Sun City resident Jess Chipkin never thought she’d follow a complete stranger out to a parking lot to enlighten her about the cruelties of factory farming, but that’s exactly what she did one afternoon in 2015.
Chipkin had just learned about gestation crates: small, confined spaces where pigs being raised for pork are kept during their four-month pregnancies.
“These crates are so small that [the sow] can’t even stretch her limbs, let alone turn around or walk. If we did that to dogs, it would be animal cruelty and someone would be going to prison for it.”
And so, that is how Chipkin found herself in a Walmart parking lot, calling out after a woman wearing an “I Love Dogs” t-shirt.
“I thought, here’s an animal lover who has no idea what happens to that animal,” she says.
“I said, ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I was right behind you on the line and I have a comment to you about the pork you’re buying,’” says Chipkin. “I told her what I knew about gestation crates.” The woman listened quietly and seemed to be at a loss for words, but ultimately thanked Chipkin.
The interaction stirred something inside Chipkin, who works in public relations focused on technology and labor issues. Shortly after, she formed Crate Free USA, a non-profit dedicated to educating consumers about reducing the suffering of animals on factory farms.
“Most people go into the supermarket and there’s a total disconnect between what they see in a shrink-wrapped package and what happens to that animal before it gets to that shrink-wrapped package,” she says.
Although Chipkin acknowledges that factory farming comes with a whole host of animal rights and environmental challenges, Crate Free USA focuses mainly on educating consumers about the use of gestation crates for pigs, since Illinois is the fourth largest producer of pork in the US.
According to the Illinois Pork Producers Association website, Illinois produced 2.1 billion pounds of pork in 2017, with 11 million pigs recorded in the 2017 USDA/NASS Pig Crop Report.
“These mother pigs are impregnated. When they’re ready to give birth, they’re put in something called a farrowing crate which is a little larger where she can actually lie down and stretch her limbs because she’s giving birth. The little piglets nurse for 2 weeks. Then she goes back into the gestation crate and that cycle repeats year after year. Her whole life, she’s deprived of being able to walk.”
‘A Better Life’
Cliff McConville likens his first few years of farming to being on a treadmill.
“We ran as fast as we could, but we couldn’t keep up with demand,” says the owner of All Grass Farms in West Dundee. “Last year was super crazy. This year we finally caught up.”
McConville, whose first career spanned 25 years as an insurance executive in downtown Chicago, decided it might be fun to purchase four beef calves and raise about 25 chickens in 2011.
“It started out as a hobby farm, then as a side gig,” says McConville. “Then it became a really big side gig. I still had my insurance job up until 2017. I was doing both, pretty much full time, for a few years.”
Now a full-time farmer, All Grass Farms is a labor of love for McConville. He says the growing number of folks who come to shop at his farm store are realizing the problem with factory farming, and are looking to purchase food from diversified farmers like himself who don’t use chemicals, antibiotics, or genetically modified feed.
“There are a lot of benefits to what we do,” says McConville. “This is a better life for the animals, the way we raise them. They’re outdoors on green grass, in pastures. They not only have a better diet, but a better life — a more natural lifestyle.”
Reduce, Replace, Reject
Crate Free USA’s free mobile app, called Crate Free Illinois, allows consumers to search and map out the locations of farms, farmers markets, and restaurants that source humanely raised meat, dairy, and eggs.
Visit the All Grass Farms website: www.allgrassfarms.com/
Chipkin says Crate Free USA is focused on teaching consumers the Three R’s: Reduce, Replace, and Reject.
“We have to reduce the demand for cheap meat,” says Chipkin. “Then, when you do eat meat, replace it with more humanely raised meat. This means going to a local farmer or learning how to shop and what to look for on labels.”
The third step is to reject factory farm meat. Crate Free USA has ongoing campaigns to hold big retailers like Costco, Aldi, and Trader Joe’s accountable, challenging them to purchase meat from suppliers who are committed to more humane farming practices.
At All Grass Farms, crowds come each Saturday for a free tour. There, they can see the cows roaming pastures, chickens laying eggs, and pigs foraging roots, grasses, and insects, living a life free of excessive confinement.
“Most big confinement houses raise thousands of pigs,” says McConville. “Everything’s automated, like feed and water. You can have one or two people raising thousands of pigs. Same thing with big chicken houses.”
“The way we’re doing it, we’re constantly moving animals. Every day, we’re moving beef, we’re moving chickens, we move the pigs twice a week. We move the laying hens three times a week. We’re out in the fields doing that kind of manual labor. It’s labor intensive.”
For now, Crate Free USA and its volunteers are working to build a generation of “conscientious meat eaters.”
“This is not about becoming vegan,” says Chipkin. “This is about trying to eat a little less meat and to buy from local farmers. Meet a local farmer, then pay attention to labels.”
“Consumers are the ones that are going to drive the change,” says McConville. “They’re going to have to demand it. If most people realized how the pork, chicken, and beef they were eating was being raised, they would probably think twice about eating it.”
