In response to your June 19 article, “Dairy Farm To Close after 95 Years of Hands-On Learning,” this spring, Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc. (RPA), asked the 50 states’ main land-grant universities, including Iowa State, to phase out the teaching of animal agriculture due to constant mistreatment of animals in the industries for which the ag programs provide workers, unsustainable waste of soil, water and energy, pollution, and human health problems from animal products.

That doesn’t mean university dairy managers and professors should just be sent packing. The schools’ and industries’ failure to change decades ago when serious problems were first documented makes things harder for conscientious members of the academy who dedicated themselves to their students and blinded themselves to global problems perpetuated by their local activities as is natural when making a living is at stake.

Personnel, resources and facilities should shift to ecology, conservation, plant agriculture and other constructive ventures. The animal industries essentially treat animals as value-added grain products — that’s the root of the problem. So why shouldn’t Iowa part with animals and benefit from high-protein, no-cholesterol imitation meat products filling today’s grocery-chain shelves, as ConAgra sought to do in purchasing the Light Life company?

It is not for no reason that RPA’s campaign is called “10,000 Years Is Enough.” We hardly do anything the way we did back when animal agriculture started. Iowa State should not only let its dairy go but should forget about building a new one and show us something really special instead. And the agribusiness corporations should train their own workers — the colleges of agriculture were not established to provide corporate welfare but to assist the small farmers the ag giants have now mostly driven from the land.

For more information, email us at [email protected].

David Cantor

Executive Director

Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.

Glenside, PA