Animal rights comes at a cost !

Indonesia has just announced that it's future purchases of live cattle from Australia will be reduced to about half the previous numbers.   The official reason given is that Indonesia hopes to move towards being self sustaining in raising it's own meat stocks - but in reality the recent sudden cessation of supply on cruelty grounds deeply offended our northern neighbour.

The problem seems to be a wide disparity between the way we Australians see animal rights - and the rest of the world.

It is one thing to insist that slaughtering methods here include pre-stunning to reduce animal stress, and quite another to dogmatically demand this be embraced by other countries with different religious and ethical standards.    What will work in an advanced society like Australia may be totally untenable in countries still emerging from the practices of centuries past.

We have some very aggressive animal rights organisations in this country and their main method of raising public indignation seems to be to infiltrate and film where practices they abhor occur.   The problem is that such practices can select an isolated incident and present it as a widespread occurrence - or even stage manage a particular incident to create a supposed problem when this does not exist.

The mode of egg production has attracted animal rights criticism and there are moves to outlaw the practice of using " battery hens " confined to small cages.  As a result, customers expect to pay more for what are promoted as " free range " farming methods, but precisely how these eggs are produced remains a mystery.  It seems that " free range " can be widely interpreted.

What is usually the case when animal rights issues arise - is a sharp increase in the price of the end product.  The law of supply and demand ensures that food production follows the method that is most cost effective - and when we change that is costs more to produce the same  product.

At least the present target of the animal rights people is not likely to have anything to do with the cost of living.  They are protesting the use of whips by jockeys - to make a horse run faster in a horse race.

It stands to reason that if no whips are carried and therefore no whips are used, then these horses run on their individual merits.   The skill of the jockey in knowing when to move and where to place the horse in the field can be a determining factor, but no artificial stimulant is applied to the performance of the horse.

Perhaps banning whips would be a logical extension of animal rights.   After all, it was not that many decades ago when people riding horses usually had spurs attached to their boots.   Can you imagine the uproar if today's jockey's started using spurs again ?

But - when it comes to food production we need to balance the job and market losses - and the inevitable price increases - against the benefit animals will receive.   Sometimes that gain is little more than an illusion !