Push Land-Grant Universities Out of the Meat Industry
On March 11th, RPA sent the governors of all 50 states a letter and two factsheets urging them to help get their land-grant universities (LGUs) out of the meat industry.
Below is a press release about the mailing. It was sent to about 1,200 environmental journalists this afternoon. Another went out last Friday.
The meat industry is inherently destructive and inhumane, there is no way to make it otherwise, and much of the harm it does to ecosystems is by inflicting suffering and death on billions of nonhuman animals, farmed and free-living, each year.
In addition to heaps of information at www.RPAforAll.org about RPA's 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign to get our universities out of the meat industry, there is now a current list of all 50 governors with address and their state's LGU.
Take a moment to tell your governor you agree we must get our LGUs out of the meat industry. Use the website's LGU list to tell your state's main LGU the same — even if you've done so before.
If you're one of RPA's many members and friends in countries other than the U.S., consider pointing out to a few of the biggest and most influential (food-wise) LGUs — Iowa State, Cornell, University of California-Davis — the harm they're doing globally by continuing to promote meat despite the known dangers to animals, people, and the environment. Rapid growth on other continents is one of the biggest dangers from the meat, dairy and feed-crop industries.
Working together, we can make the world a less-going-down-the-tubes place! Especially if we put our energy into institutions that are supposed to be accountable to the public and that are supposed to operate based on knowledge.
Let me know — any time! — if you'd like assistance or more information.
Thanks and best wishes!
David Cantor
Executive Director
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
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Press Release
Governors: Stop Ecodestructive University Training!
March 2009
Contact: David Cantor, 215-886-7721 or RPA4all@aol.com
Arriving at all 50 states’ governors’ offices in mid-March, a special request: Get our land-grant universities (LGUs) out of the meat industry.
Environmentalists recognize the meat industry as extremely ecodestructive – including fish, dairy, eggs, feed crops with their massive use of water & topsoil and toxic runoff killing rivers and oceans, and the killing of billions of free-living animals to protect farmed animals and feed crops. Many say you can’t eat meat and be an environmentalist.
Responsible Policies for Animals’ (RPA’s) mailing to the 50 states’ top executives reflects RPA’s innovative approach. Finding that decades of consumer education hasn’t slowed meat-industry growth or ecodestruction and that universities powerfully influence what people eat, RPA has been demanding that the colleges of agriculture at our LGUs stop forking over billions of dollars worth of training, research, and public relations to the meat industry.
“Many people mistakenly think whether to eat from animals is a free choice based on taste and considerations like health, environment, and treatment of animals,” says David Cantor, founder & director of RPA, which sent a letter and two factsheets to the 50 governors on March 11th. Not true, says Cantor. “Compared with our big, popular, prestigious universities, even the most important facts about food have little impact on whether people eat from animals.”
“Animal science” – distinct from zoology, the science of Earth’s millions of animal species – is what LGUs call meat-industry courses, including slaughtering animals, making ice cream, the full range of meat-linked endeavor. But, says Cantor, “’animal science’ rejects scientific knowledge: that humans are natural herbivores and did not evolve as hunters as formerly believed; eating from animals is linked to the most widespread and devastating chronic diseases; and more.”
RPA’s letter urges the governors to help solve the problem by addressing it with LGU trustees and state legislatures; ensuring that their states’ school systems teach the truth about food, nutrition, original human nature, and ecology; and ensuring that the National Governors Association addresses the problem.
RPA launched its 10,000 Years Is Enough campaign to get our universities out of the meat industry in 2003. Many of the LGUs have replied, some of them many times. But no LGU has yet put its meat-industry courses on the course of ultimate extinction. Copies of all 10,000 Years Is Enough mailings and other details are available at www.RPAforAll.org or by request. Also recommended: www.ExpertsOfConscience.org and www.EatForSports.org.
