We are approaching the fateful date. The New York City Council will decide on the ban on foie gras Wednesday, October 30 in plenary, after a first vote of the text in health commission scheduled the morning before. The session promises to be lively. Voters for Animal Rights, a group supporting the ban, urges its supporters to come together on Wednesday to "give a voice to the ducks and geese at the town hall".
The text, worn by the Democratic Democrat of South Manhattan Carlina Rivera, aims to "Prohibit the sale of certain poultry products including birds from force-feeding". Defenders of this bill and animal welfare associations highlight the inhuman and painful treatment of geese, force-fed to allow their liver to expand, during the production process.
An argument that Ariane Daguin, the French patron of D'Artagnan Foods, disapproves. "Geese gorse naturally in the wild before migrations, we only reproduce a natural process with a funnel into the insensitive esophagus of animals."
For the foie gras producer in New York, the possible "foie gras ban" is a political decision. "At the first health commission on June 18, some councilors wore t-shirts" ban foie gras ", they did not let us talk. They realized that they would have more voice by leaning towards vegetarians.
This is not the first time the debate has broken out in New York. In 2008, a municipal elected official asked the State Senate to legislate to prohibit the practice of force-feeding geese and ducks. The current bill comes just months after the ban on foie gras in California, which forced the only producing farm to go out of business. Ariane Daguin worries that the same is true in New York. "There are only two farms here, Hudson Valley Foie Gras and La Belle, which employ more than 400 people and provide more than 1,000 restaurants. Their situation is very serious.
The boss of D'Artagnan, whose activity will also suffer from the ban on foie gras, invites New York restaurants and citizens to come forward by Wednesday by writing an e-mail to city councilors. Carlina Rivera's office did not respond to our interview request.
