tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/factory-farming-9391/articlesFactory farming – The Conversation2023-06-12T20:01:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2058302023-06-12T20:01:01Z2023-06-12T20:01:01ZPeter Singer’s fresh take on Animal Liberation – a book that changed the world, but not enough<p>In March, the ABC aired a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/calls-for-investigation-after-pig-gassing-footage-aired/102155766">story</a> showing footage of pigs in Australian abattoirs being stunned with carbon dioxide before having their throats cut. Packed into small, gas-filled <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-27/pork-industry-carbon-dioxide-stunning-hidden-cameras-730/102094548">chambers</a>, these animals could be viewed writhing, gasping and screaming in distress, some foaming at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/30/woolworths-and-coles-source-pork-from-abattoirs-featured-in-horrific-pig-slaughter-video">mouth</a>. </p>
<p>The pigs’ suffering was not an aberration; it is what countless pigs around the world commonly endure before being turned into ham and bacon. Such media exposés reveal how far we have – and have not – come since Australian philosopher Peter Singer published the seminal book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_(book)">Animal Liberation</a> nearly 50 years ago.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Animal Liberation Now – Peter Singer (Penguin Random House)</em></p>
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<p>Some features of this news story are testament to Animal Liberation’s influence on the animal rights movement, vegetarianism, and society generally. Like Ruth Harrison’s <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/animal-machines-ruth-harrison/book/9781780642840.html">Animal Machines</a> (1964), Singer’s book, first published in 1975, opened eyes to society’s almost endless exploitation of animals. </p>
<p>The footage of the gassed pigs used in the ABC story was obtained by a <a href="https://www.farmtransparency.org/">member</a> of one of the many animal <a href="https://www.peta.org/">organisations</a> that have emerged since Animal Liberation appeared. While such footage might once have been ignored, it made it to national prime-time television and was labelled “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/calls-for-investigation-after-pig-gassing-footage-aired/102155766">distressing</a>” by Australia’s agriculture minister.</p>
<p>Animal Liberation, regarded as the “bible” of the animal rights movement, is one of <a href="https://entertainment.time.com/2011/08/30/all-time-100-best-nonfiction-books/slide/animal-liberation-by-peter-singer/">Time</a> magazine’s all-time top 100 non-fiction books. </p>
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<span class="caption">An early edition of the book.</span>
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<p>Yet the revelations about the gassed pigs also illustrate the limits of Animal Liberation’s impact to date. </p>
<p>Some Australian states, like some other jurisdictions, recently enacted “<a href="https://voiceless.org.au/hot-topics/ag-gag/">ag-gag</a>” laws to prevent <a href="https://aldf.org/issue/ag-gag/">activists</a> filming farmed animals’ suffering. And while the aired footage caused horror, there was no promise to immediately halt the carbon dioxide stunning method – let alone to phase out industrial pig production. </p>
<p>A pork industry representative still felt able to admonish the activist for “putting <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/calls-for-investigation-after-pig-gassing-footage-aired/102155766">stress</a> on our animals”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/animal-liberation-now-peter-singer?variant=40952213110818">Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed</a> is an expanded, more comprehensive revision of Singer’s classic book. The title reflects his latest assessment of the state of animal rights. </p>
<p>Singer evinces some disappointment, especially concerning industrial farming. His call for a boycott of meat, he acknowledges, has been a “dismal failure”. Meat consumption is rising, including in newly developed economies. China, for example, is building “huge <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-skyscraper-farm-slaughter-1-million-pigs-a-year-2022-11">skyscraper</a> ‘farms’” for millions of animals. </p>
<p>Despite this juggernaut, Singer retains some hope – so long as there are (as the book’s dedication reads) “many good people striving to bring about a better world for all sentient beings”. </p>
<p>Also underlying his cautious optimism is his belief that the book’s key ethical arguments, repeatedly tested over decades, are sound.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-slaughterhouses-have-glass-walls-the-campaign-for-greater-farm-transparency-goes-to-the-high-court-163811">Should slaughterhouses have glass walls? The campaign for greater farm transparency goes to the High Court</a>
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<h2>Modern treatment of animals</h2>
<p>A key element of Singer’s strategy is to make the treatment of the animals we eat and perform research upon crystal clear. Many people remain unaware of the details. As in earlier editions, the two longest chapters of the updated book expose harmful uses of animals in scientific research and farming. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530467/original/file-20230607-18-w8vu0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Peter Singer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin/Random House</span></span>
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<p>The numbers of sentient animals – that is, those capable of feeling and suffering –killed in science and agriculture are mind-boggling: hundreds of millions in research and billions to trillions (when fish are counted) in agriculture. Such numbers, along with animals’ often dire living conditions, prompt historian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question">Yuval Noah Harari</a>, in a preface to the book, to declare industrial farming “responsible for more pain and misery than all the wars of history put together”. </p>
<p>Some forms of animal treatment, Singer tells us, have improved somewhat. Certain countries began to better <a href="https://www.animalethics.org.au/animal-ethics-committees">regulate</a> animal research as the animal rights movement gained steam in the <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/animal-research/UK-regulations-on-research-using-animals">1980s</a>. In response to activism and changes in public sentiment, the European Union <a href="https://coslaw.eu/what-is-the-eu-ban-on-animal-testing/">banned</a> testing of cosmetics on animals, and the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-will-no-longer-support-biomedical-research-chimpanzees">US National Institutes of Health</a> ended its support for harmful research on chimpanzees. </p>
<p>In agriculture, animals like pigs, chickens, and veal calves now sometimes have slightly more room to move around in their cages due to consumer demand. Sow stalls, in which isolated pigs could barely move, were made <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-7-2013-000321_EN.html?redirect">illegal</a> across the EU (but not in the US).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530472/original/file-20230607-21-tzkryd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A chicken farm in the United States.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Animal Outlook/AP</span></span>
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<p>Yet since the book’s publication, a great deal has not improved for animals. Psychology experiments continued for decades to expose animals to severe deprivation, causing <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jhbs.22180">psychopathology</a>, including self-destructive behaviour, aggression and extreme <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17141312/">fear</a> – even though such experiments have dubious application to humans. </p>
<p>While some animal experiments are justified in Singer’s view, the results of most experiments involving animals are never published or are not <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-76398-3">replicable</a>. Pharmaceutical companies use animals to create “me too” drugs that do not offer significant advantages over existing medicines. Many guidelines for testing the safety of chemicals still require extensive animal testing. Some of these, such as new household <a href="https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/laboratory/testingchemicals">cleaners</a>, we could live without.</p>
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<span class="caption">A squirrel monkey at a wildlife care centre in Colombia, where monkeys recover from the abuse they were subjected to during lab tests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ernesto Guzman/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Most farmed animals are kept are out of sight in industrial factory systems. Intensively farmed species such as cows, pigs and chickens have been genetically altered so they suffer from <a href="https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/book/10.3920/978-90-8686-571-0">conditions</a> such as <a href="https://actavetscand.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1751-0147-44-S1-S21">metabolic</a> disturbance, lameness and hunger. </p>
<p>Sensitive body parts of factory-farmed <a href="https://porcinehealthmanagement.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2055-5660-1-2">pigs</a>, <a href="https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-is-beak-trimming-and-why-is-it-carried-out/">birds</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/05/despicable-and-horrific-footage-of-cattle-in-distress-prompts-calls-for-mandatory-pain-relief-in-australia">cattle</a> are still cut off without anaesthetic, often to prevent animals harming one another from stress and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347217301811">boredom</a>. </p>
<p>Many animals in abattoirs, Singer says, are likely butchered or dropped in boiling water while still conscious. During the COVID pandemic, US farmers and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23516639/veterinarians-avma-factory-farming-ventilation-shutdown">veterinarians</a> “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/29/millions-of-farm-animals-culled-as-us-food-supply-chain-chokes-up-coronavirus#maincontent">depopulated</a>” countless pigs and chickens by deliberately <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-ventilation-shutdown-coronavirus/">heating them to death</a>. Dairy cows are routinely <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5354428/">separated</a> from their calves, and cattle <a href="https://www.beefcentral.com/lotfeeding/wagyu-big-driver-in-new-wave-of-australian-feedlot-expansion/">feedlots</a> have expanded. </p>
<p>As Singer argues, such large-scale, profit-driven systems cannot treat animals humanely. Meanwhile, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo3640817.html">scientific</a> research continues to show that animals, including <a href="https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol4/iss25/1/">farmed species</a>, possess many mental <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognition-animal/">capacities</a> similar to those of humans. These <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20728510">capacities</a>, as Charles Darwin recognised, include affection, grief, sympathy, memory, attention and curiosity. </p>
<p>The revised book extends the discussion of consciousness in animal species. For instance, recent science suggests animals such as some <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159121002197">insects</a> and <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans">decapods</a> may have some sentience. Other exploited invertebrates, such as the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mind-of-an-octopus/">octopus</a>, show signs of an extraordinary “alien-like” intelligence. Singer even discusses scientific suggestions that <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28875517/">plants</a> may be minimally conscious, although he thinks this very unlikely.</p>
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<span class="caption">A veined octopus, <em>Amphioctopus marginatus</em>, crawling along the ocean floor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum Victoria/AAP</span></span>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/octopus-farms-raise-huge-animal-welfare-concerns-and-theyre-unsustainable-too-179134">Octopus farms raise huge animal welfare concerns - and they're unsustainable too</a>
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<h2>Species prejudice – Singer’s radical idea</h2>
<p>Animal Liberation Now argues that non-humans in the 21st century continue to be treated in science and in farming essentially as tools or objects. For Singer, this strikingly illustrates the book’s central philosophical idea of “speciesism”, a term he popularised and endowed with philosophical <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2009.01608.x">sophistication</a>. </p>
<p>Most humans, argues Singer, are <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-021-10168-6">speciesist</a>. They assume it is acceptable to discriminate against non-human animals merely because they belong to a different species. Singer famously argues that <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-009-9205-2">speciesism</a> is a prejudice akin to racism and sexism. Those prejudices involve discrimination by a dominant group against a weaker one based on morally arbitrary characteristics. </p>
<p>Society has lately made progress towards recognising that no-one may treat another’s interests as ethically less important simply because they are not, say, a white man. But equally, says Singer, we should not downgrade another’s interests merely because they are not biologically human. And we should not downgrade the comparable interests of species that are less “loved”, such as <a href="https://humanimalia.org/article/download/11520/14799/27597">rodents</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530486/original/file-20230607-21-92pgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A landmine-detecting African giant pouched rat in Siem Reap, Cambodia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maria Anna Caneva Saccardo Caterina / APOPO handout/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Rather, Singer argues, we should adopt a moral principle of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/principle-of-equal-consideration-of-interests">equal consideration of interests</a>, that applies regardless of species. If it is wrong to cause a human being to suffer, it should be equally wrong to cause a nonhuman animal to suffer to a similar extent. </p>
<p>Most people will baulk at the extension of the principle of equality across the species divide. But ethical arguments supporting human superiority, Singer replies, are weak. Consider the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/japp.12051">argument</a> that humans are special because of capacities such as rationality or moral reasoning. Some humans who are severely cognitively impaired permanently lack these abilities. Yet obviously we believe that to “fatten them, kill them, and eat them” is morally outrageous. According to Singer, consistency demands extending the same attitude to non-humans with similar capacities.</p>
<p>Like the utilitarian philosopher <a href="https://daily-philosophy.com/cooper-quotes-bentham-animal-suffering/">Jeremy Bentham</a>, Singer believes the key ethical question about animals is not “can they reason?” nor “can they talk?”, but “can they suffer?” </p>
<h2>Philosophical disputes</h2>
<p>Singer’s argument about speciesism is <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/speciesism">controversial</a>. Many philosophers have come to <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Singer+and+His+Critics-p-9781557869098">accept</a> it. But others believe there is something about simply being human that is special. Even so, Singer’s <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351311601-4/egalitarianism-equal-consideration-interests-stanley-benn">opponents</a> have had difficulty undermining his position.</p>
<p>Philosopher <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bFJPEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=kagan+counting+animals&ots=kMvfk12t2Y&sig=3v5kIGVU_AUrYepWuaZLfhRt94w&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=kagan%20counting%20animals&f=false">Shelly Kagan</a> recently argued that what distinguishes severely cognitively impaired humans from non-humans is that the former could have been “persons” were it not for conditions such as brain injury in infancy. Animals, by contrast, were never going to develop into “persons”. </p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/japp.12165">Singer replies</a> that some cognitively impaired humans with, say, severe genetic abnormalities were never going to be persons either. Moreover, why is the mere possibility that an individual could have been a “rational person”, even though they are not, morally relevant? </p>
<p>Singer also advances a kind of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02080-5?fbclid=IwAR0J-QPHhfyXN5i9WT4_dnGjB59inOEZb8DtB_U9O8Ya_vyuZBKkkKKGAYM">debunking</a> argument against meat-eating, offering various psychological and cultural reasons to help explain why speciesism is so entrenched. The updated chapter on “Man’s Dominion” vividly exposes such forces. </p>
<p>Singer details how, in the West, Christianity repeatedly denigrated animals, notwithstanding the occasional apparent animal-friendly <a href="https://www.earthday.org/patron-saint-animals-ecology/">sentiment</a>, including among recent <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">popes</a>. Philosophers such as <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SSPdDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=kant+on+animals&ots=PFcou_0hrG&sig=NmJ_t34HAhp7LnbJlLwXFqmUQGQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=kant%20on%20animals&f=false">Immanuel Kant</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/abs/brute-to-the-brutes-descartes-treatment-of-animals/D050D279B05CE10EBF23AB6A4BA41E7E">René Descartes</a> joined in the denigration.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-ideas-of-kant-121881">Explainer: the ideas of Kant</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In all editions of the book, Singer has drawn attention to the strong vested interests that companies, governments and individuals have in meat production. We grow up in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8262125/">cultures</a> that tell us food animals hardly matter. </p>
<p>Singer now reports on recent <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868316647562?journalCode=psra">studies</a> that reveal how we try to escape the psychological discomfort of eating sentient animals by, for example, reflexively denying that those animals have minds. He might also have mentioned recent work that links animal prejudice to bias against human “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886913014074">outgroups</a>” – groups with whom a given person may not directly identify, such as immigrants.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530471/original/file-20230607-22-jn50bw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An animal rights protest in Seoul, South Korea, last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yonhap/EPA</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Lately, the ethical case against meat-eating has been buttressed by arguments about its environmental impact. Singer earlier pointed to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41130-020-00124-w">pollution</a> from factory farms. Now he can also point to the large contribution that animal agriculture, always a relatively inefficient way of producing food, makes to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/most-damaging-farm-products-organic-pasture-fed-beef-lamb">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Preventing forest destruction for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-than-800m-amazon-trees-felled-in-six-years-to-meet-beef-demand">beef farming</a>, or opting to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4">rewild farming land</a>, may turn out to be necessary for preventing more extreme global warming. Abolishing factory farming may also limit future animal-originated <a href="https://onehealthoutlook.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42522-021-00053-8">pandemics</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/which-diet-will-help-save-our-planet-climatarian-flexitarian-vegetarian-or-vegan-186772">Which diet will help save our planet: climatarian, flexitarian, vegetarian or vegan?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Other objections</h2>
<p>While Animal Liberation Now fortifies Singer’s earlier case, further objections will be forthcoming. Some animal advocates will be disconcerted that Singer, a utilitarian, theoretically approves of harmful animal experiments, albeit within narrow bounds. Although he opposes most current animal experimentation, Singer is open to condoning, for example, experiments on monkeys that substantially improve the lives of tens of thousands of people with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7058209/">Parkinson’s disease</a>. Some advocates will feel that even these experiments <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y0tWjRmxFE4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=regan&ots=gJH3LGUkTu&sig=tzutbvvFEk2fwn_0munK8ggogig&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=regan&f=false">violate animal rights</a>.</p>
<p>They will also oppose the suggestion that killing animals for unnecessary food may be acceptable if the animals would otherwise not exist. However, Singer’s main aim here is to undermine speciesism, not to defend particular views on the ethics of killing or to argue for utilitarianism itself, as he does <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lNgnV0eDtM0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=singer+practical+ethics&ots=N3Gg61_hqE&sig=3RLgPgouZTYeO_t9oYnaJOHVWqQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=singer%20practical%20ethics&f=false">elsewhere</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530209/original/file-20230605-31-zxg7ln.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Singer claims that a position like his, which appeals only to rational argument, is both sturdier and more persuasive than arguments that admit some role for human sensitivity. Some <a href="https://lanternpm.org/book/entangled-empathy/">philosophers</a>, however, deny that moral reason can be so radically distanced from <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/upheavals-of-thought/3FF62D25B63C90964FF9BC72D6C38459">feeling</a>. Indeed, arguably part of the persuasive effect of Animal Liberation Now is the combination of careful logic and language that, although restrained, is not without feeling. </p>
<p>For example, Singer writes of how “wonderful” it is to see a “dejected, timid, almost <a href="https://youtu.be/iDLq8Xm5gQ0">featherless hen</a> … recover both her feathers and her natural dignity” when removed from the barren cages. Some philosophers would argue that such responses are not unconnected to moral insight.</p>
<p>The compassion as well as the outrage and horror that Singer’s writing has elicited in readers over the years has surely contributed to Animal Liberation’s influence - including on some of those who reject Singer’s principle of equality for humans and non-humans.</p>
<h2>The future for animals?</h2>
<p>Singer gives little detail about what should become of species like sheep, pigs, chickens and cows after liberation. He does say that most laboratory cages will be empty and that pigs may roam freely. </p>
<p>Some animal advocates hope for the eventual <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/fran13950">extinction</a> of these much-abused species, while <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783487240/The-Political-Turn-in-Animal-Ethics">others</a> allow for mutually positive <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/zoopolis-9780199599660?cc=au&lang=en&">relations</a> with humans, as seen on some <a href="https://vinesanctuary.org/">farm-rescue</a> <a href="https://edgarsmission.org.au/">sanctuaries</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530477/original/file-20230607-21-z1rail.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Animal psychologist Karin Mueck with a cow at the Hof Butenland farmstead in Niens, northern Germany, which is a retirement home for farmed cows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Focke Strangmann/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Intriguingly, Singer appears to approve of several dairies, such as <a href="https://hownowdairy.com.au/about-us/">How Now</a> dairy in Australia, that claim not to harm or kill their cows and to keep mothers with their calves. He now also discusses how we might address the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-021-09873-0">vexed</a> question of wild animal suffering.</p>
<p>Whatever its shape, what are the chances Singer’s vision will eventuate? Perhaps <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-023-00627-6">artificial intelligence</a> and other <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43586-022-00118-6">technologies</a> will help replace much animal experimentation. Maybe improvements in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.00128/full">plant-based</a> meat alternatives and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasyu/2023/01/18/eat-just-to-scale-up-cultured-meat-production-on-gaining-new-regulatory-approval-in-singapore/?sh=652a30af49d7">cell-cultured</a> meat will allow us to withdraw from the farming of sentient beings. We might then gain a more impartial ethical perspective on non-human animals. </p>
<p>In any case, Singer takes comfort from words attributed to the Indian revolutionary <a href="https://www.peta.org/features/gandhi/">Mahatma Gandhi</a> about genuine justice movements that have the courage to challenge entrenched interests: “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win.” </p>
<p>If Singer is right, animal liberation may one day achieve the success of anti-slavery, anti-colonial, women’s and, increasingly, LGBTQI+ movements. </p>
<p>For those with an interest in culture, ethics and animals – and especially for those who have not read earlier editions of the book – Animal Liberation Now is essential reading.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author has previously co-authored a paper on One Health with Peter Singer.</span></em></p>First published in 1975, Animal Liberation opened our eyes to the exploitation of animals. At a time of ‘ag-gag’ laws and ‘skyscraper’ farms, a new edition assesses the state of animal rights today.Simon Coghlan, Senior Lecturer in Digital Ethics, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881292022-12-14T21:15:00Z2022-12-14T21:15:00ZHow Indigenous philosophies can improve the way Canadians treat animals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500787/original/file-20221213-18915-drdove.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C36%2C5979%2C3953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An orangutan and a human share a moment and touch hands. Indigenous philosophies regard animals as human’s close relations deserving of respect, kindness and gratitude from birth to the end of their lives.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Indigenous perspectives view the relationship between humans and animals much differently than modern western societies. Weaving Indigenous perspectives into how Canadians regard animals could greatly benefit the well-being of animals on several fronts, including agriculture, research, and those kept as pets. </p>
<p>Teaching such views could also transform university curricula, especially in animal science and biomedical programs, as well as climate change activism and sustainability as we pursue reconciliation.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.uoguelph.ca/ccsaw/">Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare (CCSAW)</a> is a group of faculty, students and staff at the University of Guelph promoting the welfare of animals through research, education and outreach. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf1GMQ3ilgOzEAtLwIf3Wodkamlxp35Na">The CCSAW hosted a speaker series this past spring with a Canadian senator, academics, Indigenous thought leaders and an elder</a> to discuss Indigenous perspectives towards animal use in Canada. In particular, they spoke about how <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4040672">animal species are regarded as human’s close relations</a> deserving of respect, kindness and gratitude from birth to the end of their lives.</p>
<h2>Captive wild animals</h2>
<p>How can viewing animals as close relations have an impact on current animal use in Canada? One way — currently being considered by the Senate — is by improving the lives of captive wild animals. </p>
<p>First introduced in 2020 by Sen. Murray Sinclair (Anishinaabe and member of Peguis First Nation) and reintroduced in March 2022 by Sen. Marty Klyne (Cree Métis), the <a href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/news/how-jane-goodall-act-will-change-lives-wild-animals-canada#:%7E:text=The%20Jane%20Goodall%20Act%20will%20protect%20the%20animals%20from%20being,the%20government%20or%20anyone%20else">Jane Goodall Act</a> hopes to provide some of the strongest legislation for wild animal protection in the world. </p>
<p>Supported by <a href="https://coastalfirstnations.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/iPolitics-Article-Coastal-First-Nations.pdf">Coastal First Nations</a>, <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/S-241/first-reading">the act aims to deliver new legal protections</a> for captive big cats, bears, wolves, seals, sea lions, walruses, certain monkeys and reptiles. These protections include ending the commercial trade, breeding and acquisition of these species. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An older woman wearing a green button-down shirt sits in a beige armchair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499879/original/file-20221208-19550-p3m533.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Jane Goodall Act is named after renowned English primatologist Jane Goodall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It will also work to phase out elephant captivity and <a href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/sites/default/files/media/ca_-_en_files/barren_cages_tcm22-8303.pdf">roadside zoos</a> in Canada. </p>
<p>A driving factor in support for the act is the Indigenous consideration and recognition that animals and humans, and the environment surrounding us, are interconnected. </p>
<p>Currently in its second reading with the Senate, this highly anticipated legislation has the potential to make huge strides toward the protection of wild animals by advocating for their welfare through a lens of mutual respect.</p>
<h2>‘All my relations’</h2>
<p>Where do these values come from? </p>
<p>During the CCSAW event, <a href="https://ses.uoguelph.ca/people/jesse-n-popp">Jesse Popp</a>, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Science from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, described the concept of “<a href="https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/aswt/well_being/documents/all_my_relations.pdf">all my relations</a>.” This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezaf6aTPCSo&t=181s&ab_channel=CampbellCentrefortheStudyofAnimalWelfare">cross-cultural Indigenous philosophy</a> is based on the foundation of respect for all living things through co-existence and inherent responsibilities and obligations for all ways of knowing.</p>
<p>There is a disconnect between the hierarchical top-down relationships between humans and animals in modern settler societies and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2019.1704229">Indigenous perspectives that incorporate a holistic and circular interconnection</a> among humans, animals and the environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dairy cow stands in a field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500796/original/file-20221213-20493-c6fji2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dairy cow stands in a farm pasture in Surrey, B.C. Indigenous values like respect and responsibility could better protect the autonomy of livestock animals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The view that humans are separate from nature went against Popp’s desire to work with animals, prompting her to incorporate Indigenous views into western ways of knowing to <a href="https://www.wiselab.ca/research-home">advance environmental and ecological science</a> that contributes to animal conservation, sustainability and the movement of the natural sciences toward reconciliation.</p>
<p>Maintaining an “all my relations” perspective, many Indigenous cultures also have strong family ties to animals. For Elder <a href="https://www.queensu.ca/indigenous/faces-spaces-and-places/elder-profiles">Wendy Phillips</a> — Bald Eagle Clan, Potawatomi and Ojibwa, and member of Wasauksing First Nation — <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehwX3oaCAjM&ab_channel=CampbellCentrefortheStudyofAnimalWelfare">ceremony and knowledge translation from one generation to the next</a> are key to her practice.</p>
<p>Within the clan system, <a href="https://www.governancevote.ca/traditional-governance/">animal ties provide clan members with roles</a> within the community. For the Bald Eagle Clan, this is a role of leadership and teaching. Carried over generations, these teachings allow the continuation of ceremonial practice through sustainable management and companionship.</p>
<h2>Mutual respect and reciprocity</h2>
<p>But does this go far enough? In terms of animals raised for agricultural purposes, Indigenous philosophies of respect, responsibility and reciprocity are all but lost in modern practices. </p>
<p>Agriculture animals experience a lack of agency toward living a natural life by being <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3650-6">forced to live in unnatural social groups</a> and often without the ability to even turn around, let alone fly or run. They also <a href="https://doi.org/10.2527/jas2001.79E-SupplE201x">suffer during transport between farms and slaughterhouses</a> and experience shortened lifespans.</p>
<p>During her CCSAW talk, <a href="https://www.dal.ca/faculty/arts/sociology-social-anthropology/faculty-staff/our-faculty/margaret-robinson.html">Margaret Robinson</a>, Canada Research Chair in Reconciliation, Gender, and Identity who is Mi’kmaq from Lennox Island First Nation, described how <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svemZoAdhus&t=1s&ab_channel=CampbellCentrefortheStudyofAnimalWelfare">modern intensive agricultural practices go against key Mi’kmaq values</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A chicken drinks water from a drinking system while dozens of chickens sit or stand in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499881/original/file-20221208-13311-dhh1sz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A chicken drinks water in a poultry barn in Abbotsford, B.C. in November 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.benoitfirstnation.ca/bfn_Ethics_Principles.html">Mi’kmaq value of non-interference</a> directly contradicts modern agriculture by not respecting the autonomy of the animal. Animals are forcibly caged and their bodies are altered. </p>
<p>The Mi’kmaq value of respect for mothers as matriarchal and community leaders is also violated for many agriculture species as pregnancy is commonly forced and <a href="https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(15)00374-4/fulltext">mothers are separated from their young offspring</a>, often very shortly after birth.</p>
<h2>Reconnecting with animals</h2>
<p>Robinson also spoke of the disconnect between the food we buy from the grocery store and the Mi’kmaq tradition of giving gratitude at the end of an animal’s life. Incorporating these values into current agricultural practices could better protect an animal’s autonomy through respect and responsibility.</p>
<p>Ethnobotanist Robin Wall Kimmerer also discusses this disconnect in our food systems in her book <a href="https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass"><em>Braiding Sweetgrass</em></a>. She writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indigenous views and ways of knowing should be applied to the way we keep, use and kill animals and in how we teach future generations about animal use and their care, particularly within animal agriculture. Animal welfare researchers are on the right track as they strive to understand our impact and treatment of the animals we use and live with. </p>
<p>Instead of separating ourselves from the world around us, we should remind ourselves that we are intertwined with animals, and therefore should uphold respect and responsibility for them. As Kimmerer says: “Sustain the ones who sustain you and the Earth will last forever.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Courtney Graham received a small stipend from the University of Guelph's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Enhancement Fund for her time to write this piece. </span></em></p>Indigenous views and ways of knowing should be applied to the way we keep, use, and kill animals, and in how we teach future generations about animal use and their care.Courtney Graham, PhD Candidate in Epidemiology and Animal Behaviour, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1698752022-02-09T15:07:17Z2022-02-09T15:07:17ZOur meat obsession is destroying the planet – the solution is to change how we see animals<p>Globally, we eat around <a href="https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/foods-and-beverages/world-consumption-of-meat/story">318 million tonnes</a> of meat every year. By 2050, that figure is projected to reach <a href="https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/foods-and-beverages/world-consumption-of-meat/story">517 million tonnes</a>. This rising number reflects how <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/soan/aop/article-10.1163-15685306-BJA10025/article-10.1163-15685306-BJA10025.xml?language=en">farming animals</a> like pigs, chickens and cows for consumption by humans has been <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203797631-19/cultural-hegemony-meat-animal-industrial-complex-amy-fitzgerald-nik-taylor">largely normalised</a> as essential to our existence. This <a href="https://theconversation.com/go-vegan-because-of-mass-exploitation-of-animals-not-because-eating-them-is-wrong-110628">stark separation</a> between humans and other animals was a core value of <a href="https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/9432/">European colonisation</a> of places like the US.</p>
<p>In New England, as English colonisers’ practice of continually farming maize without giving the fields a rest was destroying soils – leading to reduced crop output – the English began hunting local animals for extra food. When these species became depleted, they started to tame and rear domesticated animals to feed expanding coloniser and enslaved populations. </p>
<p>This practice of taming animals was used by colonisers not only to distinguish themselves from the native “savages” they believed to be in their way, but also to assert land ownership through making animal domestication a precondition for claiming private property rights. </p>
<p>This had disastrous results. The <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/animals-of-the-northern-great-plains">Great Plains</a> region in central North America began <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261">to be overwhelmed</a> by European domesticated species like cows, pigs, sheep, goats and horses, as well as invasive foreign plants like grasses along with associated insects and microbes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-knowledge-is-lost-when-a-species-disappears-its-time-to-let-indigenous-people-care-for-their-country-their-way-172760">Ancient knowledge is lost when a species disappears. It's time to let Indigenous people care for their country, their way</a>
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<p>These species quickly compressed soils and destroyed much of the long grass needed to support key species such as <a href="http://traditionalanimalfoods.org/mammals/hoofed/page.aspx?id=6136">the bison</a>. Bison were not only highly valuable within local ecosystems thanks to their grazing patterns, they also played a vital role in many Indigenous populations’ food systems and spiritual beliefs.</p>
<p>Not only were settlers inadvertently threatening bison populations by their farming habits, they also began slaughtering them in droves for food and <a href="https://sciencing.com/did-bison-almost-become-extinct-4576942.html">their hides</a>. These were used to make drive belts for factories churning out mass produced consumer goods in North America and Europe. As a result, bison populations across North America <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190052818300087">plunged from</a> an estimated 30 million in 1800 to only 1,000 in 1900. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bison stands on a grassy hill" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445373/original/file-20220209-19-1xecopo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bison were a vital component of ecosystems in many parts of the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/28661671417">Tom Saint/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cree filmmaker <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-12-images-bison-bones-window-cultural.html">Tasha Hubbard</a> has argued that the destruction of the bison was a form of genocide, since their slaughter was partly designed to render Native Americans and their cultures extinct. The loss of bison also led to declines in Indigenous plant <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Tribe-plowing-jackpot-into-prairie-wetlands-3211300.php">foods and medicines</a> such as wild rye, the compass plant, big bluestem and Golden Alexander – plants which colonisers called weeds. </p>
<h2>Meat economy</h2>
<p>The birth of the modern meat industry required the transformation of these once biodiverse lands into ecologically sparse tracts for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-victorians-caused-the-meat-eating-crisis-the-world-faces-today-but-they-might-help-us-solve-it-109310">industrial meat production</a>, where animals are crowded together in tiny compounds stretching for many miles. These systems replaced an Indigenous approach of mutual dependence between human and nonhuman animals within a balanced ecosystem. </p>
<p>Although animals were and are hunted by Indigenous populations, the fact that they are also <a href="https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/what-is-the-relationship-between-indigenous-peoples-and-animals">spiritually revered</a> has important consequences. Crucially, hunted populations are allowed to replenish themselves.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/animal-sentience-bill-is-necessary-for-the-uk-to-be-a-true-world-leader-in-animal-welfare-165576">Animal sentience bill is necessary for the UK to be a true world leader in animal welfare</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In contrast, around <a href="https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/animal-cruelty">two-thirds</a> of farm animals across the world are born and reared on factory farms. Many live in cramped and squalid conditions where mistreatment, abuse and early death <a href="https://viva.org.uk/materials/hogwood-a-modern-horror-story/">are commonplace</a>. A recent example of this in the UK was the mass <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b8f66162-c6bc-442f-baf5-ae98f7515dce">culling of pigs</a> due to labour shortages in the UK abattoir industry in October 2021. </p>
<p>What’s more, the global meat industry now accounts for 60% of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/13/meat-greenhouses-gases-food-production-study">greenhouse gas emissions</a> from food production, which itself <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2290068-food-production-emissions-make-up-more-than-a-third-of-global-total/">contributes 37%</a> of total emissions – creating even greater imbalances in our planetary environment.</p>
<h2>Indigenous ethics</h2>
<p>But there is an alternative. Indigenous ideas like “relationality” and “reciprocity” can help us all challenge our outlook on nonhuman animals. <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/jisd/article/view/70761#">Relationality</a> is the idea that all living things are interconnected, meaning that human lives depend on the ability to exist ethically alongside other creatures. Similarly, <a href="https://sites.udel.edu/arcticartecology/reciprocity/">reciprocity</a> describes a commitment to caring for one another through acknowledging the web of ecological, social and spiritual relationships within which we all exist.</p>
<p><a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/static/exhibitions/infinityofnations/arctic-subarctic.html">For example, cultures</a> such as the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people-subarctic">sub-arctic Innu</a> and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/historical-background/inuit">arctic Inuit</a> hunt, kill and eat animals while maintaining strong ethics of relationality and reciprocity. Understanding how the widespread commodification of animals has radically changed ecosystems and driven <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/eating-meat-bad-for-environment">climate change</a> can help us combat these effects, creating a more sustainable world. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person feeds a child with meat from a recent kill in the snow" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445406/original/file-20220209-25-1ceqwzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Inuit father feeds his child with seal meat from a recent hunt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gridarendal/31247452774">GRID-Arendal/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In these communities, hunting, fishing and foraging are ways of life. Yet respect is shown to living creatures to ensure their abundance. This is done by limiting kills, sharing and using all parts of animals, and paying spiritual tribute to animal deities. </p>
<p>Although these activities may not be possible for most of us, we can use similar principles to promote respect for animals – and for the planet – through <a href="https://theconversation.com/rewilding-isnt-about-nostalgia-exciting-new-worlds-are-possible-44854">rewilding land</a> to help wild animals thrive, abolishing <a href="https://theconversation.com/looking-forward-to-a-future-without-factory-farming-141918">industrial farming</a> and transitioning to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-plant-based-diets-could-help-prevent-the-next-covid-19-159308">plant-based diets</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, debates on how best to protect our increasingly damaged planet must prioritise, rather than marginalise, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00714-z">nonhuman animals</a> and their immense value.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Learning from Indigenous cultures to treat animals as more than just food sources could help us combat the climate crisis.Catherine Duxbury, Visiting Fellow in Liberal Arts, University of EssexColin Samson, Professor of Sociology and Indigenous Peoples, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1723532021-12-01T18:19:45Z2021-12-01T18:19:45ZFarm animals suffered in B.C. floods despite existing disaster management guidelines<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434571/original/file-20211129-25-1l15g76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C58%2C2968%2C1962&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rising flood waters are seen surrounding barns in Abbotsford, B.C., on Nov. 16, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When an atmospheric river hit British Columbia in mid-November, it unleashed record-breaking rainfall triggering devastating floods and mudslides. The provincial government declared a <a href="https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021PSSG0073-002190">state of emergency on Nov. 17</a>, activating evacuation orders for Merritt, Abbotsford and other communities. </p>
<p>The Sumas Prairie, which lies in the Fraser Valley just east of Abbotsford, is an agricultural hub, housing the <a href="http://bcchicken.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-07-17-DEPI-FINAL.pdf">majority of the province’s chickens</a> and <a href="https://bcdairy.ca/dairy-farming-in-bc/">cows</a>, as well as pig and mink farms. As the floodwaters rose, harrowing images began to circulate on social media and in news reports.</p>
<p>There were submerged barns, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8393291/farmers-volunteers-save-livestock-floods-bc/">cows wading through floodwaters</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@jessicasvrescue/video/7033165129885797637?sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=7019390436596631045&is_from_webapp=v1&is_copy_url=0">a helicopter rescue of a pregnant cow</a> and the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-armed-forces-forces-help-rescue-thousands-of-chickens-from-flooded-b-c-farm-1.6257242">Canadian Armed Forces relocating broiler chickens</a> from the second storey of barns, while at ground level thousands of birds died from suffocation, from lack of ventilation, or drowning. Industry reports suggest <a href="https://bcdairy.ca/press_releases/bc-dairy-update-cattle-evacuation-milk-supply/">at least 500 cows</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1977721411664">thousands of pigs</a> and <a href="https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2021/11/18/abbotsford-chicken-farmer-floods/">over a hundred thousand birds perished</a>.</p>
<p>Extreme weather events like the flooding and wildfires in B.C., have occurred in agricultural regions in Australia, the United States and elsewhere, and are likely to become more frequent as the planet warms and the climate changes. Although B.C. farmers are eager to get back to production, the provincial and federal governments must consider that there is more than climate behind these disasters. Industrial-sized confinement farming systems pose insurmountable challenges during hurricanes, floods or wildfires, including significant public health, animal welfare and socio-economic implications. </p>
<h2>Climate disasters aren’t coming, they’re here</h2>
<p>When the heat dome settled over B.C. in June, it caused the deaths of 595 people, an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/08/heat-dome-canada-pacific-northwest-animal-deaths">estimated one billion marine animals</a> and <a href="https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/highlights/the-bc-heat-dome-killed-at-least-651000-farm-animals-4467011">at least 651,000 poultry</a>. And during the 2019-20 Australian bushfires, amid the coverage for loss of wildlife, few media stories surfaced about the thousands of farm animals “<a href="https://weanimalsmedia.org/2020/02/14/behind-the-smoke-screen-australias-hidden-bushfire-victims/">confirmed dead, burned in the fires or euthanized due to their injuries</a>.” </p>
<p>In the U.S., catastrophic hurricanes and floods often grip coastal states and harm farm animals. In 2018, Hurricane Florence led to the deaths of <a href="https://dkt6rvnu67rqj.cloudfront.net/cdn/ff/PYBUDryP7nQFgb1G24YcyvuMNvRGR-VeXQxxJ_PTAlQ/1620145317/public/media/World_Animal_Protection-Impact_of_Hurricane_Florence_on_CAFOs_in_North_Carolina%28May2021%29_0.pdf">5,500 pigs and nearly eight million poultry</a> in North Carolina. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in army fatigues bends down over a crate and picks up chickens." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434577/original/file-20211129-25-nybm7f.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Canadian Forces helps move some 30,000 chickens at a farm in Abbotsford, B.C., on Nov. 20, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The nexus between extreme weather events and animal agriculture is further made relevant because of the farm model. Globally, the majority of poultry, pigs and cows are raised in what are called “concentrated animal feeding operations” (CAFOs). </p>
<p>CAFOs are industrialized operations of thousands to millions of genetically similar animals. These operations confine animals whose vulnerability to disasters varies depending on their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.01.002">species, age or sex</a> — a sow confined to a gestation crate, for example. Adjacent to the barns are stockpiles of manure and burial pits. </p>
<p>My research with Elisabeth Stoddard, an associate professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts, has investigated some of the impacts of climate change — worsening floods and hurricanes — on the animal agricultural sector in North Carolina. In our <a href="https://dkt6rvnu67rqj.cloudfront.net/cdn/ff/PYBUDryP7nQFgb1G24YcyvuMNvRGR-VeXQxxJ_PTAlQ/1620145317/public/media/World_Animal_Protection-Impact_of_Hurricane_Florence_on_CAFOs_in_North_Carolina%28May2021%29_0.pdf">recent report</a>, commissioned by <a href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/">World Animal Protection</a>, our conversations with producers and other agricultural workers found that the disaster measures were not applicable to their operations. What they meant was, there are too many animals for disaster interventions to work. </p>
<h2>Disaster management guidelines</h2>
<p>Producers and agricultural workers can refer to disaster management guidelines, often sector-specific handbooks, to prepare for and respond to a range of disasters. <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/agriculture-seafood/business-market-development/emergency-management/emergency-response-planning?keyword=emergency&keyword=management&keyword=guide&keyword=for&keyword=pork">B.C.’s guidebooks</a> offer disaster advice, but do not address the scale of farming, making them unhelpful to producers and useless in their efforts to avert animal deaths and injuries.</p>
<p>As governments, companies and individuals make plans to adapt to climate change, the welfare of farm animals must become a priority that goes beyond updating disaster management guidelines to encourage producers to create farm emergency plans and maps, or invest in insurance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A plan of farm buildings and nearby creek sketched on graph paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433669/original/file-20211124-25-1d2wl00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sample of a farm emergency map found in the ‘Emergency Management Guide for Poultry Farms.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(B.C. Ministry of Agriculture)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can farmers do to protect animals?</h2>
<p>For the most part, producers have three options during extreme weather events: leave the animals in place, relocate them to safety or move them to market. The last option remains the most difficult as producers operate on a just-in-time production system with slaughter scheduled according to the animal’s market-ready date.</p>
<p>Sheltering in place remains the most used strategy based on logistical constraints. As for relocating animals, producers retain some resiliency. One <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sumas-prairie-chicken-farms-1.6256171">chicken producer relocated 40,000 chickens</a>, but had to leave as many birds in a barn when it flooded.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/agriculture-and-seafood/farm-management/emergency-management/beef_emergency_management_guide.pdf">B.C. beef</a> handbook says “unconfined animals can usually take care of themselves during a flood.” Early accounts from the Sumas Prairie suggest that those animals that were outside, roaming freely, fared better than those securely confined in a building or barn. But many “free” animals still succumbed to flood waters, such as <a href="https://bc.ctvnews.ca/thousands-of-farm-animals-dead-in-b-c-floods-agriculture-minister-says-1.5669657">calves that drowned</a> when waters rose past a metre. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1460345823972134912"}"></div></p>
<h2>Build back better</h2>
<p>As the province cleans up, it will need to access and identify farms that require euthanasia for animals with injuries or disease, and <a href="https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/incineration-areas-animals-killed-bc-flooding">mass mortality</a>. </p>
<p>These issues become even more urgent when considering that buried carcasses could <a href="http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/CA2073EN">contaminate groundwater, produce methane gas or spread pathogens</a>. Despite these challenges, B.C.’s Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham said carcasses may be <a href="https://www.100milefreepress.net/news/crd-approves-animal-carcass-from-flooded-areas-to-be-disposed-at-gibraltar-mine-landfill-site-if-needed/">disposed of in landfills</a> or <a href="https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/incineration-areas-animals-killed-bc-flooding">incinerated</a>. </p>
<p>In the wake of the disaster, B.C. must figure out how it will “<a href="https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-budget-update-shows-b-c-in-good-shape-to-fund-flood-rebuild">build back better</a>.” Here are three things it could do to address climate justice, Indigenous reconciliation and animal welfare: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Prioritize climate commitments within the province such as those outlined in the <a href="https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/121/2020/01/FSTF-Report-2020-The-Future-of-Food.pdf">B.C. Food Security Task Force’s 2020 report</a>. One of the climate and food security strategies B.C. is pursing is to diversify plant-based production, such as <a href="https://gfi.org/">cellular agriculture</a>. This directive should receive real commitment and funding that matches its potential to mitigate the threat of climate, environmental and farm animal disasters. </p></li>
<li><p>Consult and deliberate with Animal Justice following its <a href="https://animaljustice.ca/media-releases/limit-farm-sizes-to-protect-animals-from-disasters-says-animal-justice">demands to limit the number of animals on confinement farms and to make animal rescue plans a legal requirement</a> for producers, making them legally binding instead of vague encouraged practices. </p></li>
<li><p>Return unceded land to Indigenous nations. The Sumas Prairie was once a shallow freshwater lake, and is part of the unceded, traditional territory of the <a href="http://www.sumasfirstnation.com/about-sumas-first-nation/governance/chiefs-message/">Sumas First Nation</a> that, like the water and other beings, was forcibly displaced by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25473195">colonial land planning</a>, when the lake was <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8385289/sumas-lake-reflection-first-nations/">drained and isolated from nearby rivers between 1920 and 1924</a>. Unceded land should be returned to the Sumas First Nation to uphold the province’s commitments to reconciliation. </p></li>
</ol>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1463604342846595076"}"></div></p>
<h2>Going forward</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010564"><em>Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters</em></a>, Leslie Irvine, a professor of sociology and director of the Animals and Society Certificate Program at the University of Colorado Boulder, writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The solution to the ‘problem’ of disasters and CAFOs does not involve making the rescue of farm animals a policy priority. Nor does it involve making stronger waste lagoons or creating strict building codes for CAFOs. Rather, the solution lies in changing the practices of factory farming so that animals, and the humans who share their environment, are less vulnerable.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Animal agriculture and colonial land practices contribute to climate change and create vulnerabilities that undermine human, animal and planetary well-being. B.C. has an opportunity to reclaim the ethos of ‘build back better’ from business-as-usual mentalities and choose a future that promotes and acts on justice principles for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Eccles currently receives funding the from Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture (FRQSC).
Stephanie Eccles previously received funding from World Animal Protection. </span></em></p>Industrial-sized confinement farming systems pose massive challenges during hurricanes, floods or wildfires, including significant public health, animal welfare and socio-economic implications.Stephanie Eccles, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1419182020-07-12T11:25:48Z2020-07-12T11:25:48ZLooking forward to a future without factory farming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345952/original/file-20200707-18-10wan2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=94%2C166%2C1822%2C1003&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The demise of factory farming will have many social benefits.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Corporate animal agriculture is in crisis, and its days are numbered. Factory farming and industrialized animal slaughtering are being recognized as <a href="https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/protests-continue-at-alberta-s-cargill-meat-processor-where-949-workers-tested-positive-for-covid-19-1.4927353">dangerous for workers’ health</a>, as potential <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/05/29/industrial-meat-101-could-large-livestock-operations-cause-the-next-pandemic/">causes of the next pandemic</a> and as both <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/11/jonathan-safran-foer-meat-is-not-essential-why-are-we-killing-it/?arc404=true">ethically</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/08/748416223/to-slow-global-warming-u-n-warns-agriculture-must-change">environmentally</a> unsustainable.</p>
<p>Early numbers suggest <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/dining/plant-based-meats-coronavirus.html">noteworthy increases</a> in the purchase of plant-based foods during the pandemic. New vegan products are being brought to market almost weekly. And <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidebanis/2018/12/14/7-predictions-on-the-future-of-clean-meat-in-2019/#2ba5ca2f3a99">advancements in cultured “clean” meat</a> may soon result in mass production.</p>
<p>These technological innovations mean that meat can be created for those who wish to consume it without needing to kill animals. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2018/01/29/exclusive-interview-tyson-invests-in-lab-grown-protein-startup-memphis-meats-joining-bill-gates-and-richard-branson/#7c86c0573351">Diverse investors</a>, including Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Leonardo DiCaprio and leaders of major agribusinesses, recognize the opportunity to more <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/08/25/why-bill-gates-richard-branson-clean-meat/#70374302af27">efficiently and sustainably</a> produce products. As a result, we will see a serious decline — if not the complete elimination — of industrial animal agriculture.</p>
<p>Given its significant contributions to climate change and the depth and breadth of the animal suffering it causes, the demise of factory farming will have many social benefits. <a href="https://lfpress.com/business/local-business/london-business-getting-to-be-a-big-cheese-in-vegan-food-sector-launches-in-u-s-market">New humane jobs will be created</a> in urban areas developing food, undoubtedly. But what will happen to rural economies and to farmed animals? </p>
<h2>Fewer but happier animals</h2>
<p>The end of factory farming will lay the foundation for a rural resurgence and the development of more just and sustainable communities. And there will be fewer but healthier and happier animals not destined for slaughterhouses.</p>
<p><strong>1. There will be a revival and reshaping of family farms.</strong></p>
<p>Factory farming has led to a <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170510/dq170510a-eng.htm">steep and continuous decline</a> in the number of family farms. In contrast to the <a href="https://www.farmaid.org/issues/corporate-power/corporate-power-in-ag/">rigid corporatized and mechanized status quo</a>, the end of industrial animal agriculture will be a boon for family farming and a meaningful chance to diversify. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345957/original/file-20200707-27867-1cyfqdm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will the family farm make a comeback?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Guido Klinge/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Canada is already a world leader in <a href="https://www.proteinindustriescanada.ca/">pulse proteins</a> that include lentils and chickpeas. There will be new demand for organic and <a href="https://www.goveganic.net/">veganic</a> farming, more plant-based crops and the ingredients needed for the new lab-created products. Some consumers may still want meat from dead animals, so small-scale animal farming may find a market. </p>
<p>Boutique dining tourism that brings people onto farms and face-to-face with food cultivation could also thrive. Ideally, the well-being of the <a href="https://business.financialpost.com/news/migrant-workers-facing-unsafe-working-living-conditions-report">migrant workers</a> who make so much fruit and vegetable farming possible will be taken much more seriously, too. This is sorely needed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rethinking-the-boundaries-between-economic-life-and-coronavirus-death-140120">Rethinking the boundaries between economic life and coronavirus death</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>2. Green care will be expanded.</strong></p>
<p>The term <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fani7040031">green care</a> isn’t well known yet, but it makes sense: it refers to a range of organized and formal beneficial interactions with nature. Animal-assisted therapy, therapeutic horticulture and care farms are all examples of green care. </p>
<p>Farms can be re-imagined as places for <a href="https://sofaredu.eu/where-can-i-study-social-farming/social-farming-in-norway/">children’s and adults’ learning, health care and job training</a>. This will both provide valuable services and generate new green and humane jobs of different kinds in rural communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345959/original/file-20200707-22-pvua2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farms can become places for children to explore and learn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of these farms already exist, and normally involve out-of-pocket fees in countries like Canada. The removal of factory farms from the rural economy will create new opportunities to more deliberately and thoughtfully expand green care, regulate it and integrate it with existing education, health care and <a href="http://onehealth.usask.ca/about/index.php/">One Health programs</a> akin to what is being done in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2015.1082983">northern Europe</a>. This would make it more accessible, diverse and equitable.</p>
<p><strong>3. Farm animals will be raised for pleasure.</strong></p>
<p>Many people already work and interact with horses for leisure, sport, companionship and sheer joy. Some similar opportunities exist for farmed animals like chickens, rabbits, goats, pigs, cattle and sheep. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345949/original/file-20200707-27815-eq1oow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will pigs be friends, not food, in the near future?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sub-cultures can celebrate and showcase heritage breeds, for example, and the beauty of these animals — without the subsequent death sentence. </p>
<p>More farms may also become non-profit <a href="https://www.happilyeveresther.ca/">sanctuaries</a> where animals can flourish without any expectations.</p>
<p><strong>4. Some rural spaces will be rewilded.</strong></p>
<p>As British writer <a href="https://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/27/a-manifesto-for-rewilding-the-world/">George Monbiot</a> and others have argued, there are many environmental reasons to allow some areas to regenerate and be repopulated with native plant and animal species. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345962/original/file-20200707-27815-wkltmv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nature grows around an old abandoned farm home in rural Missouri.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Known as rewilding, it could allow for certain carefully planned opportunities for expanded recreation and learning in the country (hiking, birding) and some modest, strategic eco-tourism, including Indigenous-led initiatives and partnerships. </p>
<p>But definitively returning some land to other species is one small way to begin to make amends for the immense damage we have done to animal families, cultures and habitats.</p>
<h2>Sustainable, vibrant spaces</h2>
<p>In contrast to today’s large, windowless facilities that intensively confine hundreds of millions of animals indoors and litter Canada’s rural landscapes, rural regions would become more sustainable and vibrant spaces for humans and animals to thrive and co-exist. </p>
<p>Rather than harming rural economies, the end of factory farming is an invitation to revive reciprocal practices as well as develop compelling new possibilities rooted in interspecies respect. It is a clear opportunity to create new income sources and humane jobs for diverse people.</p>
<p>After factory farming, we will all be better off.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kendra Coulter receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>The end of factory farming will lay the foundation for a rural resurgence and the development of more just and sustainable communities for people and animals alike.Kendra Coulter, Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence; Chair of the Labour Studies Department; Member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists; Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1167542019-06-12T11:58:43Z2019-06-12T11:58:43ZVegan is the new vegetarian – why supermarkets need to go ‘plant-based’ to help save the planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277221/original/file-20190530-69079-1uozmb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Veganism is arguably the biggest food trend of the moment. This has led to a massive <a href="https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/category-reports/quick-draw-plant-based-category-report-2018/573359.article">expansion of meat-free brands and own-label offerings</a>. In fact, the UK is now the nation with the <a href="https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/food-and-drink/veganuary-uk-overtakes-germany-as-worlds-leader-for-vegan-food-launches">highest number of vegan food products launched</a>. And with major news outlets such as <a href="https://worldin2019.economist.com/theyearofthevegan">The Economist</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidebanis/2018/12/31/everything-is-ready-to-make-2019-the-year-of-the-vegan-are-you/#302f78f757df">Forbes</a> declaring 2019 the “year of the vegan”, the trend promises to continue – a third of people in the UK have already <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/01/third-of-britons-have-stopped-or-reduced-meat-eating-vegan-vegetarian-report">stopped or reduced eating meat</a>. </p>
<p>Long-established brands tend to receive great publicity for <a href="https://www.joe.ie/news/forms-guinness-worldwide-draught-bottle-can-now-officially-vegan-613586">reformulating their products</a> to be vegan and newly launched meat-free products prove to be incredibly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/09/greggs-unveils-extra-profit-vegan-sausage-roll">popular and fast selling</a>. This is great news, considering that a decrease in animal product consumption constitutes the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth">single biggest way</a>” to respond to environmental challenges such as the climate crisis, soil degradation and biodiversity loss. </p>
<p>Providing only 37% of our protein and 18% of our calories, meat, aquaculture, eggs, and dairy use 83% of the world’s farmland and <a href="https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf">make up 57% of all food emissions</a>. A shift from animal to plant-based food production would help to <a href="http://animal.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Eating-Away-at-Climate-Change-with-Negative-Emissions%E2%80%93%E2%80%93Harwatt-Hayek.pdf">reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions</a>. It would also help to tackle some of the <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/whats-the-beef-with-red-meat">major health issues facing society</a>, while still meeting protein and calorie requirements. </p>
<h2>Meat-free vs vegan</h2>
<p>But despite this trend for plant-based food, not all meat-free innovations sold in the shops are free from ingredients of animal origin. While “vegan” implies that products are fully plant-based and free from animal produce, “meat-free” or “vegetarian” products may still contain milk, dairy or other animal-based ingredients. </p>
<p>Alongside the emergence of plant-based newcomer brands, in recent years, established meat-alternative companies such as the meat-free giant <a href="https://www.quorn.co.uk/products/vegan">Quorn</a> and the traditionally vegetarian brand <a href="https://lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/our-food/vegan-range/">Linda McCartney</a> have started to reformulate their products to offer a bigger range of vegan options.</p>
<p>But many other producers of “meat alternatives” still rely on animal-based substances such as eggs and dairy. That said, many established and new product ranges that are labelled and promoted as vegetarian are, in fact, vegan, so what’s going on here?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277178/original/file-20190530-69063-lbuxiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The number of vegans in Great Britain quadrupled between 2014 and 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may well be that manufacturers still hesitate to market their products in the vegan category – vegetarian feels like a safer alternative. Indeed, it’s estimated that <a href="https://uk.kantar.com/consumer/shoppers/2019/only-3-of-uk-self-define-as-vegan/">92% of plant-based meals</a> were eaten by non-vegans in 2018. Vegans make up only a small minority of consumers buying <a href="https://uk.kantar.com/consumer/shoppers/2019/grocery-market-share-february-new-year%E2%80%99s-resolutions-lead-to-healthy-grocery-sales/">meat-free meals</a>. </p>
<p>But it seems that when it comes to what people actually want to buy, vegan products are in high demand. <a href="https://www.just-food.com/news/nestles-garden-gourmet-veggie-brand-withdrawn-from-uk-sale_id141309.aspx">Nestle’s meat-free range</a>, which was meant to “revolutionise the vegetarian category”, was <a href="https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/new-product-development/seven-veggie-products-that-prove-plant-based-cant-guarantee-sales/592594.article">withdrawn from British supermarket shelves after just a few months</a>. Also, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6265573/Linda-McCartneys-new-vegetarian-pizza-range-branded-disappointing-fans.html">Linda McCartney’s pizzas</a> topped with “fake-meat” alongside dairy-based cheese <a href="https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/new-product-development/seven-veggie-products-that-prove-plant-based-cant-guarantee-sales/592594.article">proved unsuccessful</a>.</p>
<h2>Environmental impact</h2>
<p>Looking at the numbers, the production of dairy and eggs might <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1%EF%BB%BF">not be as harmful</a> as the production of meat, but it still has a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-015-0931-6">significant impact</a> on the environment. And more importantly, it is built on the same <a href="https://theconversation.com/go-vegan-because-of-mass-exploitation-of-animals-not-because-eating-them-is-wrong-110628">unsustainable farming practices</a> as meat production.</p>
<p>It’s not just products marketed as meat-free that might contain ingredients of animal origin either. In the demand for more wellness products, recent innovations have led to a number of items using by-products of animal origin. These may be milk powder or fat, but can also be products or by-products of slaughter – such as animal fats, rennet or collagen. Marks and Spencer, for example, sells a “Super Water” which uses <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/marks-and-spencer-vegetarian-juice-beef-collagen-vegan-super-waters-protein-a8872866.html">beef collagen to boost protein content</a> – much to the outcry of shoppers.</p>
<p>So given the severe impact animal-based food production has on the environment, and the trend for vegan products, wouldn’t it make sense for all new vegetarian product ranges simply be made vegan? </p>
<h2>The problem with ‘vegetarian’</h2>
<p>Traditional vegetarianism rejects meat as unethical for taking the life of an animal, whereas eggs and dairy are seen as staples and essentials for good health. This understanding goes back to the post-World War II context when factory farming was still in its infancy and milk surpluses were pushed through <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329921052_Milk_Is_Life_Nutritional_Interventions_and_Child_Welfare_The_Italian_Case_and_Post-War_International_Aid">public health and school milk campaigns</a>. But in today’s age of factory farming, meat and dairy are two sides of the same coin. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277179/original/file-20190530-69091-m57tq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Major supermarkets have added multiple vegan products to their shelves this year in a bid to meet growing demand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even if vegans currently only make up <a href="https://uk.kantar.com/consumer/shoppers/2019/only-3-of-uk-self-define-as-vegan/">3% of the UK population</a>, there is a clear consumer push for plant-based produce. Awareness of the environmental and ethical impacts of our food system is growing and “veganism” provides a context to view the problem in its entirety. Shoppers are also keen to vary their proteins and explore plant-based milks. Vegetarians are comfortable with vegan products and products such as meat-free sausages – and crisps or chocolate chip cookies work without milk and eggs as additives. </p>
<p>So with the food industry continuously innovating in this market, it would make more sense for the label “vegetarian” to become redundant and to be instead replaced by “vegan”. This is important because a “vegan” approach goes beyond the environmental aspects to shed light on factory farming and how it is not just cruel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/04/factory-farming-destructive-wasteful-cruel-says-philip-lymbery-farmageddon-author">but a threat to all life on the planet</a>. And in this sense vegetarian product launches and meat-free product innovations that rely on animal-derived substances are quite clearly a step backwards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ulrike Ehgartner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Given the severe impact animal-based food production has on the environment, and the trend for vegan products, wouldn’t it make sense for all new vegetarian product ranges simply to be made vegan?Ulrike Ehgartner, Research Associate in the Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106282019-02-21T11:11:34Z2019-02-21T11:11:34ZGo vegan because of mass exploitation of animals, not because eating them is wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260153/original/file-20190221-195857-1837h7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C2460%2C1631&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/multilevel-production-line-conveyor-chicken-eggs-742546012?src=FTpn0oAS2_Gx05rb7erneg-1-1">N-sky/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With veganism <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/01/vegans-are-coming-millennials-health-climate-change-animal-welfare">on the rise</a> and entire supermarket aisles now dedicated to <a href="https://www.retail-insight-network.com/features/best-vegan-supermarket/">veggie and vegan food ranges</a>, it’s a good time to consider what motivates people to go vegan. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5PBX369GxWfBHFHFRrkCvCl/seven-reasons-why-people-are-going-vegan">many reasons why</a> people decide to cut animal products from their diet, but the <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/whats-the-beef-with-red-meat">negative health effects</a> of excessive meat and dairy consumption and the enormous <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-meat-on-your-plate-is-killing-the-planet-76128">environmental impacts</a> of industrial agriculture are popular ones.</p>
<p>However, the suffering of billions of animals each year in factory farming, referred to in a 2015 Guardian article as one of the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question">worst crimes in history</a>”, is the <a href="https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-most-people-go-vegan-2016-survey-results-reveal-all">most powerful motivation</a> for many, including myself. </p>
<p>Refraining from something that causes so much harm and suffering is laudable, but there’s one argument occasionally used in vegan and animal rights campaigns that warrants closer attention – the idea that consuming other creatures is morally wrong in its own right. </p>
<p>Such views are often bolstered by powerful <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-philosophers-have-to-say-about-eating-meat-100444">moral arguments</a> framing animals as <a href="https://rintintin.colorado.edu/%7Evancecd/phil3140/animals.pdf">subjects of a life</a>, able to <a href="https://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1979----.htm">experience pain</a>, and as leaders of complex emotional lives.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260139/original/file-20190221-195883-1vnk91q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is the idea of humans eating meat any less ‘ethical’ than predation of animals in the wild?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/roasted-carrots-potato-cut-meat-plain-373085707?src=v9EL2KnOMAxp1eFhLKysOQ-1-6">Fortyforks/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Opposing meat eating on <a href="https://philosophyterms.com/ontology/">ontological grounds</a> – meaning, simply because animals are sentient beings, we shouldn’t eat them – separates humans from nature and prevents truly ethical relationships between humans, animals and the natural world. The late environmental philosopher <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/mar/26/australia.world">Val Plumwood</a> coined “<a href="https://sharingideasbyblogging.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/val-plumwood-ecological-animalism.pdf">ontological veganism</a>” to describe this absolute opposition.</p>
<p>Ontological veganism asserts that beings that count as ethical subjects should not be eaten, in the same way that there’s a widespread taboo about eating humans. While this thinking erects another unhelpful boundary between animals and other life forms, it’s also ironic that the rationale underlying taboos against eating humans is the desire to radically separate humans from other animals.</p>
<p>By framing the consumption of other living beings as an inherent moral wrong, ontological veganism also risks demonising predation. In order to avoid this, a common approach is to “excuse” animal predation by arguing that the latter is part of “nature” while humans, as cultural beings, should be exempt.</p>
<p>Some of us – especially those living in wealthy countries – can indeed choose to opt for vegan products, but this argument reproduces another false dichotomy: nature vs. culture. Life is entanglement, with no clear boundaries between “humans” and other species, or between “nature” and “society”. </p>
<h2>Ecological Animalism</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Come among the deer on the hill, the fish in the river, the quail in the meadows. You can take them, you can eat them, like you they are food. They are with you, not for you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This quote is from the late utopian author Ursula Le Guin, in her novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201901.Always_Coming_Home">Always Coming Home</a>. Her idea is akin to Plumwood’s theory of ecological animalism, which seeks to replace human supremacy over nature with mutual and respectful use between humans and other species.</p>
<p>Ontological veganism would frame using or consuming animals itself as inherently exploitative. But consider forms of mutual use seen in <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/mighty-mutualisms-the-nature-of-plant-pollinator-13235427">symbiotic relationships</a>, such as those between pollinating insects and plants. In such scenarios, use isn’t oppressive or exploitative. It’s the form of use seen within <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-karl-marx-has-to-say-about-todays-environmental-problems-97479">industrial capitalism</a>, where humans and non-humans alike are treated only as a means to an end, that prevents ethical relationships.</p>
<p>Ecosystems and all living beings depend upon mutual use and consumption. Orcas consume fish and other marine mammals, we must consume living vegetable matter at least, and when we die, we become food for a host of microorganisms, nourishing them in turn. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260155/original/file-20190221-195879-f2gnxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Predation is an ecological process. Factory farming, not so much.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cheetah-hunting-springbuck-etosha-national-park-1034657560?src=395LikkL5HiPOD6OZHs-xQ-1-0">Elana Erasmus/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If humans are indeed animals who differ from other species only by degrees rather than kind, then like them, we are food. To deny this is to deny that humans are embedded within the ecosystems they originate from and are sustained by.</p>
<p>The horrific cruelty involved in industrial factory farming reduces living beings to mere profitable commodities. This is why I am a vegan, and it is here where calls for eradicating or at least reforming animal agriculture find firmer ground.</p>
<p>The ways in which animals are currently treated in agriculture represent the exact opposite of respect and mutuality. No wonder Aldous Huxley observed in his poignant ecotopian work, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5130.Island">Island</a>, that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For animals… Satan, quite obviously, is <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ecological animalism offers a powerful basis for truly ethical and egalitarian ways of relating to other species. We are all food, and crucially, so much more. We are with and not for one another, and we are all worthy of respect. Go vegan whenever and wherever possible, but be mindful of the underlying rationales involved, lest we reproduce the same harmful dualisms we want to dismantle.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>More on evidence-based articles about <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/veganism-25812?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Veganism">veganism</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/diet-261?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Diet">diets</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/vegan-diet-how-your-body-changes-from-day-one-100413?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Veganism">Vegan diet: how your body changes from day one</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-arent-more-people-vegetarian-58367?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Veganism">Why aren’t more people vegetarian?</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-to-encourage-people-to-reduce-their-meat-intake-without-them-even-realising-105762?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Diet">Five ways to encourage people to reduce their meat intake – without them even realising</a></em></p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110628/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Alberro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Eating animals is natural and not evil in itself, but the torment of factory farming is a very good reason to go vegan.Heather Alberro, Associate Lecturer/PhD Candidate in Political Ecology, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1007152018-07-31T10:39:37Z2018-07-31T10:39:37ZFor many Muslim grocery shoppers, a shifting definition of ‘halal' <figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229849/original/file-20180730-106530-1d7mnzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For many non-Muslims, the fast food carts that line the streets of New York City and San Francisco are their primary point of contact with halal foods.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/instantvantage/7219533694/">Guian Bolisay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For Muslims, halal food follows certain rules proscribed by Islamic law. It usually pertains to ritual slaughter and abstention from certain items like pork, blood and alcohol. </p>
<p>But the interpretation of Islamic food traditions has often varied by time and place. In fact, food that was once prohibited, like caviar for Shiite Muslims, <a href="https://gastronomica.org/2007/05/14/how-caviar-turned-out-to-be-halal/">has since become accepted</a> as halal. </p>
<p>While conducting research for our book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/halal-food-9780190269050?cc=us&lang=en&">Halal Food: A History</a>,” we found that more and more Muslims are looking at ethical and health considerations while determining whether something is halal. Of course, ethical and healthy eating now occupies a significant niche within Western food culture, and many of these Muslims are based in North America and Europe. But increasingly – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/us/exploring-christian-perspectives-on-animal-rights.html">and like some Christians and Jews</a> – they’re pointing to religious texts to support their choices.</p>
<h2>Should ‘halal’ also mean healthy?</h2>
<p>The word “halal” means permissible. It refers to the actions, behaviors and foods that are allowed according to the traditional Muslim juristic interpretations of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and deeds.</p>
<p>Many of these interpretations also define halal as “tayyib.” They are inspired by Quranic verses such as 2:172, which instructs believers to “eat from tayyib (foods) which We have provided for you.”</p>
<p>According to religious traditions, tayyib is a word that can have a range of meanings, from tasty to fragrant to pleasant. In food matters, it is often translated as “wholesome” or “good.” </p>
<p>But for some Muslims today, tayyib carries a specific connotation: It refers to halal food that is nutritious, healthy, clean and ethically sourced. Regarding fruits and vegetables, it could indicate organic, pesticide-free or non-GMO.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-halal-foods-95696">What are halal foods?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The “tayyib-halal” ethos is also relevant for meat. Like many shoppers around the world, Muslims are taking into account the origins of the meat they’re buying. Did it come from a factory farm? How were the animals treated? What were they fed? Were they given hormones and antibiotics?</p>
<h2>The market responds</h2>
<p>In the United States, Muslims can buy their halal meat from supermarkets or specialized grocers and butchers, depending on its availability and various definitions of halal. The halal meat sector in large part <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0309174016301164">relies on industrially produced, non-free range meat</a>. For this reason, some Muslims <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5332932/">are calling for</a> a tayyib-halal approach to meat sourcing – one that not only adheres to the details of ritual slaughter but also relies on animals that are healthy and haven’t been mistreated, caged or abused.</p>
<p>For example, Norwich Meadows in upstate New York objects to industrial farming practices. It’s also one of the major suppliers to a boutique halal butcher in downtown Manhattan called <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2014/05/30/smallbusiness/halal-honest-chops-butcher/index.html">Honest Chops</a>, which sells organic, free-range, antibiotic-free halal meat to New York customers.</p>
<p>At least one American food manufacturer has adapted to the evolving expectations of Muslim consumers. <a href="https://saffronroad.com/why-choose-saffron-road/">Saffron Road</a> makes frozen foods that are low in fat and high in protein and fiber. It also uses hormone- and antibiotic-free beef and lamb, wild-caught fish and humanely raised chicken. And all of its packaging includes multiple labels proudly announcing that the food is halal and an explanation of the company’s halal ethics on the back of the box.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229686/original/file-20180728-106508-258igd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On its packaging, Saffron Road proudly promotes that its food is halal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Febe Armanios</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The concern for animal welfare has also influenced certification practices in the halal meat industry. In many Western countries, Muslim organizations – often for a fee – will inspect foods, production facilities and packaging techniques, before certifying products as halal-compliant.</p>
<p>One of United States’ major halal certifiers, the Chicago-based Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America, <a href="http://ifanca.org/presskit/presskit07112015.html">has developed a flexible certification system</a>. On the one hand, there is meat that satisfies “basic criteria for halal slaughter.” But it also has a separate certification for meat that was harvested in slaughterhouses compliant with animal welfare guidelines – and is therefore more consistent with a tayyib-halal ethos.</p>
<p>For proponents of the tayyib-halal approach, the halal status of meat sourced from animals not treated humanely, in life or death, is <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/live-sheep-exports-may-breach-islamic-law-us-expert-says-20180521-p4zgip.html">suspect</a>.</p>
<h2>An air of exclusivity?</h2>
<p>Then there are the small number of Muslim activists who support the principles of PETA and other animal rights movements. To them, tayyib means a vegan lifestyle.</p>
<p>They argue that for a believing Muslim, the ultimate good and humane approach to animals means abstaining from subjugating, exploiting and killing them. </p>
<p>Islamic teachings, <a href="https://almadinainstitute.org/blog/vegan-sunnah/">these vegan Muslims maintain</a>, show deep concern for animal well-being. Thus – the logic follows – the interpretation of animal welfare in Islam should be to avoid killing them.</p>
<p>Some Muslims, however, are resisting the tayyib-halal ethos. </p>
<p>They argue that meat was among the Prophet Muhammad’s <a href="https://www.al-islam.org/printpdf/book/export/html/43492">most preferred foods</a> and the Quranic command to “eat from the good things” certainly encompasses animal protein. <a href="http://www.icrjournal.org/icr/index.php/icr/article/view/228">For others</a>, the emphasis on environmentally friendly, ethically raised and expensively produced foodstuffs will make it more costly to purchase halal foods.</p>
<p>They’ll point out that the tayyib-halal approach is too complicated, burdensome and exclusive – and goes against the religion’s core egalitarian teachings. It also adds too many demands on the generally well-understood and agreed upon halal legal principles, which – in the broadest interpretations – simply call for the abstention of a limited number of food items.</p>
<p>To these Muslims, the simpler, more traditional approach to food is the better one. Whether or not to take into account the food’s nutritional value and how it was grown or raised is a personal decision, not a religious question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Febe Armanios received funding from the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Boğaç Ergene received funding from the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School.</span></em></p>The halal food sector largely relies on industrially produced meats and produce. But more and more Muslims are using the Quran to interpret halal to mean food that’s wholesome and humanely raised.Febe Armanios, Associate Professor of History, MiddleburyBoğaç Ergene, Professor of History, University of VermontLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/982262018-07-02T10:42:59Z2018-07-02T10:42:59ZRural Americans’ struggles against factory farm pollution find traction in court<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223412/original/file-20180615-85840-1sgb4r7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A barn that can hold up to 4,800 hogs outside Berwick, Pa. The state says the farm is in compliance with regulations, but residents have gone to court seeking relief from odors.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hog-Farm-Lawsuit/bcc5afc06b874662ac6c3a44e142df44/3/0">AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As U.S. livestock farming becomes more industrial, it is changing rural life. Many people now live near Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) – large facilities that can house thousands of animals in close quarters. Neighbors have to contend with noxious odors, toxic emissions and swarms of insects, and have had little success in obtaining relief – but this could be changing.</p>
<p>On April 26, Murphy Brown LLC, a division of Smithfield Foods, was required to pay <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article209927914.html">US$75,000 in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages</a> in a nuisance lawsuit filed by ten residents of Bladen County, North Carolina over impacts from a nearby hog farm. On June 29, another North Carolina jury <a href="http://amp.newsobserver.com/news/local/article214096384.html">awarded $25 million</a> to a couple in Duplin County in a similar lawsuit against Smithfield Foods. Other cases are pending in <a href="https://civileats.com/2018/05/16/iowa-residents-to-sue-state-over-air-emissions-from-industrial-hog-farms/">North Carolina and Iowa</a>.</p>
<p>Smithfield Foods is the largest hog processor and producer in the world, so these verdicts are major victories for people organizing against industrialized animal agriculture. Based on my experience <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UQTOm4gAAAAJ&hl=en">studying environmental health at the community level</a>, I see them as breakthroughs after decades of government failure to protect rural communities from negative impacts of CAFOs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223413/original/file-20180615-85849-1whpejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sprayer soaks a field with liquefied manure and urine from a large-scale hog farm in Duplin County, N.C., Jan. 29, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hog-Farm-Lawsuits/ec9463a00bd54ceda3ee3cebd3429fd7/13/0">AP Photo/Emery Dalesio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Threats to health and the environment</h2>
<p>Iowa and North Carolina are the largest pork-producing states in the nation. Hog farms generated <a href="https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Rankings_of_Market_Value/Iowa/">US$6.8 billion in sales</a> in Iowa in 2012 and <a href="https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Rankings_of_Market_Value/North_Carolina/">$2.9 billion</a> in North Carolina.</p>
<p>They also produce massive quantities of waste. Unlike human biosolids, which must meet regulatory standards for pathogen levels, vector attraction reduction and metal content, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wh.2010.075">no such standards are required for CAFO waste</a>. Studies have <a href="http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/UNC-Report.pdf">linked</a> exposure to hog farm emissions, such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, to symptoms including increased stress, anxiety, fatigue, mucous membrane irritation, respiratory conditions, reduced lung function and elevated blood pressure. </p>
<p>Hog waste can contaminate ground and surface water reserves through runoff, leaching and rupturing of storage facilities. High quantities of nitrates and phosphates, from both animal waste and fertilizers used to grow feed, can also contaminate rivers and streams. </p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8839">Bacteria and residual antibiotics</a> present in hog waste have the potential to cause acute illness and infection, as well as antibiotic resistance. Rural communities are especially vulnerable to water contamination because many rely on private well water, which is <a href="https://www.epa.gov/privatewells">not regulated by government agencies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223414/original/file-20180615-85822-fmk8pq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. hog farms are concentrated in the Midwest and Southeast.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impacts beyond the farm</h2>
<p>The Bladen County lawsuit charged that waste management techniques employed by Kinlaw Farm, a local hog producer for Murphy Brown LLC, put neighbors’ health at risk and severely lowered their quality of life. The farm stored liquid manure in on-site lagoons and sprayed it on local fields as fertilizer. </p>
<p>High volumes of waste and frequent mishandling exposed nearby residents to <a href="https://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2018/04/05/how-smelly-is-too-smelly-what-we-learned-from-the-first-two-days-of-the-murphy-brown-hog-nuisance-trial">noxious odors</a>. The lagoons attracted swarms of insects onto neighboring properties, and plaintiffs complained in the lawsuit that trucks packed with dead animals drove through the neighborhood at all hours of the day.</p>
<p>Such conditions characterize the lives of people who live close to CAFOs. People who cherish the freedom of rural life are anguished when pollution and overpowering smells make it impossible to perform everyday tasks and engage with their community. Many feel imprisoned within their own homes. </p>
<p>In May 2018 Shane Rogers, a former EPA and USDA environmental engineer, published an <a href="http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/brief-exhibit-dr-rogers-report.pdf">air quality investigation</a> that provided evidence to support the nuisance lawsuit. Using samples collected from the air and exteriors of homes neighboring Kinlaw Farm, Rogers was able to isolate hog feces DNA at 14 of the 17 homes tested. All six of the dust samples collected from the air contained “tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of hog feces DNA particles.” </p>
<p>Based on such high concentrations, Rogers deemed it highly likely that these contaminants could enter the houses. The presence of fecal matter in homes may provide grounds for a trespassing claim, as it falls under the definition of a physical invasion of another person’s property.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hauftMODKJ4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In this 2016 report, North Carolina residents suing Smithfield Foods describe conflicts with adjoining hog farms over waste disposal.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pork producers respond</h2>
<p>Although the North Carolina settlement is a major step forward for rural communities, the industry is pushing back. Smithfield Foods has <a href="https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/newsroom/press-releases-and-news/smithfield-foods-extended-statement-regarding-mckiver-v-murphy-brown-verdict">condemned</a> such lawsuits as “nothing more than a money grab by a big litigation machine.” The company asserts that because Kinlaw Farm fully complied with all federal, state and local laws and regulations, such lawsuits only threaten the livelihoods and economic prosperity of thousands of North Carolinians employed by the industry. </p>
<p>A few weeks after the April verdict, the judge <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article210747979.html">reduced the settlement</a> from $50.75 million to $3.25 million, pursuant to a North Carolina law which caps punitive damages at either three times the amount of compensatory damages awarded or $250,000. This allotment does not address community members’ suffering, and jurors were unaware of the law limiting punitive damages when they reached their decision. </p>
<p>In response to 23 nuisance cases filed by over 500 residents, the North Carolina legislature recently voted to expand its <a href="http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4880&context=nclr">right-to-farm law</a>, <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article150016642.html">overriding Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto</a>. These laws were originally designed to protect farms from people who moved in nearby and then complained about noise and odors. However, industries in some agricultural states have pushed legislatures to expand the statutes to <a href="https://thefern.org/ag_insider/north-carolina-legislators-move-to-tighten-right-to-farm-law/">make it harder to sue CAFOs</a>. </p>
<h2>An under-regulated industry</h2>
<p>In my view, current measures in place to protect rural communities from factory farms are grossly insufficient. CAFOs have been defined as <a href="https://www.epa.gov/npdes/animal-feeding-operations-afos">point sources of pollution</a> under the Clean Water Act for over 40 years. This means they should have to obtain permits to discharge waste into river, streams or surface waters. But due to industry pushback, lobbying and privacy concerns, it is estimated that <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-05/documents/tracksum_endyear_2017.pdf">only 33 percent of CAFOs operated with such permits</a> as of 2017.</p>
<p>Environmental advocates also contend that CAFOs qualify as <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060001938">stationary pollution source</a> under the Clean Air Act. Instead, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has pursued a voluntary approach for more than a decade that centers on <a href="https://www.epa.gov/afos-air/national-air-emissions-monitoring-study">studying how to monitor CAFO air emissions</a>. </p>
<p>In sum, I see governmental agencies as complicit within a system of production that prioritizes private interests rather than the well-being of communities and the environment. Research has shown that these operations <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/108/3/ehp.00108225.pdf">disproportionately burden communities of color in rural North Carolina</a>, so this is a major environmental justice issue.</p>
<p>In order for CAFOs and communities to coexist harmoniously, the entire structure of the present food system must change. In addition to strengthening regulations on factory farm emissions and discharges, I think regulators should provide incentives for CAFOs to invest in sustainable technologies and alternative waste management systems. </p>
<p>These farms should also be offered incentives to publicly report quality and safety data and expected impacts on host and nearby communities. This kind of information would increase rural residents’ negotiating power.</p>
<p>Given the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory slant and proposed budget cuts, the federal government is unlikely to lead in this area. However, the North Carolina verdicts and pending cases in Iowa could lead to greater industry transparency and empower more rural citizens to take action against CAFOs in their communities.</p>
<p><em>Crystal Mehdizadeh, a bachelor’s degree candidate in public health science at the University of Maryland-College Park, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98226/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sacoby Wilson received funding for research on hog CAFOs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National institutes of Health from 1998-2005.</span></em></p>Many people who live near large-scale livestock farms complain about noxious smells, air and water pollution and health risks. With little help from regulators, they are turning to lawsuits.Sacoby Wilson, Assistant Professor of Applied Environmental Health , University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/948532018-04-17T21:51:17Z2018-04-17T21:51:17ZLess meat, more bugs in our dietary future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215106/original/file-20180416-105522-jx3uw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Production facility manager Derek Delahaye eats roasted crickets at the Entomo Farms cricket processing facility in Norwood, Ont., in 2016. Bugs are a diet staple in most parts of the world. Will Canadians join the masses in their search for alternate sources of protein to meat?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Thornhill</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Biologically speaking, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/04/20/150817741/for-most-of-human-history-being-an-omnivore-was-no-dilemma">humans are omnivores</a> and we like to eat a variety of things. There is increasing interest in all sorts of alternative sources of protein as we diversify our diets. This trend is accelerating in 2018.</p>
<p>According to Nielsen, the consumer analytics company, the proportion of Canadians identifying as vegetarian and vegan is still relatively small (six per cent and two per cent respectively), <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/ca/en/insights/news/2017/plant-based-proteins-are-gaining-dollar-share-among-north-americans.html">but 43 per cent of Canadians say they’re planning to get more plant-based proteins into their diets.</a> That’s higher than both the United States and global average.</p>
<p>This is coupled with an 18 per cent reduction in beef consumption and an 11 per cent decrease in pork consumption over the past decade, according to the Nielsen data. </p>
<p>In the U.S., meantime, plant-based food sales grew by almost 15 per cent from July 2016 to June 2017. </p>
<p>We are being offered more variety in response to these trends. It’s a phenomenon driven by a wide range of concerns over our health, the environment, animal welfare — and simply an increasing desire for variety. It’s clear that consumers are reducing meat consumption <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/flexitarianism-predicted-as-key-food-trend-for-2017-vegetarian-less-meat-a7465156.html">(flexitarianism)</a> or, to a smaller degree, not eating meat at all (vegetarianism, veganism, lacto-ovo vegetarianism and <a href="http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/basics-pescetarianism-2979.html">pescatarianism</a>).</p>
<p>While the science continues to be unclear about the health impacts of meat consumption, it is clear that there’s a move towards eating less meat. The new, not-yet-finalized <a href="https://passport2017.ca/articles/new-food-guide-canada">Canada Food Guide</a> recommends moving to a more plant-based diet. But if people reduce their intake of meat, they will need to find protein elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Animals emit lots of methane</h2>
<p>A common critique of meat is that livestock production is environmentally unsustainable. In addition to the resources required to produce meat, there is also concern about the emissions from farm animals, particularly cows.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cows-exude-lots-of-methane-but-taxing-beef-wont-cut-emissions-89893">Cows exude lots of methane, but taxing beef won't cut emissions</a>
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<p>While the absolute impact depends on the livestock type — beef is considered more problematic than chicken due to both emissions and the amount of grain required per kilogram of meat produced — and the specific production system, concern over environmental impact will continue to motivate some to cut back on meat consumption. </p>
<p>Furthermore, some consumers think that raising animals for human consumption is unethical, and are choosing to stop eating meat altogether. </p>
<p>Even without concern for the other factors, there is also a <a href="https://www.uoguelph.ca/fare/files/Food%20Focus%202108_Final%2BAODA.pdf">trend to increased variety and choice</a>. Baby Boomers, in particular, have more time and are experimenting more with food.</p>
<p>Restaurants are working hard to offer more choice, profitably, as meat prices increase. They also are seeing the early trend of reduced meat consumption and anticipating an opportunity. A demand for alternate proteins exists in grocery stores as well.</p>
<p>Plant-based proteins are the primary alternative. These are most often soy protein or pulses. <a href="http://www.pulsecanada.com/">Pulses are the dried seeds</a> of legumes and the most common edible ones are dried peas, dried beans, chickpeas and lentils. </p>
<p>These products are appealing as they are high in protein and fibre but low in fat. While that makes for a healthier product, it does make them less desirable for some consumers.</p>
<h2>Lab meat being developed</h2>
<p>In efforts to replicate the meat experience, several companies are developing plant-based meat analogs. They are building “burgers” that mimic the colour, texture, juiciness and taste of a beef burger. The <a href="https://www.impossiblefoods.com/burger/">Impossible Burger</a> is one that’s received a lot of attention. Several of these products are on restaurant menus and grocery store shelves in the United States and Canada already.</p>
<p>Companies are also developing the technology to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/">culture meat</a>, a process in which meat protein is grown in a laboratory without a live animal. </p>
<p>This technology exists today and costs are still high, but developers are optimistic that <a href="http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/answering-how-a-sausage-gets-made-will-be-more-complicated-in-2020">cost reductions</a> will continue. Another drawback of the current technology is that it produces a ground beef analog rather than the long muscle fibres that comprise premium cuts of beef.</p>
<p>Insect protein is another area with the potential for dramatic growth. The “ick!” factor has constrained development in North America, but there are parts of the world where insects represent a significant protein source. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215105/original/file-20180416-570-7zvhuz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Coming to a Canadian market near you? Perhaps not, but Canadians are increasingly turning away from meat and looking for alternate sources of protein. Insects may be among them in the years to come as bugs, worms and larvae are at this Thai market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Insects have appeal because they grow quickly and efficiently. Also, food that would otherwise be wasted can be used to <a href="https://www.biocycle.net/2017/06/16/bugs-eat-food-waste/">raise insects</a>. </p>
<p>The development of products such as insect “flour,” where the source is not recognizable, may make insect protein more appealing. President’s Choice just launched a <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/bugs-in-the-grocery-aisle-loblaw-adds-cricket-powder-to-its-pc-line-1.3830551">cricket powder</a> as part of its product line. Insect protein is clearly entering the mainstream.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jiminy-cricket-why-bugs-may-soon-be-on-the-menu-93573">Jiminy Cricket! Why bugs may soon be on the menu</a>
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<p>The long-term trend to lower per-capita meat consumption will continue. </p>
<p>There’s no doubt there will be greater interest in insects, plant-based protein and cultured meat. Expect to see new products and approaches in the year to come and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94853/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael von Massow receives funding from the Walmart Foundation in support of food waste research. He has also received funding from Longo's as part of the Guelph Food Retail Lab research program and from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in support of consumer research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alfons Weersink receives funding from Food from Thought, sponsored through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, and from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). </span></em></p>Canadians are increasingly looking to alternatives to meat to get their protein. Pulses like lentils and chickpeas are becoming more popular. Will insects find a way onto our plates too?Michael von Massow, Associate Professor, Food Economics, University of GuelphAlfons Weersink, Professor, Dept of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/858602017-10-20T15:35:52Z2017-10-20T15:35:52ZThe burger apocalypse: low carbon eating and avoiding food waste<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190636/original/file-20171017-30417-zrr3wj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-girl-holding-female-hands-fast-481598221">MariaSavenko/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/594361/NDNS_Y1_to_4_UK_report_full_text_revised_February_2017.pdf">More than 95%</a> of people still eat meat and don’t like being told that it is wrong and bad for the planet to do so. But it is now well established that <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/">meat production</a> is responsible for a substantial proportion of human greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention issues around animal welfare. Perhaps more worrying is the increasing problem of massive food wastage. However, people can significantly address these challenges – and an impending “burger apocalypse” – by following a few simple steps toward low carbon eating.</p>
<p>Switching to a low carbon diet has three major benefits: it reduces your impact on the environment, it <a href="https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/why-save-food">saves you money</a>, and it’s very likely to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/healthy-diet-healthier-planet-26152">healthier for you</a>. So what’s all this talk of a burger apocalypse, then? The fact is the now common choice to “grab a burger” is a significant part of human-caused climate change. Food accounts for <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss4/art8/">up to 30%</a> of greenhouse gas emissions and – gram for gram – beef is the highest carbon food.</p>
<p>Mass producing beef comes with all sorts of unintended consequences. Animal welfare is a long running issue and there have been numerous <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-25778826">cases of cruelty</a> uncovered over the years. Excessive red meat <a href="http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/">contributes to disease</a> and obesity, and the huge amount of land needed for cattle <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/04/livestock-farming-artificial-meat-industry-animals">farming</a> could be used much more efficiently to produce other foods.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191080/original/file-20171019-1075-ic1bec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cattle on a farm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cows-on-farm-black-white-eating-424459801?src=G-M3xIgk4Yd-WfkRuquFsg-1-17">StudioPeace/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>As a result, the whole planet suffers. For cows, like lambs, produce methane – a greenhouse gas 34 times as potent as CO₂. Cows need huge amounts more water than other foods and are the leading cause of deforestation, reducing how much CO₂ can be absorbed instead of going into the atmosphere. The <a href="http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/Shifting_Diets_for_a_Sustainable_Food_Future_0.pdf">World Resources Institute</a> says that compared to 2006, global demand for beef is projected to increase by 95% by 2050.</p>
<p>Government and business have to play their part, but rather than absolving themselves of responsibility by laying blame on others, individuals can make simple changes to their diet and cut tonnes off their annual carbon footprint.</p>
<h2>Avoid waste</h2>
<p>People are quick to blame the supermarkets for food waste, but in developed countries <a href="http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Household_food_waste_in_the_UK_2015_Report.pdf">much more is wasted in the home</a> than along the whole of the supply chain. The amount of food we throw away is so staggeringly high the numbers become meaningless to most people. You could think of it this way: <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/196402/icode/">28% of our agricultural land</a> and a big proportion of our precious fresh water is used to grow food that never reaches a human stomach. The best way to reduce your food waste is to plan your meals before going to the supermarket, so you only buy what you will use.</p>
<h2>Buy in-season, low carbon food</h2>
<p>People get preoccupied with whether food is local. But whether it’s in-season is more important for it’s carbon footprint. In his book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004E3X9ZC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">How Bad Are Bananas?</a>, Mike Berners-Lee tells us bananas bought in the UK are low carbon as they come from central or south America by boat. Conversely, you might get UK-grown strawberries in the winter, but they’ll be grown in a hot-house, using fossil-fuel energy, so they could be responsible for 12 times the amount of carbon than between May to September when they’re in season.</p>
<p>With global trade and supermarkets selling most foods year-round it can be hard to know when fruits and vegetables are in-season. You can check this <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/4f16d9_c91250b0242e47b4a4b85f05704a2713.pdf">seasonality chart</a> before making the trip to the supermarket. Note on the chart, asparagus, when bought outside the UK’s short growing season of April to June, is responsible for is around 30 times higher carbon as it has to be air-freighted from Peru.</p>
<p>Even people who don’t want to reduce how much meat they eat can switch from beef or lamb to pork or chicken and cut around two-thirds off the associated carbon footprint. Vegetarians need to be careful here too. Cheddar cheese is high carbon so maybe have small portions and consider soft cheeses, which need a lot less milk.</p>
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<p>Low carbon meat substitutes in supermarkets have exploded in the last couple of years and restaurants are catching up, with most now providing at least one or two meat-free options. <a href="http://example.com/">The Impossible Burger</a>, which launched in the US last year after five years of research, is aimed at meat lovers. Yet it’s a plant-based burger. The “magic ingredient” is heme, which is what makes meat “meaty”. But you can get it from plants as well as animals. It has an eighth the greenhouse gas emissions as a beef burger but it smells, sizzles, and, apparently, tastes like beef. </p>
<p>Meat-eaters and burger lovers are trying it and giving it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/27/impossible-burger-new-york-veggie-momofuku-david-chang">positive reviews</a>. It might just persuade people to switch. How something tastes is a bigger factor for the average person than the ethical or environmental argument. </p>
<p>Another way to reduce your food’s impact on you and the earth is eat less – especially protein. As the <a href="http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/uploads/16_Shifting-Diets-Blog-Graphics_03v3.png">World Resources Institute</a> points out, people now consume far more than the recommended 50 grams of protein a day, especially in wealthy countries. This excess protein is often the expensive, unhealthy, high carbon kind. An astounding <a href="http://eatforum.org/article/more-than-two-billion-people-overweight-or-obese/">2.2 billion people</a> – almost one in three – are now overweight or obese.</p>
<p>So how can you do your bit to fight The Burger Apocalypse? By following the ABC of low carbon eating: Avoid wasting food, Buy in-season food, and Choose low carbon food more.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85860/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Curran delivers The Burger Apocalypse talk at Manchester Science Festival on Saturday, 21 October 2017 (<a href="http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/event/the-burger-apocalypse/">www.manchestersciencefestival.com/event/the-burger-apocalypse/</a>).</span></em></p>Consumers need to educate themselves on costs of eating beef and start thinking about choosing low-carbon foods instead.Tony Curran, Senior Public Engagement Fellow, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/758102017-04-06T10:09:51Z2017-04-06T10:09:51ZDouble standards in animal ethics: why is a lab mouse better protected than a cow?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164139/original/image-20170405-14593-9s38cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/black-laboratory-mouse-sits-on-gloved-160959890">anyaivanova/shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British public are renowned for their love of animals. Historically, the UK has been a hotbed of heated debate about animal cruelty and the use of animals in research. A number of well-established, UK-based organisations such as <a href="http://www.navs.org.uk/home/">NAVS</a> and the <a href="https://www.rspca.org.uk/home">RSPCA</a> have been highly effective in shining a light on animal cruelty and have garnered public support for better regulation of animal research. For example, the <a href="https://iconicphotos.org/2012/06/30/smoking-beagles/">iconic picture</a> of “smoking beagles” appalled readers of The Sunday People when it was published in 1975 and had a dramatic effect on the way in which animal experimentation was perceived.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164281/original/image-20170406-6380-1yodoee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Picture of ‘smoking beagles’ from The Sunday People in 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Ethical standards in animal research have improved significantly since that time but the UK currently has one of the highest rates of animal experimentation in Europe. In 2015, this amounted to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-of-scientific-procedures-on-living-animals-great-britain-2015">2.08 million experimental procedures</a> on a range of animals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164146/original/image-20170405-14593-ylxlm3.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Animal experimentation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most ethical codes for the use of animals in experimental research are based upon three principles: replacement, reduction and refinement – otherwise known as the “three Rs”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164117/original/image-20170405-14615-1fc2w5h.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The three ‘Rs’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The three Rs forms the basis of most existing policy around the world including the EU Directive <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32010L0063">2010/63/EU</a>. Among other requirements, this directive lays down minimum standards for housing and care and requires the assessment of pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm caused to the animals. Hence, in the EU at least, a laboratory mouse should be well cared for by experienced handlers, kept in conditions that ensure its health and well-being, with minimal restrictions on behavioural needs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/">The three Rs are widely accepted</a> by scientists and the public alike as being a reasonable measure for ethical acceptability. But the far reaching acceptance of the three Rs as a basis for governance of animal experimentation raises the question of why this concept is only applied to the use of animals in research. Why isn’t it also applied to the farming and slaughter of animals? </p>
<h2>The slaughter house</h2>
<p>Compared to the number of animals that are used for experimental purposes, the number of animals that are slaughtered in the UK each year is enormous. For example, in 2014 the total number animals slaughtered was almost <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Statistics_on_slaughtering,_all_species,_by_country,_2014.png">one billion</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164118/original/image-20170405-14620-pqvelf.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK slaughter statistics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hence, in the UK, the number of animals used in experimental procedures is only about 0.2 per cent the number of slaughtered animals. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/1858/Attitudes-to-animal-research-in-2016.aspx">MORI poll</a> found that as many as 26 per cent of the British public would support an outright ban on animal research and yet, according to an <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/vegan-society-poll-2016-topline.pdf">Ipsos MORI survey</a>, only 3.25 per cent of the British public never eat meat. Why is there such a disparity? Do the British public care less about the animals they eat than the animals that are used in research? </p>
<p>If we are to be consistent in the application of our moral principles, we should apply the same consideration to all animals that are used by humans, for whatever purpose. But if we apply the same ethical principles – in other words the three Rs – to the use of animals for meat it would would mean that: </p>
<p>1) Wherever possible, the consumption of animals should be replaced with other foods (Replacement).</p>
<p>2) If there is no alternative, then only the minimum number of animals needed to meet nutritional needs should be consumed (Reduction).</p>
<p>3) When animals must be eaten, great care should be taken to decrease the incidence or severity of inhumane treatment and procedures (Refinement). </p>
<p>Clearly, if we apply the three Rs to the production of meat, the meat industry would virtually disappear. </p>
<p>It seems unlikely there will be consistency in application of ethical standards for animals any time soon. The double standard that exists between animals that are used for experimental purposes and those that are destined for consumption is ingrained within cultures and legislation. However, there are signs that the British public may be applying the three Rs in their lifestyle choices, whether they realise it or not. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/164161/original/image-20170405-14591-zwy6di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farm cows in a row while caged, ready for the slaughterhouse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/farm-cows-row-while-caged-ready-433480720?src=pSIhDAf1R8gYTMs5dkUHZQ-1-19">Alexandre Rotenberg/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to the Vegan Society, the <a href="https://www.vegansociety.com/whats-new/news/find-out-how-many-vegans-are-great-britain">number of vegans in the UK </a> has tripled since 2006, making veganism the fastest growing lifestyle movement. While not as extreme, <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/vegan-society-poll-2016-topline.pdf">51.3% of the British public</a> say that they try to avoid using any items derived from animals or that involve animals. </p>
<p>Certainly, the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/mock-meat-the-rise-of-the-vegetarian-butcher/">availability of meat substitutes</a> in UK shops is increasing tremendously. Refinement has also shown itself to be of importance to the UK public. This is clearly evident from the shift in buying habits that occurred after the efforts of celebrity chef <a href="http://www.bhwt.org.uk/people/jamie-oliver/">Jamie Oliver</a> to raise awareness of the conditions in which battery hens are kept. About 80 per cent of the British public now buy free range or organic eggs. </p>
<p>There is no good reason why, if the three Rs are an accepted requirement for the use of animals in experimentation, that they should not also be a requirement for the use of animals in the meat industry. The fact that this notion is readily accepted within animal research, but not even discussed in regard to the use of animals in the production of meat, is a clear example of double standards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Chatfield is a vegetarian but not affiliated to any animal rights or animal welfare organisations.</span></em></p>Ethical codes on animal experimentation lay down strict rules about the treatment of lab animals. Animals headed to the slaughter house are not so lucky.Kate Chatfield, Deputy Director Of The Centre For Professional Ethics, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/381762015-03-09T01:58:52Z2015-03-09T01:58:52ZMeat the future: new book sets out the effects of the world’s diet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74037/original/image-20150306-3321-wzaytk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C335%2C3970%2C2622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Farming makes a huge contribution to global greenhouse emissions, mainly through methane from livestock.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Billy Hathorn/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The merits of eating less (or no) meat in a bid to improve environmental sustainability have been frequently debated <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-enough-to-go-vegetarian-to-fight-climate-change-37763">in these pages</a> and elsewhere.</p>
<p>This week saw the launch of a new book, <a href="http://www.ngpf.nl/en/2015/02/18/book-meat-the-future-how-cutting-meat-consumption-can-feed-billions-more/">Meat, The Future: How Cutting Meat Consumption Can Feed Billions More</a>, which delves deep into this question, covering meat-related issues ranging from water and carbon intensity, to health and food security. One chapter, written by us, focuses on the influence of dietary choices on world phosphorus use from fertilisers, and the fate of these nutrients in the ecosphere.</p>
<p>It’s an issue that has already gained plenty of attention. When Al Gore released his influential 2006 movie, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/">An Inconvenient Truth</a>, he focused on how changing our energy systems could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore mitigate climate change. But he was roundly criticised for ignoring another significant source of greenhouse gases: livestock and eating meat. (To his credit, Gore took this critique on board and subsequently <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/11/25/al-gore-goes-vegan-with-little-fanfare/">adopted a plant-based diet</a>.)</p>
<p>The same year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation released a watershed <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM">report</a> on the environmental impacts of livestock production, finding it responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions – a bigger share than transport (although its analysis was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/mar/24/un-meat-report-climate-change">subsequently debated</a>).</p>
<p>Then, in 2009, the Worldwatch Institute <a href="http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294">estimated</a> that the production of animal-based foods (meat, dairy, eggs) across the whole production chain accounts for 51% of greenhouse emissions. The difference between the two estimates was mainly down to differing assumptions about the lifetime of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere. </p>
<p>There can be no doubt that it is a significant and growing contributor. Half of the world’s grain is now used to produce animal feed, and animal consumption is <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM">projected to double between 2000 and 2050</a>. The linkage between food, diet and global sustainability has not had the attention that it deserves.</p>
<h2>Global resource use and dietary choices</h2>
<p>Phosphorus is a unique and critical global resource, essential for growing crops (as for nitrogen) but impossible to substitute or manufacture. The world’s main source of phosphorus fertiliser is <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-010213-113300">highly concentrated geo-politically</a> (more so than oil), and with production likely to peak this century. The use of phosphorus is influenced by changing diets in a major way, with the global growth in per capita consumption being driven by the increase in the consumption of animal products.</p>
<p>Why do animal products have such a disproportionate impact on resource use and waste generation? The main reason is that eating animal products is a very inefficient way of getting the dietary resources we need, including and especially protein. On average, it takes three to ten times the amount of resources to produce a unit of animal protein as it does for plant-based foods. As farming becomes more industrialised, we are feeding animals with food that we could simply eat ourselves.</p>
<p>As it happens, in some high-income countries, people are increasingly losing their appetite for meat and other animal products such as dairy. Consumption is <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901114000562">plateauing and declining</a>. Certainly a contributor to this is awareness of the health implications of the high levels of meat consumption that are the norm in rich countries. Just in the past fortnight, new <a href="http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015.asp">US government dietary guidelines</a> have recommended a reduction in meat consumption, explicitly linking diet to environmental impact.</p>
<p>However, the consumption of meat and dairy products is increasing rapidly in some emerging economies (including in South America and China), although less rapidly in others (India). This is the key driver for global growth in demand for animal products, leading to increased phosphorus use, greenhouse emissions, land clearing and biodiversity loss and health impacts. </p>
<p>Ultimately this issue will require, at a global level, the kind of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4994296.stm">“contraction and convergence”</a> approach that is being considered as a response to greenhouse gas emissions. Countries with high consumption of animal products will need to reduce their per capita consumption and give everyone the chance to converge on a globally sustainable level. In China alone, there are <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10018-014-0088-8">serious limits</a> to that country’s ability to sustain the phosphorus throughput that would be required if meat consumption levels were to rise as projected. </p>
<h2>The animal cruelty question</h2>
<p>Meat is a complicated issue. Its consumption impacts on resource use (globally critical nutrients, water) and waste generation (agricultural run-off, greenhouse gas emissions), land use and biodiversity, food security, health, international development and animal cruelty. Regarding health impacts, non-communicable diseases are emerging as the <a href="http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS08_Full.pdf">largest cause of premature death</a>, and <a href="http://www.odi.org/future-diets">in 2008 one in three adults in the world, a total of 1.46 billion, was obese or overweight</a>, a 23% increase since 1980.</p>
<p>Yet it is the animal cruelty dimension that generates the most heat in this debate, despite suggestions that it <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-enough-to-go-vegetarian-to-fight-climate-change-37763">should not be raised</a>. What is undeniable is that meat-eating is inefficient, involving far more plant and cereal production to create the same amount of food and thus must be a topic of debate.</p>
<p>The new book does not simply chronicle the problems. There are chapters that discuss the potential for modifying dietary preferences, in the interests of people and the planet. This is a vexed issue because of cultural norms, values, habits and the power of industry lobbies and marketing. The new <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-one-good-reason-for-eating-mainly-plant-foods-38378">US nutrition report</a> starts to provide some balance here.</p>
<p>But the question that the book leaves us with is clear: given that it is possible to have delicious, nutritious, satisfying food without the impact of our current over-reliance on animal products, why wouldn’t we choose that?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart White has received funding from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, the Potter Foundation and CSIRO for his work on phosphorus security.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana Cordell has received funding from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, the Potter Foundation and CSIRO for her work on phosphorus security. She is a non-voting member of the Board of OzHarvest.</span></em></p>Meat uses a lot of resources - between three and ten times as much as plants for the same amount of protein. The rich world might be slowly losing its taste for meat, but the developing world isn’t.Stuart White, Professor, University of Technology SydneyDana Cordell, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/296692014-07-24T13:38:33Z2014-07-24T13:38:33ZTwo-thirds of chicken is contaminated – and demand for cheap food is to blame<p>More than two-thirds of chicken produced in the UK is contaminated with disease-causing bacteria, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/23/-sp-revealed-dirty-secret-uk-poultry-industry-chicken-campylobacter">an investigation by The Guardian</a> has revealed. Although the bug can be killed by proper cooking, it is <a href="http://mbio.asm.org/content/5/4/e01364-14">estimated</a> more than 300,000 people in the UK get diarrhoea from this bug every year. More than 100 people die as a consequence, and many more developing long term neurological and gastrointestinal problems.</p>
<p>Despite the burden of disease caused by the bacteria called <em>Campylobacter jejuni</em>, it has remained “under the radar”, unlike the scares caused by bacteria such as <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_2519000/2519451.stm"><em>Salmonella</em></a> and <a href="http://www.foodsafetywatch.org/factsheets/listeria/"><em>Listeria</em></a> in the 1980s and 1990s. The problem of <em>Campylobacter</em> is on the top of the agenda for poultry producers and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and a major concern for our major retailers, but The Guardian believes that not enough is being done. </p>
<p>The intensive nature of production, transport, slaughter and processing gives the bug many opportunities to spread through flocks and between carcasses. In a large chicken processing plant, 200,000 animals may be slaughtered and butchered each day. </p>
<p>If the first flock on the line that day has <em>Campylobacter</em> infection, then there is a good chance that many of the whole birds or chicken portions leaving the plant that day will be contaminated. Good hygiene, cleaning and following the correct procedures are vital in reducing these risks, but it would seem corners are being cut and errors are being made that impact directly on food safety.</p>
<h2>How can the spread be controlled</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54790/original/ysx9n5j7-1406198200.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Campylobacter jejuni</em> is in your chicken.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Campylobacter.jpg">De Wood, Pooley, USDA, ARS, EMU.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Spread of <em>Campylobacter</em> is difficult to control in chicken production. Usually the bug survives in vast numbers in chickens’ intestines. Although it can occasionally make chickens ill, it is normally carried with no observable effect on the bird. </p>
<p>The bug also spreads very quickly within a flock. It is not clear where <em>Campylobacter</em> comes from, though the practice of “thinning” is the single largest risk of a flock becoming infected. The practice involves selling lighter chicken for early slaughter to avoid overstocking, whilst retaining the remainder for slaughter at a greater weight.</p>
<p>The controls that have been successful in reducing <em>Salmonella</em> in chickens are less effective in reducing <em>Campylobacter</em>. There is also no vaccine available. </p>
<p>Some methods of controls are under investigation by FSA and the poultry industry. These include blast chilling, lactic acid treatment and bacteriophage treatment, but they are costly and in most cases of questionable efficacy. </p>
<p>Ultimately it is a difficult balance between providing cheap and nutritious food and maintaining food safety for an industry that operates on small margins. There is no specific legislation for <em>Campylobacter</em> control, such as there is for <em>Salmonella</em> control. Introducing any legislation will increase cost, which could push production overseas where chicken can be produced even more cheaply but where standards in hygiene and animal welfare are lower.</p>
<h2>Longer-term solutions</h2>
<p>Ultimately on-farm controls, such as vaccines or breeding of birds that are more resistant to <em>Campylobacter</em> infection, are likely to be more successful. However, these are some way off and need greater support from government and industry. The focus on quick solutions to meet FSA targets on reduction of carcass contamination has to an extent ignored long-term solutions. </p>
<p>Another worry is that emerging variants of <em>Campylobacter</em> are more likely to leave the gut and contaminate the liver or muscle. This would make controls after slaughtering even less effective as they would be unable to penetrate into the organs.</p>
<p>The question I am often asked is: “Do you eat chicken?” The answer is “yes … but I ensure that any chicken I eat is thoroughly cooked and I always practice good hygiene within the kitchen to avoid cross contamination”. At present this is the best, and perhaps, the only thing that can be done to reduce the risk of <em>Campylobacter</em> infection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Wigley receives funding from BBSRC, EU and MRC.</span></em></p>More than two-thirds of chicken produced in the UK is contaminated with disease-causing bacteria, an investigation by The Guardian has revealed. Although the bug can be killed by proper cooking, it is…Paul Wigley, Reader in Foodborne Zoonoses, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/243132014-03-18T06:06:56Z2014-03-18T06:06:56ZMore calories from fewer sources means more profit and less nutrition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43734/original/y8zshjk3-1394641692.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Meatification'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bombeador/3478904230/sizes/l/">Eduardo Amorim </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The optimist”, wrote American fantasy fiction writer James Branch Cabell, “proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” Reading about the global food economy today one is reminded of this quip. On one hand, there is no doubting that the transformation of the food system has been one of the most dramatic, far-reaching events in modern history – less than two centuries ago the majority of the world grew their own produce for consumption. Since then, key developments in mechanisation, synthetic fertilisers, “high yielding seeds”, pesticides and herbicides, have all generated an explosion in agricultural production. </p>
<p>Modern agriculture has been able to feed a fast growing population with a wide variety of products even as agricultural labour was performed by far fewer hands. And now, for the first time, the majority of the world <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/urbanization/urban-rural.shtml">resides in urban centres</a>. For many of these citizens, food is a commodity like any other: it is purchased in a marketplace, removed from the conditions of its production. Gazing at the packed shelves in urban markets or leafing through gourmet cookbooks by celebrity chefs it is easy to see how dreams of abundance prevail. It seem we have conquered nature to provide plenitude for all.</p>
<p>But scratch the surface a little and one finds a rising vanguard of pessimists who look sceptically at such claims. At best this optimism is grossly amnesic about the systemic failings of the food system. Indeed for all its vaunted successes our global food provisioning system has failed to feed everyone adequately. More than 852m people <a href="http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm">go to bed hungry</a> at night, while globally 1.4 billion adults <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/">are classified as overweight</a>. </p>
<p>Recent shocks, such as BSE (or mad cow disease) along with <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Monster-Our-Door-Global-Threat/dp/1595580115/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394703890&sr=1-1&keywords=monster+at+the+door+davis">avian</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2737041/">swine flu</a>, have heightened public awareness over the health and safety <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/apr/28/swine-flu-intensive-farming-caroline-lucas">risks associated</a> with an intensive, industrialised food economy. Global spikes in prices for staple foods, riots and mob violence, and the intensification of foreign “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geoj.12063/abstract">land grabs</a>” all indicate that the contemporary food system is under considerable stress. </p>
<h2>The ‘meatification’ of diets</h2>
<p>But consumers are only one part of the picture. A <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/26/1313490111.abstract">recent landmark study</a> of worldwide food supplies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America has cast fresh light on worrying trends in global food production. The new findings suggest that human diets are converging across the planet as people consume more calories from fewer sources. </p>
<p>The rising consumption of energy-dense foods, such as palm oil and soy, is particularly troubling. In Indonesia, tropical lowland forests have made way for vast industrial palm oil plantations. As well as destroying habitats for endangered species and displacing local communities, rapid deforestation is known to be responsible for the release of climate-warming gases. The rise of palm oil production means Indonesia is currently the world’s <a href="http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6059">third largest emitter</a> of greenhouse gases, behind only China and the US. </p>
<p>In Brazil, industrial soybean production (along with invasive cattle ranching) has punctured huge holes in the Amazonian rainforest, the world’s largest and most diverse tract of tropical woodlands, and an area that ecologists refer to as the “lungs of the planet”. Tearing down these forests to ranch cattle and grow more soya might therefore be likened to the gradual asphyxiation of the planet.</p>
<p>The report also highlights the fact that we are in the midst of momentous global shift in meat consumption – what geographer Tony Weis <a href="http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/foodsovereignty/pprs/Weis%202013.pdf">describes as</a> the “meatification” of human diets. In his recent book Weis employs the concept of the “<a href="http://www.ecologicalhoofprint.org/">ecological hoofprint</a>” to stress the enormous but largely hidden social and environmental costs associated with this widespread transformation.</p>
<p>Dietary convergence, Weis makes clear, is a reflection of a food system designed not to meet human needs, but to facilitate capital accumulation and economic growth. Recycling surplus industrial grains through livestock, for example, has the economic advantage of converting cheap (because heavily subsidised) animal feed into higher value proteins in the form of meat and dairy. In other words, by harnessing the metabolic processes of animals, cheap and usable nutrition is replaced with more valuable (but not necessarily better) nutrition, and in the process the problem of price-deflating grain surpluses can be nullified.</p>
<p>Seen this way the industrialisation of livestock production, or “factory farming”, and the global meatification of human diets, “nutrition transition”, are the invariable outcome of capitalist agricultural production. So too is the increased homogeneity of global food supplies. Put simply: what is grown increasingly conforms to what is profitable. According to Weis, “a mere ten crops dominate the world’s arable land and generate about 75% of all plant-based calories consumed by humans.”</p>
<h2>Erosion of our genetic library</h2>
<p>Sociologist John Bellamy Foster warned <a href="http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb019x/">more than 20 years ago</a> that we are facing the erosion of our “genetic library”, as “a world system of commodity exchange” surrenders ecological complexity for the “simplicity of the commodified agriculture.”</p>
<p>This simplification of global agricultural is deeply worrying. More calories from fewer sources means agricultural systems are more susceptible to shocks (genetic diversity itself is a defence attacks by pest and pathogens) and poor consumers are more prone to nutrition-related diseases. </p>
<p>The correlation between increased consumption of meat, especially red meat, and rising levels <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697260/">of obesity</a>, <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/diabetes-full-story/">type 2 diabetes</a> is well established (though often controversial) and links <a href="http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/new-study-links-l-carnitine-in-red-meat-to-heart-disease-201304176083">have been made</a> to cardiovascular disease. This is in addition to the future costs of diverting resources to treat so-called “diseases of affluence”.</p>
<p>The question is whether these trends are avoidable. Certainly, but it means thinking beyond the current fixation on development-as-growth. The very idea of a “nutrition transition” tends to presuppose a certain pathway toward progress that places affluent consumer nations ahead of an imagined historical queue. Seen this way, development is a game of “catch up” and dietary transition becomes an evolutionary indicator, a way of measuring improvements in the lives of others.</p>
<p>Yet scientists have projected that if the entire world was to consume the same amount of resources as the average American we would require at least four additional planets. For this reason author and environmentalist Wolfgang Sachs <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Development_Dictionary.html?id=2bi_kf7QAq4C">warns that</a> it is not so much the “failure of development which has to be feared, but its success.” In such a topsy-turvy world perhaps the pessimist who rejects the optimism of the status quo is really the most radically hopeful of all citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Nally receives funding from a Cambridge Humanities Research Grant and from a Philip Leverhulme Prize. </span></em></p>“The optimist”, wrote American fantasy fiction writer James Branch Cabell, “proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” Reading about the global food…David Nally, University Senior Lecturer and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.