modelo del proposal

John Doe
PHI 2010
T 5:40pm class
Paper Proposal

Factory Farming: Why Animals deserve a better treatment

In this paper I will discuss why current practices of animal farming are wrong. I will not argue in favor of the elimination of animal farming. I object to the wide-spread intensive practices we find today in America's Big  Farm Conglomerates. I will comment the most objectionable practices:

1- Animal restriction or prevention of normal exercise and most of natural foraging. 2- Restriction or prevention of natural maternal nesting behaviour. 3- Lack of daylight or fresh air and poor air quality in animal sheds- 4- Social stress and injuries caused by overcrowding. 5-  Health problems caused by extreme selective breeding and management for fast growth and high productivity. 6- Fast-spreading infections encouraged by crowding and stress in intensive conditions.

My argument is not that animals should not be used as food, but that animals deserve a much better treatment and that such a treatment is possible and viable.

I will argue against the counter that 1- factory farming practices are the result of a normal process of industrialization and 2- that modifying these practices will only make animal products more expensive. I'll try to demonstrate that the price we pay in terms of pollution to the environment, the spread of epidemics like mad cow disease. 

References:

"Head to Head Intensive Farming," BBC (March 6, 2001)
"Force Fed Animals: The Humane Society of the United States" 
Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy,(Macmillan, 2002).
 Pollan, Michael. 2002. This Steer's Life. The New York Times. March 31.