In Defense of Animals The Second Wave (Blackwell 2006) by Peter Singer (ed.)

Author:Peter Singer (ed.) [Singer, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-01-09T01:15:30+00:00

Jim Mason and Mary Finelli

replication cycles with an exponentially greater risk of a pathogenic strain arising. In early 2004, virulent AI raced through Asia, infecting thirty-four people, twenty-three of them fatally. An estimated 200,000,000 birds were killed in an attempt to control the disease. If avian virus merges with a human virus, it could more easily transmit between people and rapidly spread. Some scientists fear avian influenza may become the human plague of the twenty-first century.

Farmers (and the Rest of Us) Are Victims Too Ironically, the trend toward complex, expensive husbandry systems hurts farmers and rural communities. Those huge buildings full of specialized floors and feeding equipment don’t come cheap. Financial burdens are so great that factory farmers must continuously keep their buildings at capacity, working longer and harder than ever just to meet their loan payments. The tendency to operate at capacity in order to cover capital costs creates chronic overproduction in the poultry, pork, and dairy industries and drives down market prices. In this situation, many smaller and non-factory farmers cannot make a living so they quit raising animals altogether. Moreover, the high capital investment required tends to attract agribusiness companies, urban investors, and other non-farm interests with deep pockets. Thus, more and more production has fallen into the hands of the largest, most intensive operations. Government subsidies have also helped accelerate this trend.

The poultry industry, the originator of factory systems, offers a clear example of how the trend toward capital intensification affects farmers.

Chickens and eggs, along with pigs, used to be the mainstay of the small, independent family farm before the poultry scientists and agribusiness companies got involved. In 1950, independent operators raised 95 percent of the chickens produced for meat. Today, nearly all chickens raised for meat are produced and processed under contracts between “growers” and processors.

Prior to 1950, nearly all egg production was conducted by independent operators. Today, nearly 40 percent of eggs are produced under contract, with the remainder produced through vertical integration (whereby various stages of production and processing are controlled by a single company).

The farm family has been reduced to the status of “poultry peons” who turn out company birds on company feed according to company schedules and specifications. Similarly, in 1970 nearly all pigs were sold on the open 118

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