Meat is Murder: the ethics of animal welfare

People adopt a vegetarian diet for a variety of reasons - concern for the environment, economic and world hunger concerns, compassion for animals, belief in nonviolence, food preferences, health, religious beliefs.  In this piece I will attempt to briefly cover some of the ethical arguments around the farming and slaughter of animals for human use.

It is morally ‘wrong’ to inflict suffering on sentient animals without a justifiable cause.

This is a statement which very few people would disagree with.  For example, I don’t believe any scrupulous person would attempt to defend factory farming on moral or ethical grounds.  The only argument for the use of such methods could be economical.  However, the low cost of such meat and egg production is passed on to society in the form of water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and pasture degradation.  In any case, the economic argument is now leading farmers away from methods such as veal crates, as stress and disease take their toll on intensively farmed livestock and, consequently, profits.

What alternatives are available to those concerned with the welfare and treatment of livestock?

The term ‘conscientious omnivore’ was coined by Peter Singer and Jim Mason in their book “The Ethics of What We Eat”. The health, environmental and animal welfare implications of a meat-dominated diet are well known.  Advocates of vegetarianism and veganism have been forwarding these arguments for decades.  However, not all are willing to give up meat or other animal products entirely, or perhaps are not convinced that it is necessary.  The compromise position is a diet which eschews processed meats and includes only sparing amounts of red meat, plus some white meat and fish.  An example of this is the low-meat diet championed by Friends of the Earth as a healthy and sustainable alternative to the average diet.

Buying only organic and locally-produced products further reduces the carbon footprint of our food, while also beginning to address the question of animal welfare.  The legal definition of ‘organic’ or ‘bio’ varies between those countries where one exists at all, but the stricter criteria will look something like those for the UK described by the Soil Association:

Organic farm animals:

·         Must have access to fields (when weather and ground conditions permit) and are truly free range

·         Must have plenty of space – which helps to reduce stress and disease

·         Must be fed a diet that is as natural as possible and free from genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

·         Must only be given drugs to treat an illness – the routine use of antibiotics is prohibited

·         Cannot be given hormones which make them grow more quickly or make them more productive

·         Must not be produced from cloned animals

Wholefoods, the ‘natural foods’ supermarket chain, offers a ‘5 step animal welfare rating’ to help their customers chose animal products which meet a variety of welfare considerations, from 'enriched environment' to 'animal-centred, entire life on same farm'. The Marine Stewardship Council promotes sustainable fishing and provides certification for suppliers that their products come from a fishery that has been “independently confirmed as well managed and sustainable”.  This gives consumers the option to support sustainable fisheries by buying fish with the MSC mark.

At the end of its happy, fulfilling life, the organic animal is sent away to be humanely slaughtered. The Humane Slaughter Association state that:

“Slaughter can be humane if an animal is protected from avoidable excitement, pain or suffering. To achieve this, the animal must be effectively restrained and then stunned, rendering it insensible to pain, and finally bled rapidly and profusely to ensure death before recovery could occur. If a stunning method does not cause instantaneous insensibility, the stunning must be non-aversive (i.e. must not cause fear, pain or other unpleasant feelings) to the animal.”

So-called ‘Happy meat’ has been ridiculed by many animal welfare advocates. Even in the circumstances endorsed by the Humane Slaughter Association, pressure to increase speed and therefore profitability, alongside human fallibility mean mistakes happen.  Footage of animals still conscious as their throats are cut or even as they are carried off to be butchered shows that ‘humane slaughter’ fails even by its own standards.Organic farmers pushing the limits of legislation in order to maximise profitability also lead to abuses, such as the organically-certified Bushway Packing, who were cited for inhumane treatment of animals, including two calves which were skinned alive. These concerns have left many unconvinced that slaughter can ever be ‘humane’.

While animal advocacy groups have welcomed improvements in animal welfare, they do not endorse ‘humane’ slaughter or welfare labelling schemes.  Such schemes, so the argument goes, allow conscientious consumers to feel good about buying meat because they believe the animals have lived fulfilling lives and have not suffered “unnecessarily” when being slaughtered.

But that word – “unnecessarily” – is key; is slaughter necessary at all?  We know that it is possible to eat a varied, well-balanced diet and to enjoy optimal health without meat.  So what makes the slaughter of animals and consumption of their flesh necessary?  Four reasons are commonly identified for eating meat:

Habit – I and my family have always eaten meat

Tradition – We Faroe Islanders have slaughtered 100s of whales for food every year for centuries

Convenience – Switching to a meat-free diet is difficult and will create conflicts with my friends and family

Pleasure – I love the taste of meat and seafood

Referring back to our opening statement, do any of these reasons provide a justifiable cause for inflicting suffering and death on sentient animals? Many of those for whom the answer is ‘no’ choose to become vegetarians.  But this presents another dilemma:  dairy farming creates at least as much suffering as meat production.  From artificial insemination, separation of mother and calf, to the discomfort of the milking process, dairy farming inflicts pain and stress on the animals at every stage.  The cows live longer under these conditions than those raised solely for meat and face the same slaughter at the end of their productivity.  So much so that many have claimed that a glass of milk represents more suffering than a steak. What about eggs?  Again, even on farms certified organic the conditions can be horrific. And that’s just the egg-laying females.  Male chicks cannot lay eggs and, as a breed selected for egg-laying and not for gaining weight, are not economical for meat production.  As they provide no profit to farmers, they are separated from the females and slaughtered soon after hatching, often ending up in pet food.

This leads some people to conclude that it impossible to eat any foods derived from animals without being complicit in inflicting unnecessary suffering on sentient beings. For example, animal advocacy groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have welcomed improved treatment of animals through organic farming methods, but refuse to endorse the farming of animals at all, preferring to urge their members, supporters and all concerned people to adopt a vegan lifestyle.

Some campaigners for the abolition of animal farming go further, actively opposing animal welfare certification schemes on the grounds that they foster more animal suffering by leading conscientious consumers to believe that they can still enjoy meat, eggs and diary without any animal having to suffer. One such person is Professor Gary Francione, long time vegan and ardent advocate of animal rights.  Francione argues that animals have the right to not to be treated as chattel property and concludes that, even if we were able to guarantee a 100% suffering-free life and death of animals farmed for food, it would still be morally unjustifiable.

I began by presenting a statement which I feel is uncontroversial and which very few people would dispute:

It is morally ‘wrong’ to inflict suffering on sentient animals without a justifiable cause.

What, then, is a justifiable cause for the continued farming of animals? Knowing that it is possible to enjoy optimal health on a plant-based diet, free of meat, fish, dairy or eggs, can a person continue to vote with their wallet for the exploitation and slaughter of animals and keep a clear conscience?

Smashing it Up: Meat is an ecological disaster - the environmentalist case for vegetarianism

People adopt a vegetarian diet for a variety of reasons - concern for the environment, economic and world hunger concerns, compassion for animals, belief in nonviolence, food preferences, health, religious beliefs.  In this piece, I want to review briefly the ecological argument for vegetarianism and veganism.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations.  In 2013, the IPCC delivered its fifth report in which it presented the strongest case ever made for human-made climate change.   The reports authors had dire warnings of the consequences of failing to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.  What I didn’t realise at the time of publication is that livestock farming is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human-related activities, more than the entire transport system.  In 2006 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) had published a report named Livestock’s Long Shadow.

The report collated the available data on the amount of ecological damage livestock farming causes.  The results make for very grim reading:

Livestock production, through grazing and production of animal feed accounts, for 70% of all agricultural land and its expansion is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America. Land use changes – especially deforestation due to expansion of pastures and arable land for feedstuffs – contributes a large share of man-made CO2 emissions.The sector emits 37% of anthropogenic methane and 65% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, with 23 and 296 times the global warming potential of CO2 respectively. Livestock are also responsible for almost two-thirds of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

The reports authors do not hold back:

“The livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.”

Water is becoming an increasingly precious resource. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions. As well consuming a huge share of the rapidly depleting amount of available freshwater, livestock also affect the replenishment of freshwater by compacting soil, reducing infiltration, degrading the banks of watercourses, drying up floodplains and lowering water tables. Livestock’s contribution to deforestation also increases runoff and reduces dry season flows.

In light of this, the fact that it takes 13,000 to 15,000 litres to produce 1 kilogram of grain-fed beef, but only 1,000 to 2,000 litres of water to produce the same quantity of wheat becomes very significant. When we consider the fact that water shortage is exacerbated by climate change, all the signs seem to be pointing the same way.

So, livestock production is not only destroying the atmosphere and degrading the land, but it is also causing huge amounts of water pollution.  I’m sure most readers are, like me, familiar with reports of depleted stocks of fish.  If so, you won’t be surprised to read that the latest World Review of Fisheries and Agriculture report states that the proportion of commercial marine fish stocks monitored by the FAO which are overexploited, depleted or recovering stands at between 25 and 30 percent. A major study in 2006 even predicted that all commercial fisheries could die out by 2050.

 Aquaculture, or fish farms, might seem to offer a sustainable alternative until we consider the fact that many of the fish produced in them, like salmon, are carnivorous.  Where does their feed come from?  You guessed it, wild fish.  It takes 5 tonnes of wild caught fish to feed each tonne of farmed salmon. Add to this the disruption to the local food chain and the pollution caused by fish farms and they are already starting to seem less appealing. Add to this the fact that stress levels amongst the populations of farmed fish are so high that the resulting stock loss is making it a major issue for the aquaculture industry.

But what about world hunger? Don’t we need to keep farming those animals to feed the millions of starving people?  Well, demand for meat certainly is growing in developing countries, but this is exacerbating the problem because meat production doesn’t just lay a great strain on water supplies, but it also consumes vast amounts of food crops.  In the UK each year, livestock consume more than half of the 20 million tonnes of cereal grown, over 50% of wheat and over 60% of barley. Globally, one third of the world’s cereal harvest and 90% of soya is used for animal feed.  The amount of land used for grazing and for raising feed crops is so great that a typical diet requires up to 2.5 times the amount of land compared to a vegetarian diet and 5 times that of a vegan diet.  The implications for efficient land use and provision of food for a booming global population are obvious.

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Evidence of environmental destruction cause by livestock farming is to be found on every side, from massive pig manure spills to huge ocean ‘dead zones’ devoid of life caused by the runoff of fertiliser and pesticides.

However, is it necessary to completely end livestock farming and fishing in order to end this suicidal destruction of our planet?   Livestock’s Long Shadow, the FAO report laden with the dire news of the environmental damage caused by livestock production, specifically calls for extensive reforms of the industry rather than its abolition, even suggesting that in developed regions, especially Europe, pastures have become a location of diverse long-established types of ecosystem, many of which are now threatened by pasture abandonment. The report by Friend of the Earth “What’s Feeding our Food” calls for "An urgent overhaul of the current model, and… policy changes in the UK and Europe to help create a sustainable and equitable livestock system for farmers, consumers, and the environment”.  This is consistent with their 2009 report "Healthy Planet Eating" which urged the UK government to promote diets in which meat was only eaten sparingly.

Champions of the organic farming movement have also highlighted the beneficial effects of animal husbandry in replenishing soil, while others have pointed out that the by-products of food crop production are often used as animal feed.  This is because both grasslands and croplands produce plenty of plant biomass that is not digestible by humans and that would be simply wasted and left to decay. In addition, processing of crops to produce milled grains, plant oils and other widely consumed foodstuffs generates a large volume of by-products that make perfect animal feeds.  However, all advocate for a large reduction in the number of animals being farmed because of the destruction of pasture by intensive farming. A study from 2008 found a global food transition to less meat, or even a complete switch to plant-based protein food to have a dramatic effect on land use, resulting in a large carbon uptake from regrowing vegetation. Additionally, methane and nitrous oxide emission would be reduced substantially.

Perhaps, then, it is possible to reform and improve livestock farming, and to regulate fishing in order to reduce the environmental impact of these vast industries. However, continuing to consume meat, fish, eggs and milk at the current rate is unsustainable.  For those who do choose to continue eating meat and fish, choosing locally-sourced produce and fish from Marine Conservation Society approved sustainable fisheries would lessen the environmental impact

Our world is facing extremely serious challenges to biodiversity, water supplies and, food supplies, as well as the growing spectre of climate change.  Considering that a non-vegetarian diet consumes 2.9 times more water, 2.5 times more primary energy, 13 times more fertilizer, and 1.4 times more pesticide than a vegetarian diet, as well as using 2.5 times more land, we can safely conclude that a plant-based diet causes far less damage than one including meat, fish, eggs and milk. Climate change is a problem to which there is no one solution, but adoption of a vegetarian or vegan diet brings benefits on so many fronts that it may be the closest thing to a silver bullet we could ever hope to find.