We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.ISSUE NO. 117
WINTER 2009
REVIEWS
NON-FICTION - MICHAEL ALLEN FOX
Marian Stamp Dawkins and Roland Bonney (eds) - The Future of Animal Farming: renewing the ancient contract. Blackwell, 2008
Given a projected fifty percent increase in global population by mid-century and the spectre of global warming, there are reasons enough for everyone to worry about the future of food. This collection of essays does not take a broad-brush approach to the topic, but concentrates on meat production, promising to investigate whether livestock farming can be made acceptably humane and environmentally sustainable. That neither of these goals is adequately met today is the
premise with which the contributors begin. Generally, the conclusions they reach are that progress can be made in both areas (and even has been, to a degree), and that a kinder, gentler type of animal agriculture can still provide high-quality food, profitably produced. In this new regime, self-interest and doing the right thing can coincide – always a
laudable state of affairs.
Most of the book is devoted to the issue of humaneness (or ‘animal welfare’). Several contributions (including those by the editors and by Temple Grandin, the American expert on livestock behaviour and facility design) focus on the need to determine scientifically what animals’ needs really are, instead of what we might think they are, as a prelude to making rearing, handling, transport, and slaughter less prone to cause pain, suffering and stress. This initiative is seen as a return to a more traditional relationship between livestock and farmers – to a husbandry model that has been corrupted by the relentless march of industrial capitalism. Kate Rawles, a freelance writer interested in food issues, points out that farmers have become trapped by the logic of economics into an ethically deficient and environmentally destructive food production pattern that has spread across the globe, reflecting ‘an outdated and inappropriate worldview and ethic’ of irresponsible and unlimited exploitation of nature. While one can perceive such a historical development, a somewhat romanticised view of ‘how things used to be,’ of the ‘ancient contract’ between humans and animals, prevails in this book. (Philosopher Bernard Rollin, though guilty as charged, places more weight in his piece on the notion of symbiosis, which better captures the essence of the past relationship between farmers and their animals.)
A major problem in improving the welfare of farm animals is the imbalance between what consumers want and are willing to pay for, on the one hand, and what the principles of best practice require of farmers, on the other. Many consumers, when surveyed, express revulsion over things like the intensive confinement systems that produce most eggs; yet fewer are willing to pay extra for certified organic, free range eggs. Contributors to this volume disagree on the amount of transparency members of the public demand here, with Sir
Colin Spedding, an adviser to both industry and welfare organisations, maintaining that ‘evidence at this time is that only a small niche segment of the market does in fact value higher welfare standards for animal products to the extent that they will positively seek them out and pay a premium for them’. Sometimes, of course, consumers don’t even know
about cruel standard procedures, such as the tail docking of pigs in overcrowded environments. Ironically, in this book, it takes high-placed representatives of Tesco, one of the world’s largest food retailers (Michelle Waterman) and McDonald’s (Keith Kenny) to advocate that corporations should absorb the cost of best practice even in areas like this, where there is no consumer awareness of a problem and hence, no corresponding demand for its rectification. Other authors note that better welfare for animals and higher levels of profit can be made complementary rather than antagonistic goals.
Although the editors extol the agricultural goals of animal welfare and sustainability, very little space is devoted to the latter, with two nationwide provider of organic meat in the UK, and Colin Tudge, a well-known writer on holistic philosophies of food production, the place of humans in the natural order and proportionate agricultural development that their co-authors seem to lack. Browning observes that ‘The whole point of developing an aspirational system of farming that we now term “organic” was the reconciling of the myriad strands of need and care of planet, people, and animals into a practical approach’, one that will ‘integrate livestock into farming systems so that they both benefit the land and benefit from it’. Tudge argues that an ‘enlightened’ type of agriculture – one that truly reflects human needs, as well as the limits to which use of animals, plants and the land can reasonably be extended – would yield enough food for everyone on earth to enjoy a diet featuring ‘lots of plants, not much meat, and maximum variety’.
Plainly, this is the only way to go if there is to be a future for animal agriculture. Radical rethinking of the industry is urgent. Unfortunately, all indications are that the impact of animal agriculture on the planet – already monumental – seems destined to increase exponentially. Cutting meat consumption drastically through personal choice is unlikely to catch on as a widespread trend, since the momentum today, globally, is in the opposite direction. (The editors say that by 2050 world meat production will be double what it was in 2000.)
Where does this leave us? The option of eliminating meat altogether from the human diet doesn’t get aired in The Future of Animal Farming, nor would one expect it to, given the context of discussion. Yet the editors unwittingly invite us to weigh this possibility when they state that ‘animals matter for themselves’, and that ‘The terms of the new contract must reflect what really does improve animal health and what really does give them what they want’. To consider these points seriously, however, could spell the animals’ liberation and hence, the end of animal farming altogether. Are we collectively prepared to go there? Surely this subject must be energetically debated sometime in the near future.
MICHAEL ALLEN FOX has written on issues in animal ethics for many years. After a career of teaching philosophy at Queen’s University in Canada, he retired in 2005 and now lives in Armidale, NSW, where he is Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities, University of New England. His books include Deep Vegetarianism (1999) and The Remarkable Existentialists (2008).
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