What is ethical farming?

Answer 1

Ethical farming: a modern crisis

Ethical farming is where a serious attempt is made by the operators of one or more farms to address the ethical inadequacies of modern farming. Exactly which farming methods are 'ethical' and 'unethical' depends on who you ask. A lot of people are only concerned about cruelty to animals, but my opinion is that many other modern farming practises are also unethical.

Factory farming of chickens

• Wild chickens or those allowed by their owners to roam naturally form a 'pecking order' or social heirarchy, roam over a considerable area of land, scratch and peck at the ground, dust-bathe, and find a comfortable and safe place to roost at night and suitable nests to lay their eggs.
• Modern egg production methods see three chickens locked into a cage where they barely have room to move. They have their beaks cruelly cut off or burnt off with no anaesthetic as chicks, so they cannot peck each other. They spend their entire lives on a wire floor and are never able to show natural behavior. They must lay their eggs onto this slanted floor where they roll down into a collection tray. They lose all their feathers, and are put down after around a year because under such stressful conditions their production declines. (Healthy chickens may produce eggs for almost six years in some cases.) I have attempted to rehabilitate battery hens; at first they cannot walk due to the deformity of their feet living on a wire floor, and some are so mentally disturbed that they never recover.
• ETHICAL ALTERNATIVE: Free-range or barn-laid egg production. Barn-laid eggs are laid by chickens that are kept inside a large barn and allowed to roam within this space. Provisions are usually made to give the chickens a more natural diet (ie some fresh vegetation) and behavior (ie dust and water provided for bathing.) However, barn-laid conditions are still cramped and smelly. Free-range chickens are allowed to roam both inside a barn and in an outdoor run, but again their conditions are usually overcrowded. If you are really concerned about the way chickens are treated, try to buy locally produced eggs that are truly free range.

Factory farming of pigs

• Naturally, pigs are extremely intelligent animals. They are often portrayed as dirty, revolting and stupid. Nothing could be further from the truth. Given the option (ie a large run), a pig will always use the same corner as its toilet to avoid soiling its eating and sleeping areas. In addition, pigs consistently make it into the lists of the top ten most intelligent animals, with some scientists even ranking them as fourth (this puts them above most monkeys in intelligence.)
• Modern pork production methods treat pigs in an absolutely disgusting manner. Pigs are locked into tiny cages where they have no room to turn around, and no mental stimulation, they must just eat, eat, eat all day. Breeding sows may be caged on their sides to allow their piglets to feed; this is necessary when the sow attempts to kill the piglets but may be done even when she has shown no signs of aggression. Newborn piglets may have their tails docked, be castrated, and have their teeth clipped off without anaesthetic.
• ETHICAL ALTERNATIVE: Free-range piggeries. Free-range pork production allows pigs to show natural behavior (like mud bathing) and roam around in a considerable amount of space. This eliminates the need for practises like tooth clipping as aggression is only a problem in tiny spaces. Unfortunately, it has not taken off.

Feedlot production of beef

• Free cows graze in large herds and roam around fields freely.
• In a feedlot, cattle are placed in a tiny stall where they have barely enough room to turn around or lie down. They have nothing to do all day except eat, eat, eat. This is aimed both to fatten them up and to soften the muscles by preventing them from moving. They must often stand in pools of their own faeces. In addition to the mistreatment of cattle, feedlots are also an appalling waste of grain. Huge amounts of grain are fed to cattle every year while people starve to death for lack of food.
• ETHICAL ALTERNATIVE: Buy grass-fed beef. These cattle are basically free to be cows until the day they are taken for slaugher.

Farming corporation monopolies on seedsAt present, several farming corporations are producing seeds for desirable varieties of crops - ie those with better flavour or higher yield. These plants are bred to be sterile so that the farmer is not able to save seed from his previous crop to plant the next year - he MUST go and buy seed from the company once more.

One company, Monsanto, is also planning to make its own seeds specific to its own pesticides. That means that plants produced from seeds sold by Monsanto will not be killed by its own herbicides. This forces farmers to buy both their plants and their chemicals from Monsanto.

Poor choices of varietyIncreased economic pressure on farmers has led to the selection of plant and animal strains for highest yield, not best quality. The nutritional quality of our food is declining all the time, as 'heirloom varieties' - those bred over centuries to be flavoursome and nutritious - are lost by the hundred. Diseases also place this pressure on farmers as they are forced to choose any strain that is resistant to a disease, ie wheat rust, rather than choosing the strains that produce the best wheat. Use of questionable chemicalsSome chemicals are still used on farms that have not been confirmed safe. Some of them are or may be toxic to humans, and others are or may be carcinogenic (cause cancer) or teratogenic (cause birth defects). This is largely due to insufficient scientific research into the safety of these chemicals, and the lack of viable alternatives. Not the farmer's faultModern farming is a race against time - to produce enough food for six billion people. The world's population is a ticking clock; the day is approaching when we will no longer be able to support this many people. In a world increasingly dominated by large companies, individual farmers can do little to break free from the cycle of ethically questionable farming practises. Individual farmers are not to blame for the unethical production of some of our food.Supermarkets underpay farmers in order to force prices artificially low for the consumer, and farming corporations employ cutthroat tactics to make money.