You know how I wrote a while ago about the petition to put a cruelty-free farming initiative on the California ballot? (For those of you who live in states that don’t have initiatives, initiatives provide a way for state residents to force a public vote on a proposed statute or law (Wikipedia). In states that allow initiatives, anyone can make the entire state vote on an issue by bringing in a petition that has been signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters (650,000 signatures? something like that). It bypasses political parties — there have been conservative and liberal issues brought to public vote by initiatives.)

Well, I’ve been going to Whole Foods since I first wrote about the petition pretty regularly, but in the past three months I haven’t seen a single clipboard-carrying petition person there. I was not accosted even once by someone with a clipboard asking me to sign a petition while I’m trying to decide whether I want to buy organic or conventional cherries (answer: it’s always good to make sure you know that you’re buying the ten-dollar six-ounce container of organic cherries instead of figuring that out after you’ve paid for them and are confused as to why your bill is so high).

That was up until a few weeks ago. I was in line, waiting to buy groceries, and I noticed this little sign by the checkout counter asking me if I’d like to sign the farm animal cruelty-prevention petition. Of course I was dying to sign the farm animal cruelty prevention petition, so I went over to the customer service booth and the Whole Foods employee there found a petition for me to sign, and I’m very happy to say I’ve actually signed it! I’m doing my part for sows who are stuck in gestational crates!

I’m still amazed that I had to seek out a petition. It seems like I spend most of my time at the produce department at Whole Foods trying to keep under the petition peoples’ radar, and if I’m unfortunate enough to see one headed towards me I drop whatever I’m holding and walk away as fast as possible. But the one time they have a petition I expressly want to sign, they’re nowhere to be seen.

If you’re at all interested in signing the cruelty-prevention petition, I encourage you to go to Whole Foods or wherever your local petition people hang out and ask to sign that petition. Unfortunately, the Humane California website doesn’t list the locations where you can go to sign petitions (or I just can’t find it — is it somewhere there on the site? I can only find a part about how to sign up to be a petition collector. I really don’t want to do that. Admirable as I think that might be.) But Whole Foods is probably your best bet, or if you don’t live near a Whole Foods, wherever you normally try to avoid people asking you to sign petitions is probably a good idea. The signatures all need to be in by February 22nd, and it looks like they haven’t received 650,000 yet, so please consider signing the petition . . .

Categories : humane farming