In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave by Singer Peter

Author:Singer, Peter [Singer, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Politics, Science
ISBN: 9781118712351
Amazon: 1118712358
Goodreads: 18120564
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 1985-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

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 market. By 2001, only about 25 percent were, the rest having been produced under contract.

There are many, many costs in the new factory methods and systems for raising animals, although agribusiness experts would have us hear only their talk of benefits. They are fond of using cost/benefit analyses to justify crowding animals, the use of antibiotics in feed, and converting farming communities to factory towns. They assert that the benefits to consumers from these practices outweigh the risks involved. But if this sort of test is to have any validity in agricultural affairs it must take into account all the costs of factory methods, which harm:

farmed animals, who are restricted, mutilated, manipulated, and ultimately killed;

the health of consumers, who are put at much greater risk for both acute and chronic disease;

the land, much of which is used to grow animal feed or is degraded by overgrazing;

wildlife, whose habitat is destroyed and who are killed by agricultural predator control programs;

the environment, polluted by pesticides and toxic animal wastes;

our limited supply of fossil fuels, their procurement causing environmental destruction and escalating international strife;

the atmosphere, polluted by fossil fuel use and methane gas, generated by the immense numbers

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