10/18/2006 4:00:00 AM Voters will decide whether Prop. 204 is 'hogwash'
By JOANNA DODDER The Daily Courier
PRESCOTT Amongst the forest of election signs at busy Prescott street corners, the size and simplicity of the "Hogwash" posters often stand out.
Opponents of Proposition 204 on Arizona's Nov. 7 election ballot have erected the signs all over the state.
Prop. 204 would create misdemeanor fines and penalties for tethering or confining a pregnant pig or a calf raised for veal for a majority of the day, in a manner that prevents the animal from lying down and fully extending its limbs or turning around freely.
The proposal provides exceptions for transportation of animals, rodeo and fair exhibitions, lawful slaughters, research, veterinary purposes, and the seven-day period before a pig's expected date of giving birth.
The proposition seems to have a majority of public support, with a 65-percent approval rating in a September poll by Arizona State University's journalism school and its KAET-TV station.
Industrialized factory farms confine pregnant pigs to gestation crates most of their lives, according to proposition supporters. The pigs are unable to exercise, turn around or extend their limbs.
Proponents say the proposition will basically affect only large corporate operations that use too many antibiotics and pollute the environment because of crowded animal conditions.
However, Sarah Teskey's family has farmed for decades in Yavapai County and she opposes the proposition.
"This campaign appeals to the emotional side" of people unfamiliar with farming operations, said Teskey, the immediate past Yavapai County Farm Bureau president whose family recently sold Young's Farm in Dewey.
The Young family used farrowing crates to confine hogs during birth so they wouldn't crush or eat their newborns, Teskey said.
The Farm Bureau is among the opponents listed on the Hogwash Internet Web site at www.azfarmersranchers.com.
"It's a first step in trying to eliminate all animal food production," warned Gary Mortimer, the current Yavapai County Farm Bureau president.
Arizona has only one hog producer left anyway, he said.
Opponents talk a lot about radical, vegan, out-of-state support for Prop. 204, said Katelyn Cabot, program manager for the Yavapai County Humane Society.
"It has nothing to do with the proposition at all," she said.
Cabot grew up in a New Hampshire farming community and says none of her friends or extended family members who farmed ever used the confining farrowing crates. She doesn't remember any of the hogs crushing or eating their babies.
The proposition isn't asking much, Cabot said.
"Even animals that are going to become food are still living beings and deserve humane treatment and respect," Cabot said.
To read more details from the group that gathered more than 123,000 signatures to get the proposition on the ballot, Arizonans for Humane Farms, visit its Web site at www.yesforhumanefarms.org.
