Students at Colorado State University have started a petition drive because of plans to “build a new facility that houses a meat harvesting facility, which some students call a slaughterhouse,” says the Rocky Mountain Collegian. The facility is part of a partnership with JBS USA, part of the giant meatpacking company based in Brazil.
The College of Agriculture says it will be “a pilot plant and will include a complete livestock and meat processing center, spanning the meat-animal harvesting process,” says the newspaper. A CSU official say it will be part of renovation of the Animal Sciences building. “There’s a whole debate out there about how you treat animals and how are they harvested and things of that nature,” said Ajay Menon, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences. “We have to teach the students the right and proper way of doing this.”
CSU student Becca Bleil said more than 6,700 signatures have been collected on a Change.org petition opposing the facility. Students are upset because they don’t have all the facts,” Menon told the Collegian. “People want to use (the word ‘slaughter’) because it evokes sudden emotions in people that I don’t believe we are doing.” A rally opposing the facility is planned for Wednesday.