The cynicism of the warm voice I have heard has left my ears bloodied: it has united without trembling in the same message “farm animals”, “a right”, “ethical production” and “meat”, said more: “The welfare of farm animals is a right; yours and ours.” Ours? Eroski has explained this right through an article in his Consumer magazine of February 3, 2020: “We love to know what we eat,” María Huidobro wrote. “We are increasingly interested in knowing how they treated the animals we consumed when they lived and when they were killed,” he added. And the tool they've invented to know this is the Welfair certificates and other certificates that have proudly filled Eroski.

Welfair is the last person to be made available to industry, according to the text of Consumer magazine. It's late 2019: “This is an independent certificate approved by IRTA (Institute for Agri-Food Research and Technology) in collaboration with Neiker-Tecnalia”. Neiker is a Basque public institution, and explains its role: “Contribute to improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and livestock sector, preserving the environment, maintaining our local species and breeds and ensuring FOOD SECURITY”.

Among the certifications referred to in the article is also the so-called IAWS: Interpoc Animal Welfare Spain. Behind this certificate is the organisation Interpoc, the industry that exploits pigs: the companies that grow, die and turn these animals into goods. The oppressors therefore guarantee that they only make well-worn animals available to consumers. It seemed difficult, but the framework of certifications on the alleged welfare of restocking animals has managed to put on the table a greater absurdity: all records have been validated by the ANDA certificate. ANDA is the Spanish National Animal Defense Association and, together with AVIALTER (Professional Alternative Poultry Association), created its own egg brand to “sell organic eggs from unclosed brewed chickens” in 2018.

The cynicism of the oppressor hits high whenever he talks about the “welfare” of human animals that explode, die and become empty goods. Because what kind of “well-being” is what it considers “good” that an animal becomes an object, is used, dies and becomes a commodity? A ghost invented by industry, a trap whose sole objective is to keep pissing and exploiting human animals. It's about making a small change so that everything stays the same. In short, the system ceases to a small extent so that its activity remains legitimate. With this dual objective, on the one hand, the industry continues to produce and make meat and bone animals, and, on the other, the citizens continue to buy and consume these goods, with the peace of mind provided by the certificate guaranteeing responsible consumption. That is, we continue to use and tread on animals of the human species, but assuming that this activity is ethical, because a supposedly independent organization tells us that the animals we consume have been well treated. The move becomes round when we place an Eco-label or Natural along with the one that this supposedly independent institution has placed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not intend to say in any way that the conditions of every day of animal life do not matter. It is not an empty question to hear the blows of non-human animals on the farm, the screams they have to hear; it is not the chains with which an empty account is tied, nor the dirty, cold and small rooms that have one refuge. Treatment is not an empty matter, but treatment is by no means the key to the case. Bad treatment makes the oppression of non-human animals even more cruel, while good treatment does not make it legitimate. Because by definition, when we walk around someone, there's no good treatment. Violence towards the individual over whom oppression falls is intrinsic. There is no way to guarantee the well-being of a subject you have become an object; there are no good ways to make an individual with the ability to feel become a commodity and die. The stamps that guarantee the welfare of non-human animals show more than the cynicism of oppressors. The support of associations supposedly dedicated to animals makes the reality even more painful, as it only serves to bleach the oppressor.

[Hard Images] Study by Animal Equality in a pig farm with animal welfare stamps in England:

The Government of Navarra has already put the 2019 data on the net: there have been at least 63.5 million deaths of single marital animals in the country's slaughterhouses. Birds were over 61 million, while rabbits were over two million. Cattle, sheep, goats, horses and pigs. The 2020 count is already underway. The machine doesn't rest for a day. Any activity that legitimates this process is a help from the chain in order to be able to continue working. Not to stop. Replenish the dead animals in the empty space of the farm. To start again, in a cruel and unjust witch wheel. Same thing in a big nursery as in a farmhouse; same thing here and there. With or without a seal, behind the process of turning a male animal into empty flesh, there is nothing but human prepower, and superiority has to be tackled at the root. What has to be called into question is the system of power, rather than the mask with which the system comes before us. Because the system does nothing but maintain power: it places one animal in the place where another has left it empty. Again and again. No rest.