious peers.

I laughed at first, shrugging off their adolescent attitude as a girly trivial pursuit.

But then I realized where I was -- the annual fishbowl of judgmental behavior in our ever-critical society.

The Porter County Fair.

Here, like with all county fairs, we not only judge our pigs, our pies, our lemon shake-ups, our elephant ears, our new tractors and our 4-H booths.

We also judge our children, our parents, our fashion choices, our sexuality, our macho bravado, our mates and, of course, ourselves.

And, at least in Porter County, this obvious yet subtle practice has been going on strong for 156 years and counting.

Forget the nostalgic assumption that previous generations of region fairgoers didn't take part in such biting judgments at their county fairs.

They surely did.

I'll bet the first animals that were judged came only after the first fairgoers were judged.

"Did you see the petticoat she chose to wear?"

"Can you believe he couldn't even ring the bell with the sledgehammer?"

A Time for the Animals

Even as a cloud of savagery, evidenced by the misfortunes of war, hangs over our world, humanity has lately begun to demonstrate an astonishing degreee of civility in at least one very important respect, that being the manner in which we treat our animals - specifically, the animals we raise for food. In just the last few months, unprecedented strides have been taken in this country to improve the welfare of pigs, cattle, chickens, and ducks who've been forced for many years to endure miserable and agonizing lives. Granted, the bulk of these efforts still lies ahead of us, but first steps have, unequivocally, been taken - steps which only a short time ago wouldn't have been thought to be so quickly achieved.

I guess it all began in August of last year when the foie gras ban was enacted in Chicago. Who'd have thought, huh? While California's 2004 ban on production wouldn't actually go into effect until 2012, the Chicago law was designed to take effect almost immediately. Of course, it was ballyhooed, scoffed at, derided. Even the city's mayor called it the "silliest" law the city council had ever passed, but detractors notwithstanding, the statute was on the books. And in March of this year, we were shown that even a silly law could be enforced when the first citation was handed down, a guilty plea entered, and the fine paid. Like I said, who'd have thought?

Then came Arizona's Proposition 204, designed to do away with caged imprisonment of pigs and veal calves and approved overwhelmingly by the state's voters. Though Florida had passed a similar law in 2002, it was the Arizona bill which grabbed our nation's attention, prompting forecasts of even more initiatives forthcoming in a number of other states - possibly as soon as 2008.

The biggest and most recent gains, however, have come from the corporate community. Following in the footsteps of grocery retailers like Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe's, as well as Internet icons AOL and Google, ice cream manufacturer Ben and Jerry's announced in September of 2006 its intention to adopt a cage free policy for its entire product line. Then, in January of 2007, Burgerville, with a chain of popular restaurants in the Northwest, also officially turned its back on battery cage eggs. In late January, Smithfield, the nation's largest producer of pork, began phasing out gestation crates in favor of a group pen environment, and this was immediately followed by a similar move from Maple Leaf Foods, Canada's largest pork producer.

It suddenly became obvious that an awareness was beginning to take shape in our minds and in our hearts, and even more importantly, this awareness was translating itself into solid action.

In February, Guckenheimer, one of the largest privately-owned food service companies in the U.S., made the move to cage-free, and later that same month, Strauss Veal and Macho Farms, two of the nation's largest veal producers, declared their intention to begin phasing out crated systems in favor of a more humane alternative.

The stage was being set for even more landmark developments, as March kicked off with Colorado-based Artisan Cookie Company and Vermont-based Bruegger's Enterprises both adopting cage-free policies. But the real highlight of the month occurred when Wolfgang Puck unveiled a program based on animal welfare concerns and promised to apply this to every phase of his vaunted empire of restaurants, franchises, and consumer products. Only days later, Burger King announced it would begin phasing out its use of pork and egg suppliers who continued to employ cruel practices. Farm animal welfare had, without a doubt, moved into the big time.

With April and May already demonstrating a comparable level of activity, it would seem that the tide is at last beginning to turn, and who knows what surprises the remainder of 2007 will bring. While statewide legislative efforts continue to gear up around the country, let's hope the corporate entities most responsible for depriving farm animals of their right to a decent existence continue to embrace more humane methods of breeding and raising their livestock.

Having said this, however, let's also not forget that for decades, agribusiness treated its most valued commodity, its animals, with contempt and disdain, while trying to keep this behavior hidden from the public at large, and that the long overdue decision to become compassionate caretakers is more likely a result of economic than of humanitarian motivations. It's imperative, therefore, that we, the buying and voting citizenry, continue to exert sufficient pressure on our lawmakers and on those companies from which we purchase our meat, to move themselves away from the gulag-style factories which currently infect our food production industry and towards more animal-friendly environments.

For the time being, however, I find that, in spite of the disharmonious and tragic events we see occuring around us, I feel a little better than I did just a few short months ago, because in at least some corners of the globe we're actually managing to reduce rather than increase the amount of overall suffering. And in so doing, we may actually be starting to understand how easily the consequences of our actions or lack thereof can cause considerable suffering to others and how this suffering can be felt just as strongly by non-human animals as it is by human animals.

About the Author

Larry Parker is author of the following blog: A Heartfelt Examination of the Plight of Today's Farm Animals