- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
The term ‘Factory Farming’ has floated past my crackly distracted radar lately. Chiefly because an influential group within- or close to- Westminster politics wants to see an end to it, because its ‘cruel’. And when I say influential, one of them apparently shares a bed with Boris, so it’s reasonable to make the assumption that her agenda would be heard.
I suppose the first thing to consider is what do we mean by ‘factory farming’. Curiously, without exception, the definition is taken to refer to methods of animal husbandry. It doesn’t matter how many mushrooms you propagate in a darkened building…no-one will complain. You can grow plants in the most artificial hydroponic system, and that’s fine. But shut one of God’s creatures in a shed with a few hundred of its friends, and you’re wicked. The more doe eyed they are, the worse you are. For the term- when used negatively- is without exception based on lovely-dovey emotional claptrap. But back to a definition. The common perception is of large buildings, stuffed full of animals –‘crammed’ is usually the word. There might be hi-tech feed systems involved, and temperature controls. A lack of natural light will be a given…in the common perception. The produce from factory farms will undoubtedly be deemed to be ‘sub-standard’
So what should we try and see through the emotive stuff? The reality is that intensive indoor livestock production is driven by the ever downward pressure on prices- to the point where a chicken is only worth pence. The process is facilitated by the use of fossil fuels valued the same way. But then, the same could be said of the exploding urban human population itself, ever disconnected from where food actually comes from. And the former is only a reflection of the latter. In essence, you get what you ask for.
Whether it’s right or wrong in itself is another question. There’s a blindness on both sides of the discussion to the ‘welfare’, health, and morality of these systems. While the risks are certainly concentrated and therefore increased, and it doesn’t always look pretty, taken as a whole the systems exist because they work. We might not like the way they look, but they are generally driven by simple economics.
There are other more subtle drivers. Rather murkily, there are instances where subsequent planning and development aspirations might –hush my mouth- fuel the desire to build lots of farm buildings. Redundant buildings might become a ‘brownfield site’ when a dip in the value of chicken wings causes a business to hiccup. It does happen, and I can’t condone it one bit. Equally, there is sometimes an element of ‘my dairy unit is bigger than his’ machismo, which somewhat clouds what is best for a farm or business.
But these are peripheral. By its very nuts and bolts, intensive livestock systems arise to produce cheaper food, propped up with cheap oil. And anyone who wants to complain that farmers are driven by profit is free to go and dig an allotment, and forage for nuts, berries and roadkill.
You also get into the business of confusing animals feelings, expectations, and moral rights, with those of humans. Animals are animals, humans have become something else. Despite what some nutters want to claim –for reasons I can’t quite get a handle on- you can’t attribute human rights to animals. Otherwise we’d be like the proverbial monk sweeping the path in front of himself, in case he steps on an ant. He hypocritically still eats his bowl of rice, grown by excluding some part of the natural world from its very existence, but deftly overlooks that.
Moving forward, you get into what some people are calling ‘fake meat’ – yet another substance was unveiled this week, cooked up in some Scandinavian laboratory.
No-one seems to be asking too closely where the feedstock –the ingredients- for this stuff is coming from. Often it’s soya, grown in what are essentially outdoor open air factory farms…if you want to talk about the intensity and un-naturalness of farming methods.
I find there’s usually a painful naivety to the urban whingers about farming methods. Unable to confront how massed hives of humans distort the world around them, they try and project Enid Blyton values on what they themselves cause.
Otherwise, a 2 story price system would be the norm. After all, you can buy ‘free range’ eggs, but a lot of people clearly don’t.
My own beast are kept in variety of situations, including about 40% of the cattle being housed through the winter. And the cows stood out amongst the gorse might look picturesque on a rare sunny afternoon….but most days, they’d surely rather be indoors out of the rain.
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine
I suppose the first thing to consider is what do we mean by ‘factory farming’. Curiously, without exception, the definition is taken to refer to methods of animal husbandry. It doesn’t matter how many mushrooms you propagate in a darkened building…no-one will complain. You can grow plants in the most artificial hydroponic system, and that’s fine. But shut one of God’s creatures in a shed with a few hundred of its friends, and you’re wicked. The more doe eyed they are, the worse you are. For the term- when used negatively- is without exception based on lovely-dovey emotional claptrap. But back to a definition. The common perception is of large buildings, stuffed full of animals –‘crammed’ is usually the word. There might be hi-tech feed systems involved, and temperature controls. A lack of natural light will be a given…in the common perception. The produce from factory farms will undoubtedly be deemed to be ‘sub-standard’
So what should we try and see through the emotive stuff? The reality is that intensive indoor livestock production is driven by the ever downward pressure on prices- to the point where a chicken is only worth pence. The process is facilitated by the use of fossil fuels valued the same way. But then, the same could be said of the exploding urban human population itself, ever disconnected from where food actually comes from. And the former is only a reflection of the latter. In essence, you get what you ask for.
Whether it’s right or wrong in itself is another question. There’s a blindness on both sides of the discussion to the ‘welfare’, health, and morality of these systems. While the risks are certainly concentrated and therefore increased, and it doesn’t always look pretty, taken as a whole the systems exist because they work. We might not like the way they look, but they are generally driven by simple economics.
There are other more subtle drivers. Rather murkily, there are instances where subsequent planning and development aspirations might –hush my mouth- fuel the desire to build lots of farm buildings. Redundant buildings might become a ‘brownfield site’ when a dip in the value of chicken wings causes a business to hiccup. It does happen, and I can’t condone it one bit. Equally, there is sometimes an element of ‘my dairy unit is bigger than his’ machismo, which somewhat clouds what is best for a farm or business.
But these are peripheral. By its very nuts and bolts, intensive livestock systems arise to produce cheaper food, propped up with cheap oil. And anyone who wants to complain that farmers are driven by profit is free to go and dig an allotment, and forage for nuts, berries and roadkill.
You also get into the business of confusing animals feelings, expectations, and moral rights, with those of humans. Animals are animals, humans have become something else. Despite what some nutters want to claim –for reasons I can’t quite get a handle on- you can’t attribute human rights to animals. Otherwise we’d be like the proverbial monk sweeping the path in front of himself, in case he steps on an ant. He hypocritically still eats his bowl of rice, grown by excluding some part of the natural world from its very existence, but deftly overlooks that.
Moving forward, you get into what some people are calling ‘fake meat’ – yet another substance was unveiled this week, cooked up in some Scandinavian laboratory.
No-one seems to be asking too closely where the feedstock –the ingredients- for this stuff is coming from. Often it’s soya, grown in what are essentially outdoor open air factory farms…if you want to talk about the intensity and un-naturalness of farming methods.
I find there’s usually a painful naivety to the urban whingers about farming methods. Unable to confront how massed hives of humans distort the world around them, they try and project Enid Blyton values on what they themselves cause.
Otherwise, a 2 story price system would be the norm. After all, you can buy ‘free range’ eggs, but a lot of people clearly don’t.
My own beast are kept in variety of situations, including about 40% of the cattle being housed through the winter. And the cows stood out amongst the gorse might look picturesque on a rare sunny afternoon….but most days, they’d surely rather be indoors out of the rain.
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine
