A tearful goodbye from a young Kansas boy after his cow was sold for meat. Click on image to enlarge.

This is a picture of a young Kansas boy crying while he leads his steer away after it was sold for meat. He’s a member of a youth program called 4-H that funds and teaches children to raise farm animals to show and sell in agricultural fairs. Every year, there are photos circulating online of crying children on market day of these very same agricultural fairs. Unlike farmers who often have dozens, if not hundreds of animals, 4-H children work closely with one or two animals for a year or even longer if the animals, such as steers, take more time to raise.

This young boy, for example, is taught that it’s part of being responsible to raise livestock for the market even though he hates saying goodbye when the animals are sold. Raising livestock and showing them for sale is a way of life for his family and he knows how it is going to end when he starts raising a young animal. It’s clear that even though this was explained to him from the beginning, he still has a very hard time dealing with the separation when the time comes for him to give up the animal that he has clearly bonded with.

The Emotional Toll on Youths of Raising Animals as Livestock

As early as the 1990s, studies have shown the inconsistent behaviour and attitudes towards animals in our society. While many people claim to care deeply for animals, many of our uses for animals involve inflicting harm and many others involve killing them for food. An example of such ambivalence can be observed in the youth livestock programme in the 4-H organisation.

In a broad sense, it’s a form of a guided learning experience that involves a socialisation into activities that rationalise morally and troubling ethics of raising animals to be sold for food by young children. The intense contradiction between learning to care and bond with an animal while knowing that the goal of this care is to sell the animal for slaughter teaches children how to disregard their feelings and not get attached, distancing how to view animals as merely “market animals”; and how to justify the process through saving money for the future.

A 4-H participant’s heartbreaking farewell to the animal he cared for and bonded with after it was sold in the agricultural fairs. Image credit: modernfarmer.com. Click on image to enlarge.

4-H is the youth programme of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. At the turn of the 20^th Century, researchers at land-grant universities found that rural adults often resisted new technologies intended to advance agriculture. Land-grant universities are learning institutions which receive state benefits in order to run their various programmes. If young people became engaged in projects that involved those technologies, however, they would not only convince their parents of their worth; they would also experiment with other new ideas in farming.

Over the course of the 20^th Century, 4-H became the largest educational youth development programme outside of schools in the United States. In the 1950s, clubs began in cities and suburbs, as well as rural areas, and its curriculum extended beyond the realm of agriculture. Its literature describes its programmes as centering on leadership, citizenship, and life skills. Based on data collected from 2016-2017, 4-H currently serves 5.95 million nationally. The young age group between the ages of 5 and 13 makes up 86% of these youths.

The four H’s stand for head, heart, hands, and health, the components of the 4-H pledge:

“I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living for my Club, my Community, my Country, and my World.”

At the 2009 Tazewell County Fair in Virginia, 4-H participant Levi Parks, then 7, showed his fainting goat, Hildie. Image credit: modernfarmer.com. Click on image to enlarge.

The members of 4-H learn by doing; they participate in nearly 200 adult-supervised activities such as cooking, ceramics, electronics, model rocketry, sewing, IT, livestock, and archery. Members of 4-H clubs also become active in local food banks, children’s hospitals, nature centres, homeless shelters, and senior citizen centres.

Support for 4-H comes from the county, state, and federal funds. The Cooperative Extension System of each state’s land-grant university conducts the programme and provides the curriculum in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture and individual county governments. Parents and older siblings play a large role in 4-H by volunteering as group leaders. The national 4-H headquarters estimates that half a million adults and teens currently serve in this capacity, many of them former 4-H members themselves. 4-H appeals to boys and girls about equally, with slightly higher membership rates (52.5%) for girls.

A young 4-H participant and her rabbit. Image credit: modernfarmer.com. Click on image to enlarge.

The United States Department of Agriculture (or more specifically, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture) designates millions of annual Cooperative Extension Programme dollars for regional “youth development” initiatives – a total of $68 million in 2015, much of that going to 4-H. The youth organisation also receives funding from the nonprofit National 4-H Council, which spent approximately $48 million last year, and accepts donations from a veritable who’s who of large agricultural corporations who are well-known to think of only their own profit-making activities over moral, ethical and environmental issues: Monsanto, ConAgra, DuPont, and Altria each gave at least a million dollars in 2015.

Only 11% of today’s 4-H’ers, as they are known, live on farms. Nevertheless, animal-related programmes still hold the greatest appeal, enrolling 1,761,798 members nationwide. One of the popular programmes involves the youth livestock programme, in which kids raise commercial breeds of cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep for the market. A livestock project involves approximately a year of work in all aspects of raising a calf, lamb, or other young animals. Ostensibly, it’s an opportunity for an animal lover to work closely with an animal and compete in agricultural fairs. It culminates in the sale of the animal at the county or state fair, where buyers pay far above market value to support the efforts of the 4-H members.

Young children have to deal with emotional and moral dilemmas while raising and selling animals for maximum profit. Image credit: Karen Ducey Photography. Click on image to enlarge.

This is where we can see how relationships between young people and animals destined for slaughter develop and the process through which younger children learn to distance themselves from their animals. It’s also disturbing that the children are also learning to look at farm animals as commodities to be raised for money. Cows, pigs, sheep and goats could easily be pets but the young children are slowly conditioned to consider them as food. Unlike their interaction with their pets, this ultimately leads to attaching a different set of rules for interacting with livestock as the children become eventually desensitised, losing much of the empathy and care they initially had.

The emotional and moral dilemma that the young children have to deal with while raising and selling animals for the maximum profit and to win a competition adds to the trauma of knowing that ultimately the livestock will be killed for meat. It’s essential that children learn the values of compassion and respect for the lives of other sentient beings. Kids can learn a valuable lesson in life if they are taught to respect these farm animals for the interesting living sentient beings that they are instead of focusing on how they can be of use to humans as food.

Many experience distress and have a very hard time dealing with the separation when the time comes to give up an animal that they have clearly bonded with for eventual slaughter. Click on image to enlarge.

There are so many humane ways to teach responsibility and compassion. There’s no need for children to endure the emotional hardship in raising animals for slaughter or for the animals to have their trust so brutally betrayed and their lives ended so suddenly. When a 4-H’er decides to opt-out of selling their new friend or even out of the animal-rearing projects completely, they are not only saving or sparing a life but they are acting as the future ambassadors for compassionate kids everywhere. There are other alternatives to farmed animal projects such as agricultural-related projects or volunteering at an animal rescue centre or sanctuary that is committed to helping animals.

Video: News coverage of the Kansas boy crying over his cow after it was sold for meat

Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/slaugher-kansas-boy-his-cow-goes-viral.mp4

A Happy Ending

While children in the 4-H programme may have to swallow their tears and learn to look at their livestock as commodities, here’s a happy ending when a boy stood up to the system. The story of Bruno and his beloved pig, Lola is a heartwarming story of how a young boy stood up to the 4-H tradition.

Conclusion

What children learn from animals in 4-H touches issues at the heart of how we view and treat animals who share our world as sentient beings. These young animals form very strong bonds with the children, who are often the only source of love and companionship they will ever know. They trust their young caretakers because they are their only friend. This trust is betrayed when they are led willingly to the fair and sold for slaughter. It’s clear that many of the younger children who still have an affinity and bond with the animals in their care are traumatised by their experience of betraying the trust of the animals they raised and cared for.

There are so many more compassionate programmes that can teach children to value the life of all sentient beings, and certainly the morality of betrayal of trust at such a young age can have life-changing consequences. We can teach children that a more compassionate choice would be to become vegetarians as in the example of Bruno, who realised that animals are just like us and should not be viewed as “market commodities”, to be raised and slaughtered for food when we have so many other options available to us.

Video: Paul McCartney talks about animal rights in Glass Walls

Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/slaughter-paul-glasswalls.mp4

Sources/References:

• https://www.peta.org/students/student-life/this-is-whats-wrong-with-4-h/
• https://www.peta.org/blog/4-h-agricultural-programs-hardens-hearts/
• Video:Paul McCartney talks about Animal rights in Glass Walls
• https://animalplace.org/the-emotional-socialization-of-4h-and-ffa-kids/
• http://www.animalsandsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ellis.pdf
• https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/kids-being-taught-to-raise-animals-for-slaughter/
• https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/08/30/545603450/for-4-h-kids-saying-goodbye-to-an-animal-can-be-the-hardest-lesson
• https://www.producer.com/2017/07/animal-rights-activists-begin-targeting-4-h/
• https://www.thedodo.com/boy-saves-lola-pig-1253914071.html https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/2496978/size/tmg-article_tall.jpg
• https://www.thedodo.com/boy-says-goodbye-to-cow-1549031135.html
• https://youthtoday.org/2017/10/4-h-disputes-claims-that-it-is-or-was-racist-sexist-bound-to-corporate-interests/
• https://modernfarmer.com/2017/07/4-h-indoctrination-nation/

For more interesting information:

• Do animals reincarnate back as humans?
• Wake Up, Mom!
• Earthlings
• Animals Show Love for Humans
• A touching hug
• “I Don’t Eat My Friends” – by Tenzin Palmo
• Why Losing a Dog Can Be Harder than Losing a Relative or Friend
• Global Superpower China Will Cut Meat Consumption by 50%!
• Animals Help Us to be Better Humans…..
• All sentient beings can feel happiness and fear

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