Factory Farming

Factory Farming

Alternative Veterinary Medicine Centre

Extreme Farming

Factory Farming doesn't even pay lip service to the 'Five Freedoms'

The term 'factory farming' is an emotive one. Responsible farmers are justifiably incensed by this umbrella description of a legitimate trade. Consumers are rightly perturbed by horror stories. Welfare organisations are not always well-informed about the difference between ‘factory farming’ and reasonable farming.

As long as we have a nation or a world that eats meat and animal products, farming is going to be a reality. What is important is that it is done with respect for the animals involved, for the environment and for the human farm staff, whether it is labelled as ‘intensive farming’, 'factory farming' or whatever.

Factory farming is a term I reserve for the practice of serious exploitation of animals, at the extreme and severe end of the scale, with little more than lip-service regard for welfare considerations, for stocking densities, for environmental impact, for common-sense wisdom and for the welfare and dignity of farm staff. Squalor, deprivation and fear are the order of the day, in such systems.

I was appalled by the words of the Director General of the RSPCA, in 2001, when he said that factory farming is essential to supply the world’s protein for human survival. This is, of course arrant nonsense, since a large proportion of the world’s human population is vegetarian. It represents the words of vested interest, for the RSPCA has a foot in factory farming, with the Freedom Foods Scheme.

Battery cages (amazingly still used in the UK), densely-stocked barn systems for poultry, pseudo-free-range poultry systems, highly intensive pig farms, heavy dependence on agro-chemicals and/or drugs, the use of growth-promoters or enhancers, genetic modification, rape of the countryside, high disease risk and zoonosis risk; these provide the unacceptable face of factory farming and exploitative animal or countryside stewardship. The recent Avian Influenza (Bernard Matthews) story is yet another manifestation of the horrors of this practice.

There has to be an alternative to this degrading practice.

Responsible and caring farming exists, on a large scale. That is not to say that there are no bad farms among the less exploitative units. It is not to say that there is no scope for education and improvement on all aspects of such enterprises. There is, however, a large farming community that respects its animals, makes a life’s work out of animal and land husbandry and forms a healthy and respectable portion of our society. All should not be tarred with the same brush.

Understanding between the farmer and his consumer has been strained to breaking point, often by interlopers who have no interest in a holistic society. Marketing boards, supermarkets, distribution chains, livestock markets, centralised (factory) slaughter houses and dealers have all a part to play in distancing the consumer from the farm. This trend should be reversed as much as possible, if we are to survive the changes modern society has brought upon us. The welcome return of 'Farmers' Markets' should help in this aspiration.

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Last modified: September 26, 2009