EXAMINING SLAUGHTER AND LIMITING CONSUMPTION
The killing of animals has long been a part of human existence, and that is unlikely to change. For many, the most troubling part of raising animals for food is that they must die. Even those animals involved in dairy and egg production are eventually killed (not to mention the “surplus” animals produced by those industries, who are killed at a very young age). While death is a loss of a kind, it is an inevitable one. If done well, the killing of livestock animals can involve little pain and suffering. To make this possible, though, on-site slaughter involving fewer animals would need to be the norm, and social groups would need to be slaughtered at the same time to minimize social stress. Currently, however, the animal slaughter and processing industry in the United States suffers from many of the same problems of centralization and scale that plague industrialized farming. If consumer demand went down and consumers paid more for what they ate and used, the quality of the animals’ life and death could change dramatically, improving the lives of the humans who farm and kill the animals as well.
The slaughter and processing industry occupies a place in “animal production” where the treatment of the animal beings has clear parallels to the treatment of human beings. In this setting both the human and livestock animals are treated as pieces of a machine and there is little to no regard for their physical, social, and emotional well-being. In his book Every Twelve Seconds, Timothy Pachirat shows how the lives and deaths of the cattle in an Omaha slaughterhouse mirror the lives of the human employees who do the work of turning cattle into beef for a consuming public that is kept in the dark and at a distance. Working in the chutes to send the cattle to the “knocker,” in the cooler hanging livers, and in a quality control position for the slaughterhouse, Pachirat describes how the business of killing is kept out of the minds even of the employees working there, not to mention the distanced consumer. Most people working in the slaughterhouse do not think of themselves as involved in the killing of cattle even though they work on the “kill floor.” The “knocker” is seen as the one who kills. When Pachirat expresses interest in learning to be a knocker he is discouraged:
“Man, that will mess you up. Knockers have to see a psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever they’re called every three months.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because, man, that’s killing,” he says, “that shit will fuck you up for real.” (160)
The other employees put the moral weight of slaughter in the hands of the knocker because he (it was always men) puts the gun to the head of a live creature and pulls the trigger. That this only renders the cattle unconscious and it is the sticker who deals the deathblow does not matter to them, since the cattle are no longer (or hopefully no longer) conscious when the sticker severs the carotid arteries and jugular veins (56). While hanging livers reveals the immense scale of the operation it is still “psychologically and morally segregated.” Pachirat notes, “I prefer to isolate and concentrate the work of killing in the person of the knocker, to participate in an implicit moral exchange in which the knocker alone performs the work of killing, while the work I do is morally unrelated to that killing. It is a fiction, but a convincing one” (159–60). The segmentation of the work into the dirty side (when the cattle have hides) and the clean side (after the hides have been removed) is just one of many ways that “the killing is neutralized” (84). No worker on the kill floor takes in the whole process. When Pachirat moves to quality control he is involved in the whole process but finds that the focus of that work is on audits. He said this focus transforms “the killing of live creatures into a technical process with precise measurements of when the procedure counts as humane and when it does not” (229). While he knows and sees the whole process it “fails to produce an attendant experiential understanding of the overall work of killing, demonstrating that surveillance remains compatible with compartmentalization and fragmentation. . . . The QC looks at workers but sees failure to sanitize knives. The QC looks and listens to cattle, but sees statistics on slips, falls, and vocalizations—quantifiable data points within a technical procedure designed to facilitate rather than confront the work of killing” (232). The reality of killing (and suffering) is masked.
In one of the most graphic instances of reality hiding behind an abstraction Pachirat discusses his reluctance to use electric prods on the cattle in the chute. He could move them with plastic paddles, but not at the speed the managers desired. He writes, “Once the abstract goal of keeping the line tight takes precedence over the individuality of the animals, it really does make sense to apply the electric shock regularly. Rather than electrocuting an individual animal, the prod keeps a steady stream of raw material entering the plant, satisfies co-workers and supervisor, and saves me from having to expend the energy it takes to move the animals with plastic paddles” (149). The same mentality applies to the workers in the plant. From the point of view of management, workers have no individuality and are seen as either productive or problematic labor. Spreadsheets “calculate total labor costs, pounds of meat produced per man hour, and the labor cost to kill, eviscerate, and split each cow. These spreadsheets, in turn, are summarized by week in yearly aggregates, an exacting metric, in dollars and cents, of whether the kill floor managers are maximizing the amount of meat produced for each hour of labor” (211).
The turnover in the industry is over 100 percent each year, and most working in it are immigrant men and former convicts (86). To obtain a job the men must come each morning to see whether there is an opening. All labor is “at will,” and so workers can quit or be fired without notice. This means that to be hired and stay employed, the workers must please and obey. Pachirat says that “application” passes into “supplication” (94). This situation has changed little since the 1906 publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Describing the management’s view of the men who were repeatedly disappointed when they assembled at the stockyard gates looking for work, Sinclair wrote, “While there are so many who are anxious to work as you wish, there is no occasion for incommoding yourself with those who must work otherwise” (22). This still holds true today, as do the basic jobs on the line and the pressure for speed.
Once hired, workers are pressured to do whatever it takes to keep the line moving. The segmenting of the tasks not only hides the truth but means that no one actually feels responsible for the quality of the product. They know that reporting a problem will get them in trouble, so they hope someone else will see and address things like fecal contamination. There is no attempt to enforce the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (1958) that requires that animals be insensitive to pain before being killed. In Pachirat’s experience this was as true for the supervisory and quality control positions as it was for those working on the line. The only thing they all had in common was a mandate to keep the inspectors from issuing reports. Speaking of a particular inspector, the other quality control person said, “This guy is not on our side, and it’s not our job to help him” (183). While many workers said they took pride in the work of producing clean and healthy meat, they also said, “We have to try to pass the product no matter what, and to beat the inspectors to the punch whenever there is a problem” (194).
What makes the work so hard, and health and safety impossible, is the speed of the line. This is something known to the workers, supervisors, management, and inspectors. But it does not change, except to go faster. In his book The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, Ted Genoways says this speed had consequences “up and down the supply chain—from the confinement facilities where high-density hog farming increasingly threatens environmental quality and animal welfare to the packing houses where workers face some of the most dangerous working conditions in the country and hostility from the communities where they live to the butcher counter at the supermarket, where the safety and wholesomeness of the food supply have been jeopardized.” He says his book “is a portrait of American industry pushed to its breaking point by the drive for increased output, but also a cracked mirror in which to see our own complicity every time we choose low-cost and convenience over quality. It is, in short, an attempt to calculate the true price of cheap meat” (xiii–xiv).
While Pachirat and Genoways are writing in 2011 and 2014, respectively, what they document is nothing new. From Sinclair’s work in 1906 to Gail Eisnitz’s 1997 book Slaughterhouse, greed is blamed for the speed of the line, endangering both human and other animals. Eisnitz’s investigation began when she received a report of a plant “skinning cattle alive.” If the “knocker” doesn’t get the shot right, the cattle can regain consciousness while shackled and hanging in the air. Their panic causes them to start kicking and thrashing, which makes it both difficult and dangerous for the “sticker” to deliver the deadly cut. This means the cattle can proceed to the “skinner” still alive and conscious. Sometimes the skinner can cut the spinal cord to cause paralysis and make the work safer, but the animal remains alive and conscious. These animals can break free and fall from the line, creating yet another hazard for humans and an excruciating experience for the cattle (28–29).
Complaints by employees are rare, due to their vulnerability and to retaliation against whistleblowers. Eisnitz did interview the “knocker” at the plant in question, who said “‘They [USDA inspectors] used to watch the animals stand up after I knocked them. They’d complain but they never did anything about it,’ he said. ‘Never. The USDA vet . . . would stand there to see how many live ones were going in. . . . She’d yell at me but she’d never stop the line. They don’t slow that line down for nothing or nobody’” (44). Problems that result from the speed of the line exist in all segments of the slaughter industry. Poultry and pigs are no exception.
Rather than being stunned mechanically with a gun, the pigs Eisnitz saw were stunned by electrodes applied to the head. Too much current results in “bloodsplash” from burst capillaries and lowers the value of the meat. She writes, “Plant managers didn’t want to slow down the line, ease up on the prodding, or train the stunners to do their jobs correctly. They preferred to simply lower the current to the stunning equipment. The weaker jolt prevented bloodsplash but often stunned the hogs only momentarily, if at all” (66). Eisnitz tells the story of a “sticker” named Vladak who was repeatedly injured trying to “stick live hogs.” In addition to the danger to the employees, Vladak noted, this also meant that once stuck the pig’s muscles contracted around the cut and they didn’t bleed out before they got to the scalding tank, where 140-degree water removed the hair from their skin (71). While Pachirat’s account of the beef plant focused on the psychic toll experienced by the “knocker,” in this case the person stunning the pigs doesn’t look them in the face. If they are not properly stunned, though, the sticker does. Vladak says, “There was one night I’ll never forget as long as I live. . . . A little female hog was coming through the chutes. She got away and the supervisor said ‘Stick that bitch!’ I grabbed her and flipped her over. She looked up at me. It was like she was saying, ‘Yeah, I know it’s your job, do it.’ That was the first time I ever looked into a live hog’s eyes. And I stuck her” (74). He goes on to say that the job took a toll on his family as he was unhappy and abusive. He said that the job made him emotionally dead and sadistic. Other stickers support this view, saying that the emotional toll is worse than the physical danger: “If you work in the stick pit for any period of time, you develop an attitude that lets you kill things but doesn’t let you care. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them—beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care” (87). Again, Sinclair noted the same issue over one hundred years ago when he wrote that “men who have to crack the heads of animals all day seem to get into the habit, and to practice on their friends, and even on their families. . . . This makes it a cause for congratulations that by modern methods a very few men can do the painfully necessary work of head-cracking for the whole of the cultured world” (21). Once he quit “sticking” Vladak got back together with his wife and said he’d never do that kind of work again.
He also realized he was of no value to the company. His complaints went unaddressed; his job was threatened. When a live hog kicked his arm and caused the knife in his hand to slash his own face, some at the company told him he was lucky. Vladak said, “That was the last straw. I decided my life was a little more important than somebody’s damn hogs” (74). He also noted that from the company’s point of view “nobody’s irreplaceable. The minute I left they just hired somebody else. And the minute he gets hurt bad, they’ll put somebody else down there. And the chain will just keep going” (76). As another sticker put it, “why protect workers when you can replace them?” (86). What Vladak misses is that the logic that discounts the lives of the hogs would also imply that human individuals don’t matter either. Sinclair presented this connection in The Jungle. After describing the horrible conditions he witnessed during a tour of the slaughter plant, the main character, Jurgis, says “I’m glad I’m not a hog!” The irony, of course, is that his life unfolds in much the same way as do those of the hogs. It is quite easy in the following passage to substitute “immigrant” for “hog” and the United States for the plant:
It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests—and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it, and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded impersonal way, without a pretense at apology, without the homage of a tear. (36)
As the story unfolds, Jurgis is subjected to the same math counting him as being as replaceable and disposable as the hogs. Few see and shed a tear for the cattle and pigs, and few acknowledge the injury, death, and poverty faced by those who work in these plants.
While the focus of this book is on the well-being of the various animal beings killed for meat and used for eggs and dairy products, it is important to note that the human beings in this industry are ontologized in much the same way—they are seen not as individual beings but as commodified units of production. Many ecofeminists have argued that the logic of domination operates in all kinds of oppression and will continue to operate among humans as long as it operates within our relations to nature and other animal beings. They argue that this logic extends to how the industry views the consumer as well. While consumer welfare is not my main focus here, it is still worth noting that feedlot production, the speed of the slaughter line, and all the infractions that result from that speed result in unsafe meat and animal by-products. As discussed previously, mad cow, E. coli 0157H7, salmonella, listeria, and campylobacter bacteria are just the most publicized examples of such concerns. Eisnitz says that while the USDA’s official reports indicate that 20 percent of chickens are contaminated with salmonella, reports of five particular plants in 1992 showed that number to be 58 percent before the birds were dipped in the chill tank and 72 percent after the cross-contamination enabled by that process. Even after chlorine was added to the chill tank (a health hazard of its own), contamination rates remained around 48 percent. Contamination rates are much higher for campylobacter bacteria—regularly 90 to 100 percent (Eisnitz 175–77). It is worth noting that in January 2015 the USDA announced its intention to lower the acceptable percentage of chicken parts with salmonella after an outbreak traced to Foster Farms. However, Eisnitz says, by 1985 there were 450 fewer USDA inspectors examining a billion and half more birds than in 1975. With inspectors having one and a half seconds to inspect each bird and no authority to stop production over contamination and given the fact that they can sample less than one-tenth of one percent of the birds at the end of the line, there is little reason to be confident in the safety of the meat that is packed and shipped to consumers.
In all of this, the workers and owners of the slaughterhouses are usually the ones who become the focus of any discussion of the morality of killing animals in industrialized plants. Pachirat asks whether it is the workers or those who eat the meat who have the larger share of the moral responsibility for the killing. While one of his friends argued that it is those who take the physical actions that cause the deaths who are more responsible, Pachirat disagrees. He says, “Those who benefited at a distance, delegating this terrible work to others while disclaiming responsibility for it, bore more moral responsibility, particularly in contexts like the slaughterhouse, where those with the fewest opportunities in society performed the dirty work” (160). Consumers evade responsibility by evading any experience killing and processing. Pachirat suggests that if consumers had to participate in some way in the killing of animals, in the execution of the death penalty, in the violence of war, or in the actual disposal of trash, such work would be radically altered or even eliminated—and that these continue in the violent and wasteful ways they do only because the majority of people do not directly experience the reality. At the same time, however, Pachirat notes, the segmentation of things like war and slaughter hide the reality even from most of those who do participate directly. It was not a reality hidden from the farmers we talked with who walked their cattle and sheep into the mobile slaughter truck and stood with them while they died, or from those who slaughtered and processed their own chickens. In many cases, though, the reality is still hidden from their customers.
In the treatment of the animals while they are alive as well as in the slaughter process, those carrying it out need to be attentive to the different needs of each species. Big slaughterhouses tend to specialize in poultry, pigs, or cattle—and with that kind of specialization it can be possible to improve the experience. Temple Grandin is famous for her work trying to see the process from the animal’s point of view and eliminating things that cause stress and injury. She points out that cattle don’t like yelling, sudden movement, or humans “looming” above them. She designed a curved chute with a roof to help keep the cattle settled. But, she writes, “there is no technological substitute for understanding and working with an animal’s behavior. The equipment I design is all behaviorally based; it will work only if you’re handling the cattle properly” (Grandin, Animals Make Us Human 169). She laments that many plants install only parts of her system since they fail to understand cattle. Grandin says that plants need to teach and enforce good handling practices; they need good “stockpersons” who can read the animals. When writing about the slaughter of pigs, she acknowledges that despite training, many workers revert to rough handling unless the management takes it seriously. One important thing to do, she says, is to “get the electric prod out of workers’ hands” (192). People get gentler and kinder without the weapon in their hands. But enforcement of humane handling at the plants remains a problem. One of her solutions requires working with the animals throughout their lives and deaths. She suggests training the pigs to walk single file to get to food at the farm. This would then transfer to them walking calmly through the chutes at the meat plant, lessening the need for humans to do anything to “push” them.
None of this addresses the problems of transporting animals to such facilities or holding them there. Eisnitz reports that hogs frequently arrive frozen in the trucks and are sent off to the rendering area to be used in feed, fertilizer, cosmetics, plastics, and other products. Some are still alive when found in the rendering area and may be ground up alive (102). Cattle travel twelve to fifteen hundred miles, collapse from heat exhaustion in the summer, and stand in frozen urine in the winter (not to mention the wind chill) (211). Cattle who are hurt in transport are called “haulers” and are sometimes dragged from the truck to the “knocker” (130). Pigs raised in confinement will often collapse on the walk from the truck and have “drivers [jab] meat hooks in their mouths or anuses and [drag] them through the chutes alive” (132). Sick or injured horses are dragged by a chain, pulled by the tail, shocked, or stuck “in the rectum till they bleed to make them get up” (137–38).
With cattle, for those who own and operate feedlots, there may be a slaughter plant adjacent to the feedlot. Smaller feeding operations, though, have to ship the cattle some distance, as centralization, and the increased size of these plants, has resulted in fewer being in operation. In 1997 Eisnitz reported that between 1984 and 1994 one-third of these plants (about two thousand) went out of business as the large slaughterhouses consolidated, reduced the workforce, and sped up slaughter lines. She notes that according to the USDA, in 1980, it took 103 plants (owned by fifty different companies) to slaughter two-thirds of the cattle killed in the United States. By 1996, 11 plants killed 40 percent of the cattle, and 10 plants killed 40 percent of the hogs (62).
Grass-fed growers have trouble finding plants willing to take their smaller lots (as discussed in chapter 3). This is why many sell animals “on the hoof” or use a USDA-approved mobile slaughter truck. The expense of these trucks makes it difficult for one farmer to own one, but cooperatives that share such a truck are increasingly common. Regulations do allow small farms to process a certain amount of poultry on the farm if they follow specific safety and record-keeping rules (the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act does not apply to birds). Since poultry generally travel the furthest, and in the most cramped conditions, on-site slaughter can greatly reduce the suffering (for human and bird) involved in poultry production if it is done well.
Horse slaughter has received the most public attention in recent years, resulting in the closing of the last three plants that processed horses in 2014. There is a long history to the concerns over the slaughter of horses that is tied to the plight of wild horses as well as the fate of many race, show, and pet horses. In the past, most horsemeat ended up in pet food (returning to some of the concerns with which this book started), but more recently it has been shipped to Europe and Asia for human consumption. Eisnitz reported that the USDA estimates between one and three hundred thousand domesticated horses are slaughtered each year (109). As I discussed in Pets, People, and Pragmatism, many people would rather be paid to “dispose of their horse” than pay to have a horse put down and taken away. When prices are high enough, horses are also stolen to be slaughtered. They suffer in the same ways that some cattle do—being dragged, prodded, improperly stunned, and skinned while still alive. The slaughter of “wild” horses, which is directly related to the presence of livestock on the western ranges, is also of concern.
While the whole history of wild horses in the United States is beyond the scope of this book, it is important to note that horses were indigenous to the territory. Early species of Equus were here twelve million years ago, with the “true horse” emerging about one and a half million years ago. This species is genetically linked to the horses who returned to the continent by way of Cortés. Many think that changing climate pushed the species to migrate but that their arrival by way of human transportation was a return, not an invasion of a nonnative species (Stillman 40–42). This history is important today because wild horses are under threat. These horses are the descendants of the domesticated horses brought from Europe who became feral, and those who classify these horses as a “nonnative” species find them necessary to remove. While environmental damage is often cited as a reason to remove herds (or reduce their numbers) the root problem is competition for the rangeland that comes from livestock interests (as discussed in chapter 4). In her book Mustang, Deanne Stillman notes that “stockmen considered them mostly expendable animals that shouldn’t have been on the range in the first place, recent arrivals to the ecosystem who were stealing food from cows. This view created a new alliance among old enemies, cattlemen and sheep men, who found a common foe in the mustang even as they continued their own war” (Stillman 238). Grasslands and water sources had been damaged by overstocking the range with livestock, but the mustang was a convenient and profitable target.
Given this attitude, an unofficial policy of removal was in force. As discussed in chapter 4, it took over twenty years, but the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was passed in 1971, offering protections for the horses and calling for the horses to be managed in ways that maintain a thriving ecosystem. Enforcement of the 1971 legislation has always been spotty at best, and the official multiple-use management assigned to the BLM led quickly to the reintroduction of mechanized roundups of horses and adoption programs. Many of these animals are not adopted, though, and remain in crowded conditions in captivity. Many of the adopted animals end up at the slaughterhouse (276). Stillman reports that this became profitable enough that “agency employees had allegedly been siphoning mustangs out of government pipelines, fattening them up in corrals, and then selling them to killer buyers—that is, brokers from the rendering plants who purchased horses by the pound. . . . Investigators estimated that as many as thirty thousand mustangs had disappeared from the pipeline” (279–80). Simultaneously individuals also took it upon themselves to kill horses on the range—using them as target practice. Some were used as bait for trapping and killing coyotes (also at the behest of the ranchers).
Attempts to save the horses from such abuse, and from possible extinction, have been ongoing. Several sanctuaries now exist for their protection. One motive behind the efforts to close the slaughterhouses that processed horses was to remove the profit motive that resulted in the roundup and killing of wild horses. This often includes an argument that horses should not be killed and processed in the ways other livestock are—they are seen as special. This argument is problematic for a number of reasons. It artificially divides horses from cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and fish. It reinforces the idea that the current conditions of transport and slaughter are fine for some animals. While I realize it would be a political nonstarter to call for the closing of all slaughterhouses, the call to end the slaughter of horses could have been used to limit and improve the slaughter of other animals, but this was not done. In fact, horse advocates went out of their way to reassure the livestock industry that this move would not endanger their livelihood. Nancy Perry of the Humane Society said, “There is a slippery-slope argument suggesting that ending the slaughter of animals not bred for meat and not consumed in America will lead to a ban on slaughtering all animals for meat. . . . Such fear mongering simply aids the interests of foreign corporations operating on US soil who buy our stolen and auctioned horses” (quoted in Malkin 20). This kind of activism pits species against each other and fails to address the larger logic of domination and exploitation.
Interestingly, it seems that any animal intentionally bred for consumption is considered fair game for the slaughter industry. Animals such as elk and bison who are bred for meat are processed with little to no complaint from the public. Alternative livestock such as bison present specific challenges when it comes to slaughter. Their size does not fit the increasingly standardized operations, and their strength and demeanor make them “less cooperative” than cattle. As a brochure from Bison Bluff Farms in Illinois notes, “their most obvious weapon is their horns. But their head, with its massive skull, can be used as a battering ram. . . . Their legs can also be used to kill or maim with devastating effect.” While their bison are grass-fed, “feedlot trials have shown that in the summer bison make better weight gains than cattle do on low-to medium-quality forages.” But this adaptation coincides with low weight gain in the winter, even on high-quality forage. This is true for elk and deer as well (Holechek et al. 393). These nondomesticated animals retain the feeding rhythms of their free lives and so do not “benefit” from feedlot production in the same way domesticated species do.
The rise of alternative livestock such as bison, elk, ostrich, and insects is an interesting and somewhat disturbing development. It seems that the logic of domination is being extended to “wild” animals in a new way. Long applied to justify the hunting and fishing of free-living animals, the view of these animals as a “resource” to be managed for human sport and food now justifies the practice of raising them in confinement and slaughtering them on a large scale. Bison are a particularly interesting case. While bison were seen as pests and removed from the plains to make way for the railroad and to “help” with the elimination of American Indians (see chapter 3), in 2016 the bison was declared the national mammal. But this status does not mean they cannot be culled, hunted, ranched, or eaten. If it is wrong to eat a horse, why does this not apply to the national mammal? Something further complicating this issue is that part of the allure of bison farming is the idea of recovering the bison and all it symbolized. This entails having bison out on grass in herds. Moves to commercialize bison farming into an industry resembling those for the main livestock animals run into an image problem. If bison are commercially bred, fed, and contained, they are no longer the animal they once were, since one allure of bison is their “wildness.” While bison ranching is often described as restoring the number of bison in existence (rather than reintroducing them “in the wild”), there is still a concern that the animals be “authentic.” Commercially raised bison found in a feedlot eating grain are not what the public has in mind. This kind of life transforms rather than restores the animal. The National Bison Association (NBA) stresses the importance of the romance of the bison and the need for “mystique marketing”: “On the one hand, the NBA and bison producers must continue to promote the romance surrounding the American bison. . . . On the other hand, we need to de-mystify bison so that consumers quit associating bison with the meat that is only eaten on special occasions” (Carter, quoted in Wilkie 98). To promote the romance, some bison operations “slaughter” by having people come “hunt and shoot” the bison. The Buffalo Ranch in Colorado provides such an experience, and not only does their website instruct their customers on how to shoot the animal but they also have the animal butchered and the meat packaged for the customer. They provide taxidermy services so that the customer can mount the head, take home the hide, or both. These “trophies” seem to be as important as the meat.
Wildlife conservation in the United States (as discussed earlier with Leopold) has often involved managing ecosystems to encourage higher populations of game animals that can sustain regulated hunting. Farming of these game animals is also increasingly common. While the husbandry of game animals is more common in Africa, it is beginning to take hold in the United States as well. The idea is that native wildlife species are better adapted to a specific area than introduced livestock, so they are ranched and slaughtered or hunted for their meat. Farming deer and elk is seen as environmentally friendly and profitable, as the farmer can make money from hunting and tourism as well as by selling the meat. Such farms often include a stocked trout pond or some system of aquaculture. The Agricultural Marketing Resource Center notes that “deer farming in the United States started in the early 1970s, when people began to look for alternative land uses. Today, it is a viable alternative livestock business. The farmed breeds exhibit strong herding instincts, are efficient converters of forage and adapt well to the farm environment. Also, the species used in farmed venison tend to be disease resistant and handle close association well. Some industry advocates consider deer as a livestock alternative that has the potential to boost a sagging agricultural economy without the use of subsidies or government incentives” (Burden). Deer and elk provide many “marketable products” such as velvet, antlers, musk, milk, meat, skins, tails, glands, livers, tongues, and other organs in addition to the “thrill” of trophy hunting.
Other animals, such as ostrich, emu, and rabbits, are also farmed for meat. While ostrich and emu numbers are declining, rabbit production is increasing. Almost a million rabbits are sold for meat, and many are raised for personal consumption—“rabbits have become the urban chickens of the 2010s” (Isaacs). Rabbits are not classified as livestock, so they are not governed by the USDA, but they are protected under the Animal Welfare Act. There are not many plants that slaughter and process rabbits, so most are slaughtered directly by producers or in mobile slaughter trucks. Notably, all the animals discussed here are listed as products and commodities by the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, not as animals. Rabbits pose a particular problem in this regard, as the public is more likely to identify them as pets rather than as livestock and be less willing to eat them or wear their fur. The center suggests using language that distances the consumer from the live animal to help with marketing—making Carol Adams’s point about mass terms and absent referents for her!
A little less cuddly, however, is the emerging market for insects. In many parts of the world insects are a regular part of the diet, and insect farming can be a good business. Insects are a source of protein and they require far fewer resources such as land, water, and oil to produce. They emit few greenhouse gases and can be produced in an “urban farming” environment. This appeals to people looking to eat in environmentally sustainable ways. In the United States there is resistance to eating “bugs,” especially if they are cooked whole. However, as with many other animals, if they are processed (hiding the individuals by grinding them into flour or mixing them into a cooked dish) more people are willing to try them. Many who object to eating the meat of pigs and cattle find insects preferable, as they seem less morally considerable. While bees and silkworms have been farmed for quite some time, the call to expand the eating of insects would expand such practices exponentially. Since insects are not mammals, humans can feel more distance from them (as they do with fish). However, many insects are highly social and seemingly intelligent. It is quite likely that they suffer in a number of ways when farmed and slaughtered. Some insects (as with some shellfish) are eaten, boiled, fried, or frozen while alive. Still others are sold to be eaten alive by reptiles and birds—as pet food. Insects seek out certain conditions and try to avoid others. Large-scale farming frustrates this ability and can rely on keeping the insects in conditions they would prefer to avoid. Temperature, humidity, and stocking density all have to be managed with particular species and individuals in mind. This is hard to do when raising such animals on a large scale. Given that most insect production seeks to find a way to “industrialize” the process to “scale up” and compete with other livestock farming, it is also clear that turning to insects as food does nothing to combat the logic of domination and the commodification of life. One still has to feed insects something (plant or animal) and then eat the insect. Given the large number of insects required to feed humans it may still be more environmentally friendly to bypass the “middle man” of the insect. This pushes others to try to find a way to have meat without any animal at all.
Interest in lab-grown meat is growing. While it is currently energy-intensive and relies on harvesting stem cells, those concerned primarily with issues of animal suffering find hope in this as a possible future alternative to factory farms. For my purposes here, what is interesting about this alternative is the near-total removal of the animal. It seems that rather than reduce meat consumption to sustainable levels there is a desire to produce meat without animals and without death. An assessment of the drive to produce lab meat might be made that is similar to Plumwood’s take on the call for veganism: that it is born of a desire to get out of the material cycles that govern animal bodies—to get away from bodies, excrement, birth, and death. From an ecofeminist and pragmatist perspective I find this troubling. While neither perspective is inherently anti-technology, and neither believes situations remain static, both schools of thought call for understanding the human in terms of relationships with the rest of nature—not for escaping nature. Shared dependencies and vulnerabilities help shape our being. Calls to master and control nature deny these dependencies and vulnerabilities and often result in many of the unintended consequences Dewey warns about.
These various alternatives for feeding human and other animals deserve some careful thought, but I worry that they all share a common assumption that humans should consume as much meat as they want. Despite some concerns about the soil, water, wildlife, climate change, or animal suffering, the general view is that these can be addressed in ways that make the eating of meat raised in industrial farms or labs a morally acceptable choice. There is some acknowledgment of the moral tension when people turn to animal sanctuaries as a way to assuage their feelings of guilt, remorse, or discomfort with the current relationships between humans and most livestock animals. There is a big show of the president pardoning two turkeys at Thanksgiving. When animals escape a truck bound for the slaughterhouse there is usually a public cry to save those individuals and send them to a sanctuary as well. When animals meant to be meat gain status as individuals, many people find it hard to follow through with killing and eating them. But rather than think through what this might mean for decisions about what to consume, there is instead a tendency to change the animals in some way, or to get meat without live animals, so that meat will pose no ethical or existential questions or concerns. This kind of thinking pushes us toward ideas like breeding blind chickens who won’t fight in the crowded conditions on factory farms, breeding lean pigs who turn out to be more prone to fighting, and genetically modifying salmon who grow year-round. Such scenarios fail to fully respect the needs and desires of the creatures involved. Instead they promote the human-centered view of the world that expects the rest of life to adapt to our needs and desires.
As I hope I’ve shown, a pragmatist ecofeminist approach provides a strong critique of this kind of human-centeredness. I have used this perspective to argue that much of animal agriculture in the United States is problematic for a number of reasons. The vast majority of livestock animals are in industrial production systems that fail to respect their needs and desires, require large inputs of resources (grain, water, oil, and land), exploit human laborers, and pollute land, water, and air. This system has concentrated the breeding, feeding, and slaughtering of these animals in a handful of vertically integrated corporations that exploit the animals, the farmers, other laborers, and consumers. Most of these corporations show little regard for the communities in which they operate, seeking exemptions from taxes and environmental standards. This system has made it possible to produce vast quantities of meat on a predictable schedule and so supply the large grocery chains, restaurants, and fast food franchises on which so many in the United States rely. Because these corporations are not required to pay for externalities such as the pollution their production systems cause, and because they benefit from programs such as subsidized grain production, they are able to make a substantial profit while keeping the price of meat, dairy, and eggs low. This has allowed more people to eat more meat on a more regular basis. For some this is a cause for celebration, as access to food should not be a privilege of the rich. However, from the start, this system’s scale and centralization have presented numerous health and safety challenges. The quality and safety of animal products is very much in question, and recalls have become a regular occurrence in the United States. While Upton Sinclair wrote about this array of issues in The Jungle over one hundred years ago, today writers such as Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Gail Eisnitz, Jonathan Foer, and many others try to raise awareness. Books about, and mainstream media coverage of, the various problems with the current food system abound. But the convenience to the consumer seems to override the array of moral, political, economic, aesthetic, health, and safety concerns. Most people continue to buy animal products from the industrialized system, and those products that are produced in other ways are presented as a niche market for “elite foodies” who have the time and money to seek out alternatives. But I don’t think this needs to be the case.
In the previous chapters I have sketched the history and development of the industrial system. While it arose as a response to a variety of problems, it itself is now a problem that we must approach with intelligent foresight. There are alternative approaches. I believe any viable future of farming must entail a critical examination of current consumption patterns in the United States (and elsewhere). I see no healthful and sustainable way to support the contemporary fast food and meat-focused diet of most of the U.S. population. We live in a culture of fads and excess. When this combines to focus on meat—like the recent bacon craze—it is dangerous on many fronts. Overconsumption of eggs and dairy products can also be problematic. Human health suffers, land is depleted, air and water are polluted, and livestock suffer. At the same time, I don’t see a future without the production and consumption of animal products, nor do I see a near future without the human use of animal fiber for things like leather and wool, and the use of various animals’ organs to repair the human body—often repairing damage done by eating too many of these very same animals. Many argue for the abolition of animal agriculture, but this is unlikely. Further, it may be a problematic goal.
While there are certain resemblances between the call to abolish human slavery and the call to end what is seen as animal slavery, I think there are differences that are important to take into account (as noted by Kimberly Smith—see chapter 5). The animal beings in question—cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish—are not capable of “autonomous” citizenship on a human model. While, in the past, arguments were made that some humans (e.g., women and non-Europeans) are “natural slaves” because they lack intelligence or certain capacities of reason, evolutionary history and lived experience tell a different story, and laws and practices have changed over time. However, while “human rights” have been formally extended, it is still clear that different lives are valued and protected differently within various societies. It has often been the case that formal rights were extended without a corresponding extension of genuine respect for those receiving the rights, with the result that the newly granted rights mean little in the lives of those who have gained them—and so sexism and racism persist. I would argue the same predicament would emerge if some animals gained formal rights without there being a more thoroughgoing change in attitudes about those animals. Livestock animal beings are not human beings, though, and it seems that even on a rights approach, a non-speciesist case can be made that any “rights” they might be due do not include a right to never be used (many of the farmers we interviewed make such a case). This is true for humans as well, but humans can insist on fair and compensated use. This does not mean, however, that humans can do as they please with the animals they use for food and fiber.
One problem with a rights approach (noted in chapter 5) is that it is rooted in classical liberal theory that presupposes a model of the individual that is rational, atomistic, and autonomous. Pragmatism and ecofeminism both reject this model of the individual and embrace the notion of a social self. Such a critique of the liberal self can go even further when considering how humans and other animal beings constitute each other. In her book Interspecies Ethics, Cynthia Willett draws on research that shows that “shared ecosystems or intimate symbiosis allow for mutual flourishing through ‘social behaviors’ found all the way down to bacteria, which communicate with each other and their hosts, most likely from their home in the gut, through chemical signaling” (71). This kind of cohabitation and co-constitution means that no individual exists on its own but rather only in complex communities of beings that include microbes, fungi, plants, and animals. Willett writes, “Organisms do not have clear and distinct boundaries that separate them from other living things. They survive cooperatively and symbiotically or in struggle, but not alone” (64). This presents an important challenge to the liberal notion of the autonomous individual, which means it also presents a challenge to the rights approach.
I have argued that we need relationships of respect rather than rights (this may be true for relationships among humans as well). Rights tend to focus on negative liberties—what you shouldn’t do to me and what you will be punished for doing. For instance, you shouldn’t kill me or take my property. With other animal beings there has been a similar tendency to focus on not killing them and not causing them to suffer. This minimalist approach of not harming, though, does not necessarily constitute a good life for the animal beings in question. Nor does complete separation from human use and relationships. Humans can help provide rich and varied lives for a variety of domesticated animal beings. Since many livestock animals enjoy social contact with humans (and vice versa), these can be mutually beneficial relationships. There is the possible added benefit of the animals improving the quality of the ecosystems in which they live; this helps a variety of “wild” animals flourish as well.
Further, even with something like the abolitionist movement, change does not occur all at once. The goal to end legalized slavery did not occur in one fell swoop, nor did the legal end of slavery bestow equality upon former slaves (or their descendants today). Such changes are always the result of more gradual processes (unjust and frustrating as that may be). While it is important to identify and argue against moral wrongs and injustices, habits must change along with laws; ways of thinking must make room for previously rejected or unconsidered possibilities. This kind of gradualist approach is rarely satisfying for those who have come to see the many problems with the current way of doing things. It is deeply unfair and tragic for those suffering the moral wrongs and injustices themselves. But untenable and extreme positions (the zealotry Fesmire critiques) create new moral wrongs and injustices. Rarely do we face all-or-nothing propositions, though.
I have shown a variety of responses to the current state of livestock production in the United States. Some try to opt out altogether. As discussed, though, vegans and vegetarians are still tied to the lives and deaths of livestock in a number of ways. Others seek major shifts in our understanding of, and relationships with, livestock. They work to make this shift operative in methods of raising, using, and killing these animals. Still others just tinker at the edges of the system with changes in labeling that may or may not reflect real changes in the lives of livestock. And, of course, there are those who like things just as they are. From a pragmatist ecofeminist perspective I reject the extreme of leaving the status quo as is, and I reject the extreme of calling for abolition. There are a number of possibilities (returning to pragmatism’s commitment to pluralism) in between.
One middle option that some ecofeminists support is contextual moral veganism or vegetarianism. Their argument is that one should be vegan or vegetarian unless one’s context (e.g., location, income, health) makes that not a realistic possibility. This position is not a universal or absolute call for being vegan or vegetarian but does maintain that a vegan or vegetarian diet is the moral default. At the same time, many of these theorists reject abolitionist views that call for the end of all relationships among human and other animal beings. As Lori Gruen writes, “not only are we in a shared community that would be destroyed if some of us were to be forced out of existence, but others (human and non) co-constitute who we are and how we configure our identities and agency, our thoughts and desires. We can’t make sense of living without others, and that includes other animals.” Since animal beings co-constitute each other and have coevolved, trying to end such relationships is a denial of who human being are and a form of moral evasion. Gruen continues, “We are entangled in complex relationships and rather than trying to accomplish the impossible by pretending we can disentangle, we would do better to think about how to be more perceptive and more responsive to the deeply entangled relationships we are in. Since we are already, inevitably in relationships, rather than ending them we might try to figure out how to make them better, more meaningful, and more mutually satisfying” (131). Like Val Plumwood, Gruen acknowledges that such relationships can entail a use component but argues that they must not permit exploitation. Understanding the dependencies and vulnerabilities that humans share with other animal beings (and the rest of the environment) exposes the lie that promotes the exploitative instrumentalization of these others while still acknowledging that “we can’t live and avoid killing. . . . Vegan diets are less harmful than those that include animal products, to be sure, but the harms and deaths occur nonetheless” (132–33).
Gruen argues that human relationships with pets often result in a moral obligation to assist with their deaths (euthanasia in the face of disease or when warehoused in shelters) but that raising animals to kill and eat is always a system “that violently instrumentalizes individuals in deeply troubling ways, obliterates their personalities and interests, and turns them into both real and metaphorical fodder.” For Gruen this applies equally to industrialized farms and the “so-called sustainable or pasture-based farms.” Her reason is the “painfully short lives and violent deaths of the animals used for food” (130). However, a good short life is not necessarily an evil, and not all killing is violent (or even stressful). While I agree with Gruen’s goal to minimize harm and killing, vegan and vegetarian diets (as already discussed) can inadvertently harm more animals (and the environment) than diets that include some meat and dairy from pasture-raised animals. Even if one chooses not to directly consume such meat and dairy, it is important to acknowledge that having some pasture-based animal agriculture is beneficial for growing the plant-based crops on which vegans and vegetarians depend.
In Meat: A Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie argues that veganism and vegetarianism are not the only ethically and environmentally responsible dietary options. In fact, he argues, in some circumstances they can be a less sound choice than diets that contain some meat and dairy. In the foreword to Fairlie’s book Gene Logsdon writes, “The no-meat versus pro-meat camps might ponder the lesson of Prohibition days. No doubt trying to make old demon alcohol disappear was a noble idea, but we learned the hard way that it just isn’t going to happen. And so it is with eating meat. As Fairlie argues, allowing for moderation works better for overall food security than trying to make farm animals disappear, and just might make it easier for vegetarians to follow their diet preferences, too” (viii). Fairlie agrees that with the current production model meat is an extravagance that only a few can sustainably indulge in (as are coffee, tea, wine, and chocolate) (12). While Fairlie sees no justification for the intensive animal agriculture that dominates the market, he does think that there is room for what he terms “default livestock.” Growing food to feed animals for people to eat does not make sense to him. However, some livestock can thrive on land not readily used for growing food for human consumption (cattle, sheep, and goats), and some animals can survive on various waste products produced by humans (pigs and chickens). So ruminants who can convert grass into an energy source humans can consume, and scavengers who can convert waste into consumable energy, are the livestock animals who should be raised; these are “default livestock.” These animals have the added benefit of providing nutrients that can be used to enrich the soil so that there is less need to rely on the petrochemical industry in order to grow food. The manure may also be a source of fuel. For some, such animals provide increased mobility and important companionship (24). Their death also supplies a number of “by-products,” such as pet food, leather, and feathers. The uses are numerous, and most of the alternatives humans have developed rely on petrochemicals and water in their production and add to the noncompostable waste stream that is overwhelming the planet. For instance, using hides for leather shoes can make good sense as they last a long time, can be repeatedly repaired, and are biodegradable. One example that demonstrates the complexity of one’s food choices is the growing use of palm oil as a substitute for animal fats in vegan foods (22). The animal suffering and environmental harm caused by palm plantations is quite significant—deforestation and the growing endangerment of orangutans is just the beginning.
Most economists and politicians seem to take the “demand” for livestock as a given and look for ways to increase the available and affordable supply. While the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recommends an increased reliance on industrial animal agriculture, despite the harms to the environment and small farmers, Fairlie suggests a reduction in consumption and a move to “default livestock”:
A vegan diet is one without animal products; the industrial meat diet advanced by the FAO is one that allows for anything that the consumer can afford and the producer can supply. In the muddy spectrum between, there are not many secure footholds, but the default livestock diet can be reasonably clearly defined as one that provides meat, dairy and other animal products which arise as the integral co-product of an agricultural system dedicated to the provision of sustainable vegetable nourishment. . . . As such it provides, not orthodoxy to which we should aspire, but a benchmark by which we can assess the sustainability and the environmental justice of what we eat. (42)
He wants to support small farmers “in their struggle against agribusiness” and he believes “the world would be much the poorer without domestic livestock” (3). In this view grass-fed ruminants and pigs and poultry fed on waste and by-products, when killed humanely in small abattoirs, are an important and sustainable component of feeding the world (67). Not surprisingly this is a view that supports much of what my students and I heard from the farmers with whom we talked, and it fits with the Deweyan approach to ethics sketched earlier in this book.
Animal welfare is not Fairlie’s concern in his book, though he is clear that a clean kill at the end of a good life seems far preferable to life (and death) on a factory farm or in a laboratory. He is not opposed to those who choose a vegetarian or vegan diet (though I find his caricature of them a bit unfair) and credits them with teaching the world that meat is not a necessity for human life. However, as with any all-or-nothing solution, he finds the call to stop eating meat too simplistic, given the complexity of food issues. He worries that without more careful thought, those interested in following a vegetarian or vegan diet may find themselves increasingly reliant on petrochemical-driven agribusiness and the technology of lab-grown meat—options that he argues are not in line with views that seek sustainability and connectedness to nature (9, 212–31). I think this is why Kimberly Smith also rejects the idea of a future with lab-grown meat in favor of one with small farms that include livestock. Further, any attempt to rely solely on plant products would require that more land be put into use growing edible crops, that the use of petrochemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds increase, or that both occur (84). (This is also noted by Nicolette Niman.) Both these options have problematic consequences for the rest of nature.
Fairlie’s concerns go deeper, though, and have some points in common with the views of Val Plumwood. He cautions the reader about the “vegan agenda,” which may result in a world without nature. He writes,
We are what we eat, and by eating animals we help to ensure that we ourselves remain animals, participants in the food chain that momentarily we head before we too become flesh for worms. By declining to eat meat we abandon our status as predator, ostensibly to take on the more humble role of middle rank herbivore, but increasingly to assume the roles of manager and absentee landlord. As we detach ourselves from the natural world, it fades to a spectral image, . . . a world we can no longer be part of because we are too squeamish to partake of it. As a species we are slowly resigning from nature, and for those of us who lament this tragedy, there is at least one consolation: That for some time to come there will be poachers lurking in the woods for the vegans and the wildlife managers will never catch them all. (231)
While I think this view paints an extreme (and disturbing) view of the beliefs of most vegans, it does raise a concern I share. When humans try to pull themselves out of any complicity in the death and consumption of other animal beings some strange things happen.
First, the idea that it is even possible to succeed in doing so is an illusion. Living requires eating, and all eating requires death. Even if one discounts the death of plants (which is becoming increasingly difficult to do), it is not possible to consume plants without killing (and often consuming) insects, rodents, and a variety of other small mammals and birds. The production of plants for human (and livestock) consumption harms “wildlife” by destroying their habitat. The felling of trees, the plowing of soil, the diversion of streams, and various forms of pollution just start the list. When such production takes place on a large scale, the use of monocultures and the reliance on pesticides and herbicides that this entails do an incredible amount of damage and result in air and water contamination. While “wild” animals such as wolves, coyotes, and sea lions (and many more) are hunted and killed to protect “meat animals,” animals such as deer, elk, pigs, and elephants (and many more) are hunted and killed to protect cropland. Even those people who grow their own plants for food kill and displace a whole host of other beings. The mere presence of a garden can disrupt an ecosystem as it attracts certain plants and animals to an area to the detriment of others. All animal beings affect the world in which they live, and their actions, including what they do and don’t eat, have an impact on others. Humans are no different, though the scale of human impact can be quite large and far-reaching.
Second, the attempt to pull out of human complicity in death seems to rest on our forgetting that we are food for others. Fairlie briefly alludes to this when he points out that we will become food for the worms. But we are seen as prey by most of the carnivores of the world too. Val Plumwood’s book The Eye of the Crocodile is helpful on this score as she reflects on surviving a crocodile’s attempt to kill and eat her. She said she had the sense of being watched before the “attack” and is quite clear that, while she fought back and did escape, she was the intruder in the crocodile’s space. She argued against those who wanted to find and kill the “offending animal” as she placed no blame on the individual and noted that many other crocodiles did not attack her as she lay waiting for help. But, historically, humans have had no such humility and have decimated animals such as crocodiles, big cats, wolves, bears, and others who might make humans their prey (as recently shown by the killing of alligators at Disney World after one drowned a toddler). I share Plumwood’s and Fairlie’s concern that there is often something in the impulse to be vegan or vegetarian that involves a desire to hide from our own nature as predator of other animals. It is not only the desire to not participate in the death of other animal beings, though, but also a desire to hide from the fact that our flesh can serve (and often has served) to sustain the life of others—that we are prey.
For most humans there is a deep discomfort with the thought of being eaten but little discomfort with the practice of eating others. Ralph Acampora argues that if one isn’t willing to eat other humans, one is being speciesist eating other animals. He sees contextual moral vegetarianism as a cop-out for allowing exceptions. Acampora thinks it’s difficult to see flesh-eating as respectful since “eating is literally a case of consumption, of using up some-body—such that there is no remainder whom one could any longer respect or care for/about.” Plumwood allows for some limited consumption, given that the eater will one day reciprocate and that this demonstrates the interdependency of all life (and death). Acampora is doubtful that many would actually reciprocate (at least not willingly), and so argues against making allowances for “so-called humane farming practices” (150, 152). He says the logic of domination is at work on all farms and farming remains “despotic and prone to oppressive backsliding as it perpetuates speciesist hierarchy in a crypto-sexist vein” (153). The argument is that since keeping, killing, and using farm animals in any manner can be potentially abusive, all such use should be avoided. With the added assumption of death being bad (especially “premature” death at the hands of humans), there remains no acceptable model of animal agriculture. Some contextual vegetarians argue that no farming will be morally permissible once in vitro meat is available and farming can be eliminated. But, for me, relying on lab-grown meat just deepens the illusion that humans are not part of nature with shared dependencies and vulnerabilities. Humans are both predator and prey. To look for ways to live and eat that deny such interdependencies is to reinscribe the mastery-of-nature narrative that ecofeminists critique.
The pragmatist ecofeminist perspective presented here does not deny the complex role of humans as both predator and prey, does not think all death is unacceptable, and does not find all farming practices to be despotic. Further, given the complex interactions among livestock and various “wild” animals, this view acknowledges it would be harmful to some ecosystems to eliminate all livestock production. However, the overall number of livestock animals must decrease if these relationships are to be ethical, sustainable, and mutually beneficial. Consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs must decrease. One way to help make that happen is to eliminate the subsidies that keep meat prices down and so artificially elevate rates of consumption. In Meatonomics, David Robinson Simon notes that money to promote consumption of animal products is provided by the very groups (the USDA) who caution against consuming too many animal products (7, 10). Further, he thinks that if more consumers were aware of the realities of livestock production, and the industry were no longer protected against criticism and exposure by “ag gag” rules and the labeling of those who try to expose the realities as terrorists, then things would change. For instance, if people understood that Customary Farming Exemptions (CFEs) undercut any real enforcement of anti-cruelty laws they would either lobby for changing such rules or change their habits of consumption (Simon 24, 36–39). Simon says, “Consider the case of Daniel Clark, a pig farmer who, in the winter of 2009, abandoned 832 pigs to die in an unheated barn in Pennsylvania. . . . Clark was charged with 832 counts of animal cruelty, but he pled guilty to only ten counts and was fined $2,500. The remaining 822 counts were dismissed, and he received no jail time” (40). Even with laws about animal welfare and humane slaughter, livestock animals really aren’t protected (not to mention that most rules don’t apply to poultry at all). But it’s hard to inform people and work for changes when the industry is protected by the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and the FBI labels “eco-terrorism” and the “animal rights movement” as the main domestic terror threats (Genoways 125–26).
Some of the most common welfare concerns can be ameliorated by eliminating the need for some of the practices commonly known to cause livestock animals pain and stress. Since dehorning is painful and stressful, farmers could either adjust housing and handling practices to accommodate horns or breed naturally polled animals. Since branding is painful and stressful, farmers could adjust range management so that such a permanent form of identification would not be necessary or they could use paint markings, ear tags, or electronic chips. Money is lost on the hides of branded animals, so there may be an economic incentive to push people in this direction. Since weaning (especially early weaning) is painful and stressful, farmers could allow offspring to stay with their mothers longer (ideally until natural weaning occurs), employ low-stress weaning techniques such as fence-line weaning instead of abrupt and complete separation, or use some combination of both. In Animals in Translation, Grandin stresses the need to understand that while humans and other animals share many characteristics there are also important differences. Good handlers try to understand the experiences from the animals’ point of view. She argues that while we need to breed responsibly so as not to create aggressive roosters or lame pigs, humans and other animals need each other and can read each other (176). She writes, “People and animals are supposed to be together. We spent a long time evolving together, and we used to be partners. Now people are cut off from animals unless they have a dog or a cat” (5). Reconnecting with livestock and reinstituting respectful partnerships will improve the lives of both livestock and human animals. All of these improvements would be more possible if the scale of livestock farms were smaller.
To help make that a more realistic possibility, Simon suggests a three-part solution: tax animal foods to increase prices and lower consumption, restructure the USDA so that it does not simultaneously police and promote animal products, and adjust subsidies so that they do not inadvertently promote animal suffering and environmental degradation. He argues that a tax on meat would be fair in order to help pay for the externalities in industrialized meat production. (It might be worth considering exempting pasture-based systems that meet certain requirements for animal welfare and environmental sustainability from such a tax.) He notes that this was effective with cigarettes (166–70) and it is increasingly being tried with products like soda. These are just some examples of possible ways to move forward in a way that might bring consumption in line with the scope of ethical and sustainable farming. This needs to happen in order to allow for the possibility of a future that promotes the flourishing of all life.
For those who care about animals such as horses, dogs, and cats, I have shown that those caring relationships and concern for well-being should transfer to the livestock animals on whom those pet animals (and humans) depend. Cats not only eat the meat and milk of other animals, but they are also often an integral part of farm life as they hunt rodents in the barns and fields. Dogs not only eat the meat, hooves, and hides of other animals but they too are also an integral part of farm life as they herd sheep and cattle, guard flocks, and sometimes form friendships with individual animals under their care. Horses find themselves in both the pet and livestock categories. They may be the animal cared for as a pet, the animal working other livestock, or a meat animal themselves. Some horses fit the “wild” animal category as well, as do some feral dogs and cats.
By now it should also be clear that relationships with pets and livestock implicate one in many complex beneficial and destructive relationships with “wild” animals. One example in this book is the complicated relationship between “wild” horses and grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. Why does it make moral sense to hunt and “remove” (but not eat) horses in order to make room to graze animals who will be killed to serve as food? Similarly, as I have argued elsewhere, it is morally problematic to argue against the eating of chimpanzees and gorillas in the bushmeat trade while eating meat from factory-farmed pigs and cows. It is hypocritical to criticize the Makah whaling practices while eating farmed salmon or fast food. It is counterproductive to contribute to organizations trying to save orangutans while eating vegan and vegetarian foods laced with palm oil. It should be clear that there is no one universally morally preferred diet; who and what we eat is a complex issue that involves humans in a variety of intimate and complicated relationships with a variety of other animal (including human) beings. We need to think carefully about how our choices impact these relationships and make changes to improve the possibilities of these relationships going forward.
To do this, it helps to recall some aspects of the arguments put forward by pragmatist philosophers that were discussed in chapter 1. Peirce focuses on the idea of human ontological continuity with the rest of nature (the common presence of mind) and the consequent possibility of understanding and communicating with the rest of nature. Domesticated animals in particular are in reciprocal relationships with humans, but all animal beings have personalities for Peirce, and we need to be attentive to these and take them into account in our relationships with them. James calls for an approach that also entails respecting others’ differences. Continuity does not mean sameness, and much can be learned from stretching oneself, encountering other perspectives, and being changed by them. Dewey emphasizes that life is always changing and generally seeks growth and “improvement.” Such growth, if it is to be successful, engages any particular aspect of life or situation as being in a web of relationships with other life. No one and no thing stands alone. Individual and species development depends on transactive (mutually transformative) relationships with the rest of the environment (living and nonliving). His theory commits him to seeing a continuum of traits such as intelligence, emotions, and consciousness in all animal beings and calls out respect for their individuality. This, in turn, supports Gilman’s and Addams’s call to ameliorate situations in which humans fail to respect socially rooted individuality in other beings and so to make real friendship a possibility. The combination of these views is summed up nicely by Plumwood when she suggests that humans need to acknowledge the presence of mind in the rest of nature, be open to mutual transformation, seek active dialogue with earth others, and aim for relationships of mutual enrichment, cooperation, and friendship (Feminism 131–39). This is a good model for improving human relationships with wild animals, pets, and livestock—and with each other.