RPA Calls For Total Reform of 'Animal Science Education'

by Patricia Collier

A new group which has named itself Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. (RPA) is calling for sweeping changes in how animals are treated.

Rather than focusing on grassroots efforts within the masses, the organization is going right to the nation's decision makers.

RPA's motto is "Educating Leaders for a Humane Future," and their organizers say it is their intent to show leaders how to institute responsible policies for animals that also benefit people and ecosystems.

With their current campaign, the group is asking universities, like Cornell, to totally revamp their animal science education courses.

"Systems are set up so that billions of animals each year live extremely short lives and are never treated humanely," said David Cantor, executive director and president of RPA.

"I don't see much of a way that could change as long as schools are teaching people to run those systems that have animals enslaved," he said.

The campaign is called "10,000 Years is Enough," and Cantor said its purpose is to gradually end animal agriculture classes at institutions of higher learning. The courses, according to RPA, are dated and no longer needed.

The whole idea of agricultural schools started when Congress passed the Morrill Act of 1862 to benefit the nation's then-many farmers.

The act allowed states to set up colleges of agriculture that would also teach other subjects. These colleges became known as "land-grant" colleges since they were created with profits from the sale or leasing of public land given to the states under the Morrill Act.

Other colleges were added after 1862, and there are now 105 land-grant colleges throughout the United States.

Since only about one percent of the students who now attend these colleges actually major in agriculture, RPA wants their curriculum changed.

"Should universities train students to work in big corporations that run hideous and cruel animal factories and whose products promote illness rather than health in human beings?" Cantor asked. "And in agribusiness corporations whose methods waste and contaminate soil, water, and energy?"

Clair Whittet, president of the Cornell Coalition for Animal Defense, said she is not sure it's possible to change or delete animal science education.

"Why would [animal science educators] want to talk to people who ultimately want to see their jobs disappear?" Whittet said. "Still, I hope the efforts of the RPA might open dialogue at Cornell about the need to drastically change the way animals are treated on modern industrial farms."

Cantor is hoping the treatment of animals can be changed by addressing the issues among those already involved in both the teaching and practice of animal agriculture.

"Things that would represent progress would be private discussions within the universities, discussions between the university and the egg, dairy and meat industries, and between the universities and state legislators, because there are serious problems with the state laws that require the teaching of these industries," Cantor said.

According to RPA, all jobs that universities train students for in the animal industries support factory farming one way or another, contributing to the misery and untimely deaths of about 10 billion animals each year in the U.S.

"Our universities need to be shown how to be the educational institutions our nation deserves, rather than animal-industry patsies," RPA organizers said.

© 2004 Animal News Center, Inc.