This article highlights something we rarely question: the idea that industrial animal farming is simply “necessary.” The myth that we need this system to feed the world hides how wasteful and destructive it actually is.
What feels especially troubling is how normalized this violence has become. Wild animals are framed as the problem, while the industrial system that creates instability remains untouched.
If we are serious about wellbeing, we have to question not just individual choices, but the structures that make this model seem inevitable.
While I am not a vegetarian I am acutely aware of choosing carefully where I source meat from as I am similarly repulsed by the food industry and its methods. I am lucky, I can generally afford it when I choose to eat it.
As you point out, the role of large animal farming is a product of both the rise of Cartesian thinking and an economic system that only values profit. While the end of corporate farming is an end to be welcomed it would not of itself change the dynamic. Retrieving a sense of the sacred about all life will be critical in order to make decisions about what and how much of it we eat.
To my mind, all the major food production should be local to the area of consumption so that those who consume it also have a voice about its production. This does not preclude some importing of foods either into local areas from other regions or into the country from another but a system of exchange of foodstuffs should underpin this to emphasise the joy of variety without turning supply areas into exporting businesses that promote monocultures and a transactional approach to food.
There is always a logistical element to food supply but this should be downstream of a primary relationship to food that recognises its independent selfhood and place in the complex ecology of our planet. I have no sense that this will be adopted voluntarily by major organisations or governments so it is down to communities to make decisions about increasing local production and upholding high food values. Early adopters will be better placed to ride out the changes that are coming. Certainly, in my part of UK these are very few and far between.
Hello Richard, I am very much of the same opinion as you. The sense of the sacred, of awe at relating to another living being, is very important, it is something to be recovered, as not so long ago that was normality. There is a beautiful article I quote, alas in spanish, about how this relationship can develop in spite of having to kill to eat. It leads automatically to sensing the worthiness of what we eat, and then eating less of this expensive good in all senses, that we have converted to cheapness: meat. And right, locality and local decisions are so important. Many times one can hear people who defend veganism for everyone, forgetting that (imperial) impositions should belong to the past... and that animal husbandry can be something very different as what we have made of it in the "western" mode of living. The good news is that agroecolgy and social movements like Via Campesina already have very clear ideas as to how all of this can work out. More coming up!
Very good, never been a fan of eating meat due to the violence and maltreatment meted out to the animals on such an industrial scale. We are now in danger of killing off our own populations from diseases/viruses connected to keeping animals in such inhuman conditions, and then we have the nerve to blame them. Compassion is the answer, difficult but essential. Thanks for the article.
Thanks for addressing the problem of animal abuse. "Animal abuse" is closely connected to "plant abuse" --- half of all the plant phytomass is gone due to human influence, with deforestation, livestock grazing, and crops for livestock adding up. There is an odd defense of animal abuse in papers such as "Livestock's Long Shadow" (FAO, 2006) is that so-called "factory farming" is "efficient" in terms of energy and land use. If you try to treat the animals nicely, it will cost you. Unfortunately, they're right --- grass-fed beef (while better ethically) actually requires much more land and creates more methane. Animal abuse connects to abuse of everything else as well, including slaughterhouse workers getting low pay and sustaining high injury rates. It's a nasty system.
This article highlights something we rarely question: the idea that industrial animal farming is simply “necessary.” The myth that we need this system to feed the world hides how wasteful and destructive it actually is.
What feels especially troubling is how normalized this violence has become. Wild animals are framed as the problem, while the industrial system that creates instability remains untouched.
If we are serious about wellbeing, we have to question not just individual choices, but the structures that make this model seem inevitable.
No es inevitable — es una decisión colectiva.
While I am not a vegetarian I am acutely aware of choosing carefully where I source meat from as I am similarly repulsed by the food industry and its methods. I am lucky, I can generally afford it when I choose to eat it.
As you point out, the role of large animal farming is a product of both the rise of Cartesian thinking and an economic system that only values profit. While the end of corporate farming is an end to be welcomed it would not of itself change the dynamic. Retrieving a sense of the sacred about all life will be critical in order to make decisions about what and how much of it we eat.
To my mind, all the major food production should be local to the area of consumption so that those who consume it also have a voice about its production. This does not preclude some importing of foods either into local areas from other regions or into the country from another but a system of exchange of foodstuffs should underpin this to emphasise the joy of variety without turning supply areas into exporting businesses that promote monocultures and a transactional approach to food.
There is always a logistical element to food supply but this should be downstream of a primary relationship to food that recognises its independent selfhood and place in the complex ecology of our planet. I have no sense that this will be adopted voluntarily by major organisations or governments so it is down to communities to make decisions about increasing local production and upholding high food values. Early adopters will be better placed to ride out the changes that are coming. Certainly, in my part of UK these are very few and far between.
Hello Richard, I am very much of the same opinion as you. The sense of the sacred, of awe at relating to another living being, is very important, it is something to be recovered, as not so long ago that was normality. There is a beautiful article I quote, alas in spanish, about how this relationship can develop in spite of having to kill to eat. It leads automatically to sensing the worthiness of what we eat, and then eating less of this expensive good in all senses, that we have converted to cheapness: meat. And right, locality and local decisions are so important. Many times one can hear people who defend veganism for everyone, forgetting that (imperial) impositions should belong to the past... and that animal husbandry can be something very different as what we have made of it in the "western" mode of living. The good news is that agroecolgy and social movements like Via Campesina already have very clear ideas as to how all of this can work out. More coming up!
Very good, never been a fan of eating meat due to the violence and maltreatment meted out to the animals on such an industrial scale. We are now in danger of killing off our own populations from diseases/viruses connected to keeping animals in such inhuman conditions, and then we have the nerve to blame them. Compassion is the answer, difficult but essential. Thanks for the article.
You are welcome Fenton Court. Yes, the future does look gloomy if we don't change course.
Thanks for addressing the problem of animal abuse. "Animal abuse" is closely connected to "plant abuse" --- half of all the plant phytomass is gone due to human influence, with deforestation, livestock grazing, and crops for livestock adding up. There is an odd defense of animal abuse in papers such as "Livestock's Long Shadow" (FAO, 2006) is that so-called "factory farming" is "efficient" in terms of energy and land use. If you try to treat the animals nicely, it will cost you. Unfortunately, they're right --- grass-fed beef (while better ethically) actually requires much more land and creates more methane. Animal abuse connects to abuse of everything else as well, including slaughterhouse workers getting low pay and sustaining high injury rates. It's a nasty system.