Farmed Animal Watch - November 13, 2002

1. "AN ANIMAL'S PLACE" CONSIDERED
"An Animal's Place" is the current cover story of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Author Michael Pollan's previous cover story, "This Steer's Life," followed the life of a male calf from pasture to feedlot to slaughter ( http://www.farmedanimal.net/Newsletters/Newsletter61.htm ) The current article begins with Pollan reading Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" ( http://www.serve.com/ecobooks/animalib.htm ) while eating a steak. He explains significant developments regarding animal status that have occurred in the U.S. and Europe since the book was published in 1975, and the contradictory ways animals continue to be treated.

A. PAIN, SUFFERING & MORAL CONSIDERATION
Pollan debates with himself Singer's utilitarian philosophy. He notes that the interests of both human and nonhuman animals deserve equal consideration. The avoidance of pain is identified as "the one all-important interest" that sentient beings share. Pollan argues that, in contrast to nonhuman animals, humans deserve moral consideration ("rights") even if they are unable to reciprocate it (see: http://sztybel.tripod.ca/dances.html#obj8 ) because, in addition to being human, they have relatives who are interested in their well-being. He acknowledges that this is speciesist [but fails to note that nonhuman animals also have relatives who are interested in their well-being]. He goes on to claim: "human pain counts for more than that of a mouse, since our pain is amplified by emotions like dread; similarly, our deaths are worse than an animal's because we understand what death is in a way they don't." [No evidence is offered in support of the assertion that a mouse cannot experience dread, or to support his perception of animals' perception of death.]

If nonhuman animals are owed moral consideration, how can eating them be justified, Pollan queries. To continue eating animals, one needs to try to determine if the animals have really endured a lifetime of suffering, he says. While dismissing Descartes's belief that animals do not feel pain because they lack a soul, Pollan takes a Cartesianesque view of suffering. He contends that human pain differs from that of other animals by order of magnitude due to our enlightening capacity for language (see: http://sztybel.tripod.ca/dances.html#obj4 & http://sztybel.tripod.ca/dances.html#obj8 ) Philosopher Daniel C. Dennett is paraphrased in explaining that, while all sentient beings can experience pain, suffering "depends on a degree of self-consciousness only a few animals appear to command. Suffering in this view is not just lots of pain but pain intensified by human emotions like loss, sadness, worry, regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation and dread." [Here, too, Pollan offers no evidence to support his assertion about self-consciousness or that these emotions are particularly human (see: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/aro000723.html & http://www.utexas.edu/admin/opa/news/01newsreleases/nr_200108/nr_gosling010801.html )] He quotes Dennett: "If we fail to find suffering in the [animal] lives we can see, we can rest assured there is no invisible suffering somewhere in their brains. If we find suffering, we will recognize it without difficulty." [This is contrary to, for example, the known behavior of prey animals to mask injury and illness in order to avoid appearing more vulnerable to predators.]

B. FACTORY FARMING
The article next looks at intensive animal agriculture. Pollan explains: "To visit a modern CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) is to enter a world that, for all its technological sophistication, is still designed according to Cartesian principles: animals are machines incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this any more, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert your eyes on the part of everyone else." Conditions for animals in CAFOs are graphically described. Pollan concludes the section by declaring: "More than any other institution, the American industrial animal farm offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism can look like in the absence of moral or regulatory constraint. Here in these places life itself is redefined – as protein production– and with it suffering. That [italicized] venerable word becomes "stress," an economic problem in search of a cost-effective solution, like tail-docking or beak-clipping or, in the industry's latest plan, by simply engineering the ‘stress gene' out of pigs and chickens. ‘Our own worst nightmare' such a place may well be; it is also real life for the billions of animals unlucky enough to have been born beneath these grim steel roofs, into the brief, pitiless life of a ‘production unit' in the days before the suffering gene [is] found."

C. "THE WHOLE MORAL QUESTION.... IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT"
Alternative production practices at Polyface Farm are described. The Virginia farm raises cattle, pigs, chickens, rabbits, turkeys and sheep in unconventional ways, many with access to pasture. Pollan says, "In the same way that we can probably recognize animal suffering when we see it, animal happiness is unmistakable, too, and here I was seeing it in abundance." (See pages 4-8 of PDF file: http://www.info.usda.gov/nrcs/eregion_tech/SustainableAgriculture/images/pdfFiles/Susagtechnote1Polyface.PDF ) He continues, "For domesticated species, the good life, if we can call it that, cannot be achieved apart from humans – apart from our farms and, therefore, our meat eating." Pollan denies that domestication is a form of enslavement or even exploitation but contends it is instead a form of mutualism. He speculates that opportunistic species formed an alliance with humans, receiving food and protection in exchange for their milk, eggs and flesh, eventually losing their ability to fend for themselves. (See PDF FILE: http://www.ag.usask.ca/academic/notes/agric112/AGRIC%20112-Mod%232.pdf )

D. PREDATION, EXISTENCE & SPECIES RIGHTS
Using population numbers as criterion, Pollan estimates that the "bargain" has, at least until our own time, been a success. "Nor," he states, "does their loss of autonomy seem to trouble these creatures....Liberation is the last thing such a creature wants." Pollan claims the caged chickens at Polyface Farm prefer their confinement -and eventual death by human predator- to the risk of death from wild predators. Referring to death in the wild, Polyface owner Joel Salatin is quoted as stating, "As a rule, animals don't get ‘good deaths' surrounded by their loved ones." [Nor do the vast majority of domesticated ones.] Pollan claims, "The very existence of predation – animals eating animals – is the cause of much anguished hand-wringing in animal rights circles" (see: http://sztybel.tripod.ca/dances.html#obj24 ). He further claims not only do individual chickens depend on human predators for their well-being (see: http://www.upc-online.org/ethics_questions.html#4 ) but that the species would go extinct were the birds granted "a right to life" (see: http://www.upc-online.org/ethics_questions.html#3 & http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/10/wchik10.xml ).

Pollan claims animal rights advocates care only about individuals and not species. See: http://fund.org/about/n5_mission.asp & http://fundforanimals.ctsg.com/about/n5%5Fhistory.asp & http://fund.org/library/documentViewer.asp?ID=805&table=documents & http://www.sierratimes.com/02/11/09/arap110902-1.htm He asks if it isn't anthropocentric to apply "a human morality based on individual rights" to the natural world, and suggests that a different, nonsentient-based set of ethics may be needed for our dealings with it. Referring to animal rights as "parochial" and "urban," Pollan says animal rights ideology could only thrive in a world where people have lost contact with the natural world.

E. GREATER VEGAN HARM?
Animal scientist Steve Davis (OSU) hypothesizes that if America adopted a vegan diet, the number of animals killed would actually increase as pasture was instead used for row crops. Davis speculates that to kill the fewest animals possible, people should eat the largest animals who can live on the least intensively cultivated land, namely, grass-fed cattle (see: http://www.orst.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2002/Apr02/davis.htm & http://www.veganoutreach.org/spam/20020715.html ). Subsequently, Pollan twice mentions "the vegetarian utopia." Joel Salatin (Polyface Farm) says that, in areas where adequate row crops can't be grown, a vegetarian diet would cause people to rely on food transported from a distance. Pollan adds that the lack of manure for fertilizer would further increase our dependency on fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizer (see: http://www.ifplantscouldtalk.rutgers.edu/fact_sheets/vegetables/cover_crops.htm & http://www.agroecology.org/cases/humanmanure.htm & http://www.milorganite.org/companyinfo/companyhistory.asp ). He concludes, "If our concern is for the health of nature – rather than, say, the internal consistency of our moral code or the condition of our souls – then eating animals may sometimes be the most ethical thing to do."

F. HUMAN ANIMALITY
Citing evolution and cultural history, Pollan cautions "Granting rights to animals may lift us up from the brutal world of predation, but it will entail the sacrifice of part of our identity – our own animality. Surely this is one of the odder paradoxes of animal rights doctrine. It asks us to recognize all that we share with animals and then demands that we act toward them in a most unanimalistic way. We should at least acknowledge that our desire to eat meat is not a trivial matter, no mere ‘gastronomic preference.'" http://hallnature.com/nature_ecology/72.shtml & http://www.coyotenation.com/feature.html

G. ON KILLING AND RESPECT
Pollan e-mailed Peter Singer with a description of Polyface Farm and asked about his position on "the Good Farm – one where animals got to live according to their nature and to all appearances did not suffer." Singer responded: "I agree with you that it is better for these animals to have lived and died than not to have lived at all." He added that this doesn't negate the wrongness of killing an animal who "has a sense of [their] own existence over time and can have preferences for [their] own future." Pollan interprets this to mean, "In other words, it's O.K. to eat the chicken, but he's not so sure about the pig." Singer notes that food from such farms would be more expensive with only the more affluent being able to afford it. He doubts such farms could be practical on a large scale due to market forces leading owners to cut costs at the expense of the animals. He also points out that killing animals is not conducive to treating them with respect yet notes "I would not be sufficiently confident of my arguments to condemn someone who purchased meat from one of these farms" (see: http://sztybel.tripod.ca/dances.html#obj27 ).

The chickens and rabbits at Polyface Farm are killed there. The USDA does not allow the cattle, pigs or sheep to be slaughtered on the farm. Pollan says Salatin insists on killing the chickens himself because he is convinced he can do it more humanely and cleanly than any slaughterplant. http://www.newfarm.org/newfarm/features/0802/chicken%20day/index.shtml When asked how he can bring himself to kill a chicken, Salatin responds "People have a soul; animals don't....Unlike us, animals are not created in God's image, so when they die, they just die." http://sztybel.tripod.ca/dances.html#obj34 & http://www.upc-online.org/ethics_questions.html#7

2. "VEGETARIANISM VS. MINDFUL MEAT EATING"
The cover story of the current issue of Conscious Choice magazine also addresses meat consumption. Editor Rebecca Ephraim comments, "The subject of vegetarianism versus meat eating is one of the most divisive issues that this magazine confronts." She explains, "We, as a magazine, promote the idea that the life forces of our planet are a precious commodity that must be embraced and handled in a judicious manner." The author notes that "humanely raised meat" still entails putting animals to death, even if they live "comfier" lives in comparison to those who are factory farmed. Alternatively, vegetarianism is regarded as "not easy, convenient, or –to some– even satisfying." Vegetarians are faulted for not helping to boost the market share of less inhumane farms. Michael Appleby, vice-president of the farm animals and sustainable agriculture section of HSUS, who is described as "not a vegetarian but an eater of ‘very little meat,'" states that most people who are actively concerned about the treatment of animals will still continue to eat meat. He argues, "If everybody who is concerned about inhumane conditions stops eating meat, the farmers who are trying to be humane can't succeed." [A similar argument could be made for companies that produce vegetarian products.]

John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New World" and founder of EarthSave International, warns of deceptive practices. One example he gives concerns Horizon, the nation's leading organic dairy. "Their products are organic – that means the feed they give their dairy cow is grown organically – and that's a good thing," he says, "But this business about a happy cow is a crock, because the vast majority of their cows are kept in dry feedlots and never see a blade of grass in their lives" (see issues 9 & 15).