Making the case for local duck paté

NYC’s foie gras ban threatens county jobs

 By Edward Lundquist | Manor Ink

Ferndale, NY – When you hear the term “foie gras,” do you think of a French delicacy or animal cruelty? With the recent controversy over animal cruelty involving foie gras, many people are left wondering what should be done about the modern problem.

On Nov. 25, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a bill banning the sale of foie gras and imposing civil fines ranging from $500 to $2,000 for violations. The law will go into effect in November 2022. As animal rights activists rejoiced, restaurateurs and two Sullivan County farms, La Belle Farm and Hudson Valley Foie Gras, both located in Ferndale, must deal with the consequences.

“I invited both Corey Johnson and other New York City Council members to visit the farms and to consider all relevant information before taking action to pass the bill,” said New York State Senator Jen Metzger. “No members showed any interest in getting a first-hand understanding of the farms’ operations.”

“Hudson Valley Foie Gras, La Belle and the Sullivan County Legislature asked the Farmland Protection Department of Agriculture and Markets to review the law as a violation of (Article) 305a, restricting agricultural operations in state-certified agricultural districts,” said Marcus Henley, vice president and manager of Hudson Valley Foie Gras. The duck farms await a decision by the department.

Henley gave Manor Ink a tour of the farm and offered his understanding of the conflict. “Humans are not like ducks at all, and when you try to apply human physiology to a duck, misunderstandings occur.”

Hudson Valley Foie Gras has about 280 workers who feed, care for, process, prepare and package the ducks while managing waste and working with numbers in the offices. In addition to foie gras production, the farm processes every other part of the duck for consumption as well as for other uses. Feathers, for example, are used for pillows and clothing.

A farming community

Approximately 100 employees live on the farm, where they share a community garden and have access to a medical clinic that also cares for their families and the surrounding community. The farm processes its own waste water and provides free duck manure to local farmers.

While touring the farm, Henley greeted some of his workers in Spanish. One man he spoke to had worked there for a very long time, as have his children and grandchildren. In his 60s, the man earns about $75,000 annually. “People say, ‘Oh, if we get rid of it, the people working there can just find other jobs.’ But it’s not that easy. Some people will really struggle if they lose this job,” said Henley.

Senator Metzger pointed out that together, these farms employ nearly 350 people while supporting jobs at other local businesses, such as the feed mill, towing and tractor equipment companies, local banks, and the like. “A recent study showed that the two foie gras farms have a three-to-one economic multiplier effect in the local economy because of their ‘buy local’ policies, with a regional impact of at least $150 million,” Metzger noted. “Local schools receive $300,000 annually in taxes from the foie gras businesses. If they were to close, it would have a major economic impact.”

Hudson Valley Foie Gras would be hit hard by the loss of the Big Apple market, which accounts for a third of its sales. The only other real buyers are in Singapore and Mexico. Henley said the New York City ban will greatly influence investment decisions. He would be far less likely to add a new building because it might never be used.

Henley believes none of this would be happening if people saw what really happens on the farm. “If you have an open mind, you see the most common occurrences, and you understand the biology of this business, you understand that what we are doing is not cruelty.”

Touring the farm

Henley took this reporter around the farm, an industrial-looking three hundred-acre site with several large buildings that are home to 132,000 ducks.

The first four weeks of the ducks’ 15-week life cycle begin in a barn with a huge room full of little yellow ducklings. The room was a hot 90 degrees, and a number of the ducklings were drinking from a long tube of water with nipple feeders. These young ducks have to be fed by hand. Wood shavings covering the floor are changed often to prevent the spread of disease, with more wood shavings added so ducklings don’t walk in their own feces. A wire mesh is provided for them to run up and down for exercise.

The next room, across the hall, was similarly shaped, but less warm. The wood shavings were much deeper, reaching up to a foot against the wall. This room had larger ducks, yet not fully grown, who will spend eight weeks there. The wire mesh was gone, but the nipple feeders still remained. The ducks behaved normally, not noticeably agitated or uncomfortable.

The final room was long and filled with waist-high crates, each containing about 10 ducks. Beneath the crates was a long tray filled with feces, and, above it, mesh that allowed the ducks to stay relatively clean. The ducks remain there for three weeks. Along the sides of the crates were halved PVC pipes filled with water.

The main activity in this room was the “gavage.” Gavage means “force feeding through a tube,” the practice at the heart of the foie gras controversy. A worker sat inside a crate and held a tube with a plastic tip, squeezing out a mixture of cornmeal and water through the pump. He pushed his leg out to separate the cage in half, and pulled one duck at a time by the head under his leg to the tube. “What he’s doing isn’t inhumane, it’s just the way you move ducks,” Henley explained. “If he grabbed it like a chicken, by the leg, he could risk breaking the duck’s legs or dislocating them.”

The worker continued the process by feeling the crop, a little sack at the base of the duck’s throat that holds food, to see if it had digested its previous meal. Henley explained that if the crop still has feed in it, the duck will not be fed, but will be checked again at the next feeding. If the food still has not been digested, the duck will be slaughtered. Gavaging takes place every three hours.

Finding the crop empty, the worker opened the beak and inserted the tube. The pump made a groaning noise for several seconds, and then the worker pulled it out, released the bird and continued on to the other ducks in the crate. None of the birds appeared to be afraid, injured or in pain.

Getting the facts

After the 2012 ban of foie gras sale and production in California, many people have sought the facts from scientists and politicians alike. While politicians are looking at the economic, humane and legal effects of foie gras production, scientists explain the biology and science behind the production.

Birds have a very different neck structure compared to human beings. Their esophagi are not delicate, like those of mammals, but are rough and thick. This is because they have no teeth to chew and soften food, and must swallow food whole and hold it in their crops for digestion. This is also the case with foie gras gavage; the duck is not being choked by the process.

It is possible to naturally raise foie gras ducks without gavage, but, according to Henley, free range duck farming is unsustainable in the Catskills because of severe weather and predators.

Henley says there’s nothing wrong with being vegan and standing up for what you believe, but when it gets to the point of shutting down traditions, making entire families lose their jobs, and terrorizing people who do eat meat, it goes too far. Others believe the focus of animal rights activists should be on the mass-production of animal products by factory farms, rather than a niche market like foie gras production.

“Foie gras is an easy target for animal rights activists, because it’s easy to look at a picture of a duck with a metal tube in its throat,” Henley observed. “But anyone can see that what we do is not unethical.”