Humans, animals, and the environment face a universal crisis: antimicrobial resistance. Addressing AR and its multi-disciplinary causes across many sectors including in human and veterinary medicine remains underdeveloped. One barrier to AR efforts is an inconsistent process to incorporate the plenitude of stakeholders about what AR is and how to stifle its development and spread—especially stakeholders from the animal agriculture sector, one of the largest purchasers of antimicrobial drugs. In 2019, The Wellcome Trust released Reframing Resistance: How to (...) communicate about antimicrobial resistance effectively, which proposed the need to establish a consistent and harmonized messaging effort that describes the AR crisis and its global implications for health and wellbeing across all stakeholders. Yet, Reframing Resistance does not specifically engage the animal agriculture community. This study investigates the gap between two principles recommended by Reframing Resistance and animal agriculture stakeholders. For this analysis, the research group conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of United States animal agriculture stakeholders. Participants reported attitudes, beliefs, and practices about a variety of issues, including how they defined AR and what entities the AR crisis impacts most. Exploration of Reframing Resistance’s Principle 2, “explain the fundamentals succinctly” and Principle 3, “emphasis that this is universal issue; it can affect anyone, including you” reveals disagreement in both the fundamentals of AR and consensus of “who” the AR crisis impacts. Principle 2 may do better to acknowledge that animal agriculture stakeholders espouse a complex array of perspectives that cannot be summed up in a single perspective or principle. As a primary tool to combat AR, behavior change must be accomplished first through outreach to stakeholder groups and understanding their perspectives. (shrink)

There were excellent reasons to reform intensive animal agriculture prior to COVID-19. Unfortunately, though, intensive animal agriculture has grown rapidly over the last century. All signs indicate that it will continue to grow in the future. This is bad news for billions of animals. It’s also bad news for those who want an animal-friendly food system. Because the public isn’t very concerned about the plight of animals—or is concerned, but has a high tolerance for cognitive (...) dissonance—animal activists regularly engage in indirect activism. Indirect activism involves arguing that some cause that’s indirectly related to the activist’s primary agenda provides reasons to act in ways that are congruent with that agenda. In this paper, we consider the two indirect arguments that animal activists advanced in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic: first, some used COVID-19 to criticize intensive animal agriculture—many of these had US-based audiences as their target; second, and more modestly, some activists used COVID-19 to condemn wet markets specifically. We contend that both arguments had the risk of backfiring: they risked promoting the very systems that are worst for animals. We then assess the moral significance of this risk, concluding that while it may have been permissible to advance these arguments, there were some serious moral considerations against doing so—ones that weren’t addressed by flagging animal activists’ concern for animals or any other stakeholder in the discussion. In both cases, we think there are plausible precautionary arguments against the strategies that these activists pursued. Additionally, in the case of arguments against wet markets specifically, we contend that the precautionary argument can be supplemented with a side constraint condition that, arguably, activists violated insofar as they were acting in ways that maintain a racist and xenophobic system. (shrink)

Several writers on animal ethics defend the abolition of most or all animal agriculture, which they consider an unethical exploitation of sentient non-human animals. However, animal agriculture can also be seen as a co-evolution over thousands of years, that has affected biology and behavior on the one hand, and quality of life of humans and domestic animals on the other. Furthermore, animals are important in sustainable agriculture. They can increase efficiency by their ability to (...) transform materials unsuitable for human consumption and by grazing areas that would be difficult to harvest otherwise. Grazing of natural pastures is essential for the pastoral landscape, an important habitat for wild flora and fauna and much valued by humans for its aesthetic value. Thus it seems that the environment gains substantially when animals are included in sustainable agricultural systems. But what about the animals themselves? Objections against animal agriculture often refer to the disrespect for animals’ lives, integrity, and welfare in present intensive animal production systems. Of the three issues at stake, neither integrity nor animal welfare need in principle be violated in carefully designed animal husbandry systems. The main ethical conflict seems to lie in the killing of animals, which is inevitable if the system is to deliver animal products. In this paper, we present the benefits and costs to humans and animals of including animals in sustainable agriculture, and discuss how to address some of the ethical issues involved. (shrink)

The industrialisation of agriculture has led to considerable alterations at both the technological and economical levels of animal farming. Several animal welfare issues of modern animal agriculture – e.g. stress and stereotypical behaviour – can be traced back to the industrialised intensification of housing and numbers of animals in production. Although these welfare issues dictate ethical criticism, it is the claim of this article that such direct welfare issues are only the forefront of a greater (...) systemic ethical problem inherent to industrialisation. Consequently, this article provides an analysis of the foundational ethical problems in animal agriculture which derive from overly positivistic science and free-market ideology. It will be argued that both these ways of thinking allow for a systematic reification and commodification of animals and that this contributes to language and attitudes which cannot encompass ethical consideration of animals. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the use of gestation stalls in sow confinement facilities. Gestation stalls are metal cages used to confine sows during nearly the entire duration of their four-month pregnancy. The dimensions of gestation stalls are such that the sows confined in them can only take one step forward and one step back. The American Veterinary Medical Association’s policy statement on pregnant sow housing cites advantages of gestation stalls: Gestation stall systems may minimize aggression and injury, reduce competition, and (...) allow individual feeding and nutritional management, assisting in control of body condition. These advantages largely mirror those identified in the National Pork Board’s position statement on gestation stalls. A survey of the considerations the industry offers in favor of gestation stalls in sow production, though, helps to show that what it means for a producer to take an interest in animal welfare is quite different from what we might expect. (shrink)

When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just individual consumers taken as an aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

Animal agriculture predominantly involves farming social animals. At the same time, the nature of agriculture requires severely disrupting, eliminating, and controlling the relationships that matter to those animals, resulting in harm and unhappiness for them. These disruptions harm animals, both physically and psychologically. Stressed animals are also bad for farmers because stressed animals are less safe to handle, produce less, get sick more, and produce poorer quality meat. As a result, considerable efforts have gone into developing stress-reduction (...) methods. Many of these attempt to replicate behaviours or physiological responses that develop or constitute bonding between animals. In other words, humans try to mitigate or ameliorate the damage done by preventing and undermining intraspecies relationships. In doing so, the wrong of relational harms is compounded by an instrumentalisation of trust and care. The techniques used are emblematic of the welfarist approach to animal ethics. Using the example of gentle touching in the farming of cows for beef and dairy, the paper highlights two types of wrong. First, a wrong done in the form of relational harms, and second, a wrong done by instrumentalising relationships of care and trust. Relational harms are done to nonhuman animals, whilst instrumentalisation of care and trust indicates an insensitivity to morally salient features of the situation and a potential character flaw in the agents that carry it out. (shrink)

This paper examines discourses of stakeholders regarding global climate change to assess whether and how they construct industrial animal agriculture as posing a risk. The analysis assesses whether these discourses have shifted since the release of Livestock’s Long Shadow, a report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which indicated that the industrial animal agriculture sector as a whole contributes more to global climate change than the transportation sector. Using Ulrich Beck’s theorizing of the (...) “risk society,” this paper examines how various animal rights and welfare groups, environmental organizations, meat industry stakeholders, governmental agencies, and newspapers in Canada, the United States, and internationally investigate and construct industrial animal agriculture as a risk, if at all, and how their respective discourses conflict. The findings indicate that while some stakeholders acknowledge industrial animal agriculture’s contribution to global climate change, for the most part the problematization of animal agriculture has not increased since the release of Livestock’s Long Shadow, and the animal agriculture industry has seemingly not lost its power to “rationalize risk.”. (shrink)

The US Food and Drug Administration’s final Guidance for Industry on the regulation of transgenesis in animal agriculture has paved the way for the commercialization of genetically engineered (GE) farm animals. The production-related diseases associated with extant breeding technologies are reviewed, as well as the predictable welfare consequences of continued emphasis on prolificacy at the potential expense of physical fitness. Areas in which biotechnology could be used to improve the welfare of animals while maintaining profitability are explored along (...) with regulatory schema to improve agency integration in GE animal oversight. (shrink)

This paper examines diverse perspectives around the concept of responsibility concerning antibiotic use in animal agriculture. Antibiotic use in agriculture has been identified as a source of antimicrobial resistance, one of the largest public health threats today. In the United States, efforts to curb antibiotic use in farming draws on a diverse range of actors—including farmers, veterinarians, consumers, and public health advocates—and relies on a mix of industry standards and federal guidelines around responsible use. The paper selects (...) a similarly diverse range of people and employs Q methodology to query the points of disagreement and consensus around the practices that constitute responsible antibiotic use in animal agriculture, and who is responsible for antimicrobial resistance. We find a diverse mix of actor types across three discourses, but with clear differences between farmers and public health advocates. We also argue that, in some cases, points of disagreement and agreement are often based on different interpretations of ideas, indicating points of common ground where there might appear to be disagreement, and areas of difference where there appears to be agreement. We argue that these flexible interpretations of some of the key issues around antibiotic use are nevertheless grounded in durable differences in views of what agriculture is and what it should be. (shrink)

When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just consumers in aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

It is patent that society is evolving an ethic for the treatment of animals which goes well beyond the standard prohibitions against cruelty. This new ethic for animals takes the consensus ethic for the treatment of humans in society and extends it,mutatis mutandis, to the treatment of animals. Though this ethic has been applied first to research animals, its extension to agricultural animals is inevitable, and has already begun. This article explores the extent to which veterinary medicine and animal (...) science, the major scientific fields relevant to animal agriculture, can accommodate the emerging ethic. (shrink)

Agricultural technologies are non-neutral and ethical challenges are posed by these technologies themselves. The technologies we use or endorse are embedded with values and norms and reflect the shape of our moral character. They can literally make us better or worse consumers and/or people. Looking back, when the world’s developed nations welcomed and steadily embraced industrialization as the dominant paradigm for agriculture a half century or so ago, they inadvertently championed a philosophy of technology that promotes an insular human-centricism, (...) despite its laudable intent to ensure food security and advance human flourishing. The dominant philosophy of technology has also seeded particular ethical consequences that plague the well-being of human beings, the planet, and farmed animals. After revisiting some fundamental questions regarding the complex ways in which technology as agent shapes our lives and choices and relegates food and farmed constituents into technological artifacts or commodities, I argue that we should accord an environmental virtue ethic of care—understood as caretaking—a central place in developing a more conscientious philosophy of technology that aims at sustainability, fairness, and humaneness in animal agriculture. While technology shapes society, it also is socially shaped and an environmental virtue ethic of care (EVEC) as an alternative design philosophy has the tools to help us take a much overdue inventory of ourselves and our relationships with the nonhuman world. It can help us to expose the ways in which technology hinders critical reflection of its capacity to alter communities and values, to come to terms with why we may be, in general, disengaged from critical ethical analysis of contemporary agriculture and to consider the moral shape and trajectory and the sustainability of our food production systems going into the future. I end by outlining particular virtues associated with the ethic of care discussed here and consider some likely implications for consumers and industry technocrats as they relate to farming animals. (shrink)

The intent of this article is to outline, integrate, and interpret relevant scientific, economic, and social issues of rbST technology that have contributed to the acceptance dilemma for this product. The public is divided into social groups, each with its own set of criteria on which they base rbSTs acceptability. Criteria for the scientific community may best be described as physiological. However, for consumers, criteria may be more practical, or procedural, including human health, animal welfare, environmental concerns, and overproduction. (...) Because the business of dairy production depends on demand from the consuming public, the criteria for acceptance of rbST by producers largely reflects those of the consumers. Of necessity, producers are also critical of rbST from a business and animal improvement standpoint. Although this article demonstrates that rbST has met most physiological criteria for acceptance, the consuming public has treated the acceptance issue with forceful skepticism. The question this article addresses is, why? The authors comment that with rbST and other biotechnologies applied to agricultural animal production, it will be the responsibility of government health agencies, scientists, and manufacturers of the products to provide early, adequate, and honest public education. Attention to the concerns of the public may be the only means to prevent hysteria over this and future agricultural products of biotechnology and will, therefore, allow the public to form logical and thoughtful criteria assessments with respect to acceptance or rejection of each product. (shrink)

The intent of this article is to outline, integrate, and interpret relevant scientific, economic, and social issues of rbST technology that have contributed to the acceptance dilemma for this product. The public is divided into social groups, each with its own set of criteria on which they base rbSTs acceptability. Criteria for the scientific community may best be described as physiological. However, for consumers, criteria may be more practical, or procedural, including human health, animal welfare, environmental concerns, and overproduction. (...) Because the business of dairy production depends on demand from the consuming public, the criteria for acceptance of rbST by producers largely reflects those of the consumers. Of necessity, producers are also critical of rbST from a business and animal improvement standpoint. Although this article demonstrates that rbST has met most physiological criteria for acceptance, the consuming public has treated the acceptance issue with forceful skepticism. The question this article addresses is, why? The authors comment that with rbST and other biotechnologies applied to agricultural animal production, it will be the responsibility of government health agencies, scientists, and manufacturers of the products to provide early, adequate, and honest public education. Attention to the concerns of the public may be the only means to prevent hysteria over this and future agricultural products of biotechnology and will, therefore, allow the public to form logical and thoughtful criteria assessments with respect to acceptance or rejection of each product. (shrink)

Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare fully explores developments in the key areas of agricultural animal welfare assessment and improvement. Analyzing current topical issues, as well as reviewing the historical welfare issues, the volume is a comprehensive review of the field. Divided into five sections, the book opens in Part One by reviewing advances in animal welfare science, examining cognitive psychology, genetics and genomics. Part Two then looks at transdisciplinary research in animal welfare, with coverage of bioethics, (...) welfare and sustainability from both environmental and food safety perspectives. Part Three explores the process of translating science into policy and practice, followed by discussion on the global achievability of welfare standards in Part Four. Finally, Part Five highlights some emerging issues in agricultural animal welfare. This book is an essential part of the wider ranging series Advances in Farm Animal Welfare, with coverage of cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and aquaculture. With its expert editor and international team of contributors, Advances in Agricultural Animal Welfare is a key reference tool for welfare research scientists and students, practicing vets involved in welfare assessment, and indeed anyone with a professional interest in the welfare of agricultural animals. Provides in-depth reviews of emerging topics, research and applications in agricultural animal welfare Provides coverage of topics important to all agricultural animals and complements the wider series, Agricultural Animal Welfare, which will provide comprehensive coverage of animal welfare of the world's major farmed animals Edited by a world leading animal welfare academic, with contributions from a writing team of both leading academics and practitioners. (shrink)

How may emergent biotechnologies impact upon our relations with other animals? To what extent are any changes indicative of new relations between society and nature? This paper critically explores which sociological tools can contribute to an understanding of the technologisation of animal bodies. By drawing upon interview data with animal scientists I argue that such technologies are being partly shaped by broader changes in agriculture. The complexity of genomics trajectories in animal science is partly fashioned through (...) the deligitimisation of the productivist paradigm but continue to sit in tension around particular conceptions of sustainability in farm animal production.In spite of this deligitimisation process genomics is now being framed in the context of a new productivism (termed the livestock revolution) bound up in projected global changes in animal consumption during the first half of the 21st century. This potentially jars against both social trends that seek to re-enchant animal life and sustainability discourses which include social and environmental contexts. Nevertheless the possibility of a new productivism is supported by various interconnected trends including the emergence of a discourse of the 'bioeconomy' and a liberal regulatory apparatus for farm animal breeding technologies. Ultimately an understanding of the possibility of emerging new bio-capitalisations on animal life should be set in a broader context of competing agricultural paradigms as well as ongoing tensions over 'naturalness' in human/animal relations. (shrink)

Intrusive agricultural experimentspublished in New Zealand in the last five yearsare reviewed in terms of the degree of animalsuffering involved, and the necessity for thissuffering in relation to research findings.When measured against animal welfare criteriaof the Ministry of Agriculture, thirty-sixstudies inflicted ``severe'' or ``very severe''suffering. Many of these experiments hadquestionable short-term applications, had anapplication restricted to agriculturalproduction or economic growth, or could havebeen modified to prevent or reduce suffering.

AbstractMichel Foucault is well known as a theorist of power who provided forceful critiques of institutions of confinement such as the psychiatric asylum and the prison. Although the invention of factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses, like prisons and psychiatric hospitals, can be considered emblematic moments in a history of modernity, and although the modern farm is an institution of confinement comparable to the prison, Foucault never addressed these institutions, the politics of animal agriculture, or power relationships between humans (...) and other animals more generally. The few times that Foucault discussed animality or human–animal relations, animals and animality remained metaphors for humans and human experiences. Despite Foucault's failure to analyze human–nonhuman animal relations, a significant body of Critical Animal Studies literature has mobilized Foucault's work over the last decade. In particular, a number of scholars have taken up Foucault's writings to consider how relations between humans and nonhuman animals in agriculture might be conceptualized as instances of sovereign power, biopower, disciplinary power, and pastoral power, as well as why we may not think that these are power relations at all. This essay provides an overview of Foucault's accounts of power and of the Foucauldian scholarship that applies these accounts to human–nonhuman animal relations in animal agriculture. (shrink)

In this essay, we provide an overview of how production systems can be re-engineered to improve the welfare of the animals involved. At least three potential options exist: engineering their environments to better fit the animals, engineering the animals themselves to better fit their environments, and eliminating the animals from the system by growing meat in vitro rather than on farms. The morality of consuming animal products and the conditions under which agricultural animals are maintained remain highly contentious, and (...) when concerns about animal welfare are coupled with concerns about sustainability and global food security, the problem of welfare in animal agriculture constitutes “a wicked problem,” because it is unlikely that any proposed solution will simultaneously address all the issues of concern. In the final section of this essay, we offer some observations on how debate over reforms in animal agriculture could proceed going forward. (shrink)

Agriculture in Western Europe has become efficient and productive but at a cost. The quality of biodiversity, soil, air, and water has been compromised. In the search for ways to ensure food security and meet the challenges of climate change, new production systems have been proposed. One of these is the transition to circular agriculture: closing the cycles of nutrients and other resources to minimise losses and end the impact on climate change. This development aims to address existing (...) problems in food production but also raises questions about animal health and welfare. Although the role animals can play in this development is not ignored, the animal welfare dimension of circular agriculture seems to be overlooked. We argue that this is a problem both for the success of circular agriculture and for the animals involved. To substantiate this claim, we analyse the background to this lack of attention, which we find in (a) the way circular agriculture is conceptualised; (b) the institutional hurdles related to the legal, political and economic context; and (c) the concept of animal welfare, which requires further innovation. By analysing these aspects, we develop stepping stones for an animal-welfare inclusive concept of circular agriculture. These stepping stones include: recognising the animal as a participant with its own interests in the innovation towards circular agriculture; using a dynamic concept of animal welfare; a concept of circularity that provides space for social values, including animal welfare; and attention to institutional innovation by improving public engagement and building trust. (shrink)

Animals, Equality and Democracy examines the structure of animal protection legislation and finds that it is deeply inequitable, with a tendency to favor those animals the community is most likely to see and engage with. Siobhan O'Sullivan argues that these inequities violate fundamental principle of justice and transparency.

Nonhuman animal studies scholars have extensively investigated attitudes on animal welfare in general and farm animal welfare in particular. Thus far, this research has focused mainly on public opinion, but there has been minimal research seeking to explain the influences on actual policymakers when they vote on farm animal welfare legislation. This paper contributes to this literature by quantitatively analyzing 216 state legislators’ votes on two farm animal welfare bills. It hypothesizes that the representatives’ personal (...) and representational connections with agriculture best explain their votes on these farm animal protection bills. This research also includes three control variables: each legislator’s gender, race/ethnicity, and political party. Logistic regression revealed that the legislators’ personal and representational connections with agriculture are significant, but political party is the strongest independent variable explaining state legislators’ farm animal welfare votes. An interaction model revealed mixed evidence that political party moderates the influence of agriculture. (shrink)

An experimental survey was undertakento explore the links between thecharacteristics of a moral issue, the degree ofmoral intensity/moral imperative associatedwith the issue, and people'sstated willingness to pay for policy toaddress the issue. Two farm animal welfareissues were chosen for comparison and thecontingent valuation method was used to elicitpeople's wtp. The findings of the surveysuggest that increases in moral characteristicsdo appear to result in an increase in moralintensity and the degree of moral imperativeassociated with an issue. Moreover, there was apositive (...) link between moral intensity/moralimperative associated with an issue andpeople's stated wtp for policy to address theissue. The paper discusses the relevance of thefindings of the survey in the context of thedebate concerning the relationship betweenmoral and economic values and the use of thecontingent valuation method to estimatepeople's wtp of policy options with moraldimensions. (shrink)

Offers a forthright approach to the many disquieting questions surrounding the emotional debate over animal rights. This book includes a chapter on animal agriculture, and additional discussions of animal law, companion animal issues, genetic engineering, animal pain, animal research, and other topics.

Offers a forthright approach to the many disquieting questions surrounding the emotional debate over animal rights. This book includes a chapter on animal agriculture, and additional discussions of animal law, companion animal issues, genetic engineering, animal pain, animal research, and other topics.

Agriculture is facing unprecedented scrutiny for its social and environmental impacts. Many of the key choices it must make are fundamentally about ethics. Key issues in agricultural ethics explores key ethical debates surrounding agriculture and agri-food supply chains.These include issues such as animal welfare, use of labour, the effects of new technologies and the overall impact of agriculture on the environment. It considers the ways these ethical dilemmas may be better understood and potentially resolved. Edited by (...) a leading researcher in the field, Key issues in agricultural ethics will be a standard reference for researchers in agriculture and environmental science, government and other private sector agencies responsible for monitoring good agricultural practice, as well as researchers involved in the social sciences with a focus on ethics. (shrink)

Over the past century, animal agriculture in the United States has transformed from a system of small, family farms to a largely industrialized model—often known as ‘industrial farm animal production’ (IFAP). This model has successfully produced a large supply of cheap meat, eggs and dairy products, but at significant costs to animal welfare, the environment, the risk of zoonotic disease, the economic and social health of rural communities, and overall food abundance. Over the past 40 years, (...) numerous critiques of IFAP have been published, for both academic and non-academic audiences, mostly focusing on our obligations to animals. Here we offer a comprehensive critique of IFAP, focusing not only on our obligations to animals, but also important environmental, social, economic, and public health concerns. Our cumulative argument proceeds in five steps: (1) we briefly review the structure and key characteristics of IFAP; (2) we review the adverse effects of IFAP; (3) we review the historical development and positive rationale for IFAP; (4) we summarize previous moral critiques of IFAP, as well as defenses of it; and (5) we offer a moral critique of IFAP based on the common morality, and in particular on a principle of nonmaleficence, which we take to be the least controversial argument. (shrink)

We know that animals are harmed in plant production. Unfortunately, though, we know very little about the scale of the problem. This matters for two reasons. First, we can’t decide how many resources to devote to the problem without a better sense of its scope. Second, this information shortage throws a wrench in arguments for veganism, since it’s always possible that a diet that contains animal products is complicit in fewer deaths than a diet that avoids them. In this (...) paper, then, we have two aims: first, we want to collect and analyze all the available information about animal death associated with plant agriculture; second, we try to show just how difficult it’s to come up with a plausible estimate of how many animals are killed by plant agriculture, and not just because of a lack of empirical information. Additionally, we show that there are significant philosophical questions associated with interpreting the available data—questions such that different answers generate dramatically different estimates of the scope of the problem. Finally, we document current trends in plant agriculture that cause little or no collateral harm to animals, trends which suggest that field animal deaths are a historically contingent problem that in future may be reduced or eliminated altogether. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Why Species Matter Man Is the Measure Mild versus Wild Culture Clash.

Procedures that increase the sustainability of agriculture often result in animals being treated more humanely:both livestock in animal and mixed farming and wildlife in arable farming. Equally, procedures ensuring humane treatment of farm animals often increase sustainability, for example in disease control and manure management. This overlap between sustainability and humaneness is not coincidental. Both approaches can be said to be animal centered, to be based on the fact that animal production is primarily a biological process. (...) Proponents of both will gain from recognition of commonality and development of cooperation. A collaborative approach to humane sustainable agriculture will benefit animals, people, and the environment. (shrink)