Animal Welfare Institute Supporting Humane Treatment of Animals on Family Farms Will Witherspoon is a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. He is also a farmer—the owner of 500-acre Shire Gate Farm, in Owensville, Mo, where he and his family raise White Park cattle. (The farm is also home to Witherspoon’s Shire horses—hence the name.) In farming circles, Shire Gate is unique for more than just having an owner who happens to be a 12-year NFL veteran, however. The farm is also distinguished by the way the animals on the farm are treated. Shire Gate is certified “Animal Welfare Approved.” Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) is a program of the Animal Welfare Institute, a nonprofit organization established in 1951 and dedicated to alleviating suffering inflicted on animals by humans. Free of charge to the farmer, the AWA program audits and certifies family farms that raise their animals outdoors, on pasture, in accordance with the highest animal welfare standards in the country. Animals on AWA farms like Shire Gate live very different lives than those confined indoors on industrial farms. Today, over nine billion animals are raised and slaughtered for food annually in the United States. The vast majority spend bleak lives warehoused within industrialized facilities that maximize profits by treating animals not as sentient creatures, but as production units.
PHOTO COURTESY/ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE
Raised by the thousands at a single site, many animals exist in such tight quarters that they can scarcely move, let alone behave normally. Some never see the sun. The system is not only cruel. It is dangerous. An estimated 80 percent of all antimicrobials are used in this country to keep animals in overcrowded, stressful and unsanitary conditions from getting sick, and to artificially speed their growth. Such non-therapeutic use, in addition to propping up a terribly inhumane farming system,
contributes to making these antibiotics less effective in treating serious human illnesses. Witherspoon—who has an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Georgia—wanted something different. "I wanted Shire Gate Farm to be true to nature and true to the way things should be done. That means putting the welfare and care of the animals first. My cattle are raised as nature intended, on grass, and aren’t fed growth hormones, antibiotics or other unnatural additives," he says. This past July, Witherspoon was on Capitol Hill to speak at a congressional briefing, warning about the dangers of routinely feeding antibiotics to billions of farm animals. Witherspoon calls this “one of the gravest known threats to human health” and says “it’s been an eye-opening journey as a farmer to see the industrialized practices that have developed. I’m glad I’ve been given the opportunity to try to make a change.” The Animal Welfare Institute, through its AWA program, is partnering with farmers like Will Witherspoon to pioneer a more humane, healthy, sustainable farming system. The AWA program and food label promote the well-being of animals and the viability of family farms, uniting conscientious consumers with farmers who raise their animals with compassion.
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