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The Meat Industry and Ideas for What We Can Do About It

Some practical ideas about the meat industry


Spacious chicken houses — a stark minority (Photo by David Ashwanden)

In many countries, the state of the meat industry is fairly well publicised: poor conditions for animals (see for example 1, 2), strange and unnatural foods and medicines getting into our food chain (see for example 3; 4), unclear labelling (see for example 5), and mass industrialised butchery (see for example 6).

For many people these conditions are unacceptable; yet when it actually comes down to buying your meat it seems consumers feel that they have no choice but to go for the cheapest option. How can we re-align the quality of the animal products available for us with a price which reflects living costs?

Chicken? Chick-out

In Europe, consumers have been provoked into more thought recently as concerns over homogenisation of trade between the EU and North America with the proposed Tran-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which led to some public protest against the heightened and standardised use of chemicals and hormones which the introduction of the TTIP would imply (7). This comes following last year’s scandal when the media picked up on horse meat being marketed as other meat (5). People seemed to be outraged not so much by the fact that they were eating horses; after all, they knew at least that they were buying some kind of slaughtered animal; but that they were not given the information to help them make an informed choice (5). Many groups and organisations have been seeking to rectify this lack of information, among them British celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall with his ‘Chicken Out’ campaign (8).

On the campaign’s website anyone can follow the 39-day life of a chicken in one of the UK’s many battery chicken farms (8). In the TV show accompanying his campaign Fearnley-Whittingstall spoke to a number of consumers who disagreed with the conditions of the chicken, and even managed to persuade a kebab-shop owner in Devon to switch all of his chicken over to free range (9).

Freedom is a niche market?

The campaign may be helping consumers to understand more about the conditions of the animals which they are purchasing, but there is still quite a large imbalance in the chicken industry – “only 3% of chicken production in this country is free-range”, as Fearnley-Whittingstall points out (10). His ambitions are in line with the small and slow solutions philosophy:

If we can get 50% of intensive farming upgraded to higher welfare and to have free-range climbing to 10%, then 20%, and ultimately, in five years’ time, to 30% of the market, then that will mean a better life for hundreds of millions of chickens. (10)

Yet while consumers remain caught with money as the largest and most important factor of consideration, we may not even be able to reach that 10%. The Devon kebab-shop owner is no longer stocking free-range chicken: "No, I don’t do free-range kebabs any more. It was costing me a fortune." (10) When reporting on this story on the ‘Caterer and Hotelkeeper’ website the writer, Tom Vaughn (10) commented that even though Musa, the kebab shop owner, was able and willing to supply free-range chicken, the catering industry itself is simply not able to support free-range meat (10).

Clearly, there are some very strong assumptions being made here, akin to the comments of one spokesperson for the European Commission who referred to the organic market as “niche” (11).
When food which is produced in a natural way and with respect for the ecosystems around it is thought of as a minority fad which cannot be sustained then it seems there is a need for some kind of major re-evaluation.

Change your farms now

Are these people right to dismiss more natural ways of farming? There is growing evidence to suggest that although intensive farming may seem more financially viable in the short term, when all factors are considered it actually costs farmers and producers more to keep animals in tight-packed conditions than it would if the animals were allowed to roam around in a field.

Philip Lymberly, author of “Farmaggedon” (12), argues that although the “tonnes per unit of land” measurement is currently used by the farming industry and indeed has been for decades (13), a more realistic measurement would be how many people are actually “nourished per hectare”.

With this measurement, a study by the University of Minnesota found that the current trend in industrialised farming actually wastes a lot of food. For example, 36% of the crops grown on an industrial scale are used for animal feed. However, of those calories, “only 12% end up contributing to human diets in the form of animal products.” (14)

Lamberly puts it starkly,

The current food system produces enough for at least 11 billion people, if only we didn’t waste so much of it. (13)

The problem is that in the current meat industry, where the norm is for animals to live out their lives packed together in small boxes, the animals have to be dependent on humans to feed them, since they can’t really get around much themselves. This entails our having to bring their food in from elsewhere — thus instead of “converting things that people can’t eat, like grass, into things which people can eat”, the “system becomes dependent on feeding the animals with arable crops like cereals and soya that could be nourishing people.” (13)

It is not simply one-off studies which are finding these problems. Last year, the UN Conference on Trade and Development published a report, “Wake Up Now Before it’s Too Late”. (15)
In it, UNCTAD say that:

The world needs… a rapid and significant shift from conventional monoculture based high-external-input-dependent industrial production towards mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems. (16)

The answer, they say, is not in “simply tweaking the existing agricultural system” but for the entire industry to move “from a linear to a holistic approach in agricultural management.” (16)

Tipping the scales

One way to provide more of an incentive to improve animal conditions could be for governments to stop subsidising factory-farmed meat (1) so that the farmers have to begin charging more, thus bringing the prices more in line with each other. Another possible solution could be for governments to create a tax based upon the conditions of the animals being raised, similar to the UK car tax method, with which consumers pay more tax the less efficient their car is (20). With the meat industry, this could be a sliding scale of tax where the poorer the conditions of the animals, the more the farmers have to pay; thus incentivising them to improve animal living standards.

However, the idea of an introduction of tax comes with its own downsides, including the possibility that it may simply make all meat, low and high quality, unavailable to those who earn less than a certain income, and thus create a kind of class-meat divide. Also with many governments’ tax spending systems not allowing for any input on where the tax goes from citizens (see for example 21), the money could well be spent on sectors of society which those paying it disagree with just as much as the animal’s conditions.

But what about my cheap meat?

So where does this leave the consumer? The UNCTAD report acknowledges that the solution to food security problems is “primarily about empowerment of the poor and their food sovereignty”. (16) It is not enough for the industry to change from the top down; we also need to explore more avenues of sustainable food production and choice from an individual level. This can begin, as with so many changes, with education.

When searching for media opinion on the reception on the UNCTAD report (an international report from a fairly mainstream organisation; the UN), although there was quite a wide aspect of reporting from what can be seen as ‘alternative’ news sources, including Permaculture News (17), I was only able to find one UK media outlet (The Guardian, 18) which ran a story on the report. Searching the website of the BBC, the national UK media service, found no results.

However, if community groups are strong and well-organised there is less of a need for dependence on mainstream media as people can get their news from experts or researchers within their own communities. For example, the Transition Towns movement (19), who are active in 43 countries around the world, regularly hold film nights and discussion meetings as part of awareness raising about global issues which does not rely on watching the news.

If you want something done…

The case for the governments of the world bringing in legislation which improves farming standards and techniques, while simultaneously making food more affordable, is strong. But in the meantime, it is important that we search for alternative ways of living which we can engage in immediately. The Transition Network is an example that wherever we live, we are probably not too far away from community groups who can help to support us. Consumers could also begin to empower themselves; learning how to butcher animals themselves, so that they can at least move one step up the supply chain and perhaps lessen some of the suffering of the animals which they wish to eat.

Butchery classes in London are apparently becoming something of a trend, according to BBC Radio 4 (22), and indeed there are courses available worldwide (see for example 23, 24) for those wishing to take that step towards becoming more autonomous about the way that they live.

Even if you cannot see any way that you or your friends will have access to rearing your own animals in the future, perhaps it is still worth it to learn about how to slaughter one in a humane way and to utilise every part effectively. After all, if you have never tried, how can you know what you prefer to eat?

Who knows, if it becomes a big enough trend, maybe the government will start giving us grants of our own to rear and butcher our meat on a small-scale. Then we will really have choice about the conditions of the animals and where food that they eat comes from.

The ideas in this article represent a very small fraction of the huge spectrum of options available to us on the path to our own empowerment when it comes to meat. There is no need to wait for governments; we can all make choices right now.

References:

  1. GRACE Communications Foundation, 2013. “Sustainable Agriculture, Industrial Agriculture, Food Processing & Distribution: Animal Welfare”. https://www.sustainabletable.org/274/animal-welfare – retrieved 02/04/2014
  2. Global Research, 2010. “Animal Tracing, Food Contamination and the Unsanitary Conditions of US Meat Processing Plants”. https://www.globalresearch.ca/animal-tracing-food-contamination-and-the-unsanitary-conditions-of-us-meat-processing-plants/16763 – retrieved 02/04/2014
  3. Web MD, 2014. “Safer Food for a Healthier You.” https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/safer-food-healthier-you – retrieved 02/04/2014
  4. Reuters, 12/03/2014. “Europe’s Fear of Hormone Meat, GM Food sows divide in trade talks”. https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/us-eu-usa-trade-idUSBREA2B11A20140312 – retrieved 02/04/2014
  5. BBC News, 14/01/14. “Horse Meat Scandal: How Tastes Changed”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25715666 – retrieved 02/04/2014
  6. New York Times, 2014. “Factory Farming”. https://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/factory_farming/index.html – retrieved 02/04/2014
  7. Mint Press News, 19/02/2014. “Europeans Say ‘No Thanks’ to American Chlorinated Chicken and Hormone Beef”. https://www.mintpressnews.com/europeans-say-no-thanks-to-american-chlorinated-chicken-and-hormone-beef/179768 – retrieved 03/04/2014
  8. Chicken Out! Campaign for a Free Range Future, 2014. “About the Campaign”. https://www.chickenout.tv/about-campaign.html – retrieved 02/04/2014
  9. Channel 4, 2014. “High’s Chicken Run: Episode Guide”. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/hughs-chicken-run/episode-guide – retrieved 02/04/2014
  10. Caterer and Hotelkeeper, 24/01/2008. “Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Campaign Against Intensively Farmed Chickens”. https://www.catererandhotelkeeper.co.uk/articles/24/1/2008/318480/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall-campaign-against-intensively-farmed-chickens.htm#sthash.rkit9pDw.dpuf – retrieved 02/04/2014
  11. Coleman, Kev. Interview with me at Seedy Sunday, Brighton, 02/02/2014
  12. Lamberley, P and Oakeshott, I, 2014. Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat. Bloomsbury: London
  13. Raw, 26/02/2014. “Industrial Farming: When More is Less.” https://www.raw.info/latest/industrial-farming-when-more-is-less – retrieved 02/04/2014
  14. Emily S Cassidy et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 034015. “Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare”. University of Minnesota: Minneapolis
  15. UN Conference on Trade and Development, 2013. Wake Up Before it is Too Late: Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now for Food Security in a Changing Climate. United Nations: Geneva. Online copy can be found here: https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf
  16. UN Conference on Trade and Development, 2013. Wake Up Before it is Too Late: Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now for Food Security in a Changing Climate. “Key Messages”. United Nations: Geneva.
  17. Permaculture News, 18/09/2013. “Paradigm Shift Urgently Needed In Agriculture – UN Agencies Call for an End to Industrial Agriculture & Food System”. https://www.permaculturenews.org/2013/09/18/paradigm-shift-urgently-needed-in-agriculture-un-agencies-call-for-an-end-to-industrial-agriculture-food-system – retrieved 02/04/2014
  18. Guardian, 18/09/2013. “Food crisis fears prompt UN wake-up call to world leaders”. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/sep/18/food-crisis-un-governments – retrieved 02/04/2014
  19. Transition Network, 2014. “Where”. https://www.transitionnetwork.org/where – retrieved 02/04/2014
  20. British Government, 2014. “UK Vehicle Tax Rate Tables”. https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables – retrieved 02/04/2014
  21. Tax Research UK, 11/04/2008. “The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade WIN BAE-Saudi corruuption [sic] judicial review”. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2008/04/11/the-corner-house-and-campaign-against-arms-trade-win-bae-saudi-corruuption-judicial-review – retrieved 02/04/2014
  22. BBC Radio 4, 03/03/2014. “A Renaissance for Butchers?” BBC: London
  23. Food Safari, 2014. “Butchery Course”. https://www.foodsafari.co.uk/course/evening-butchery-course – retrieved 03/04/2014
  24. Permaculture Sydney Institute, 2014. “Slaughtering and Butchery Workshop”. https://www.permaculturesydneyinstitute.org/event/rural-skills-series-slaughtering-butchering-workshop – retrieved 03/04/2014.

Charlotte Ashwanden

Charlotte Ashwanden (nee Haworth). Born in London, I am very interested in peace and community and have a degree in Peace Studies. I got my Permaculture Design Certificate in 2011, from Treeyo at Permaship in Bulgaria, and my Permaculture Teaching Certificate in 2018 at Aranya in India. For me, permaculture is about so much more than garden design; I am mainly interested in applying ‘human permaculture’ as a complement to peace practices. In particular, I like to look at how human permaculture can be applied through psychology, communication and education techniques. In 2015 I got married in a pagan ceremony in a field to David Ashwanden and changed my surname to Ashwanden. With my husband, I’ve travelled a lot in Europe and Asia and encountered many permaculture and community projects. I have lived in various situations, from squatted land to intentional communities, as well as more ‘normal’ places, in the UK, Spain, Italy, Thailand and Vietnam. A professional dancer, I do fire and hula dance and sometimes run dance meditation workshops. Currently, I live in the Andalucian mountains.

9 Comments

  1. I use to be able to get inexpensive organic free range meats but with the growing awareness I can’t afford the prices anymore. Then I read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (2007) and I decided to start my own organic garden and cut meat out of my daily diet as much as I could, still like bacon & eggs!. I’ve known some people who just stopped eating all meats but they ran out and bought all kinds of supplement foods and mostly pre-fab pre-packaged stuff. I didn’t want to do that at all and kept thinking about my grandma. She was abandoned with 3 small children during the Depression, one did not survive an illness. Grandma could not afford much meat and grew a garden. As a child in the 60’s and early 70’s I use to spend a whole day with grandma at the dump collecting jars for her home canning. We would stop at a local farm to swim the dump stink off and I loved sitting all wet in the sun talking with my Grandma. I can still hear her sweet Southern voice. I have found that old cookbooks (many published by ladies church groups) have wonderful recipes geared to the gardens they grew and the limited resources they had. These days I feel to “Get Ahead” I have to take big steps back in time to when things were much simpler, like a stove top coffee percolator. Forgot how wonderful coffee tasted and how hot coffee really should be.

  2. Good article Charlotte!

    I think many of these issues would simply go away if we got to know our farmers.

    Fortunately we have the technology that brings farmers and consumers together. One of my plans is to one day come up with an easy way for farmers to broadcast video in real-time directly to their Farmwell website – but even simple pictures and a description of conditions go a long way…

    Also, you mentioned that the kebab shop owner went back to cheap meat after trying free range. Without knowing the circumstances, I might speculate that it’s because his market was cheap quick food and he didn’t do the necessary changes to attract a new clientele.

    The best kabab I’ve even had was in Brecon in Wales where the meat was whole lamb skewered and grilled in front of your eyes and wrapped in home-made bread and fresh ingredients. This is going back a few years, but I don’t remember it being terribly expensive, but I do remember the place was full with hungry customers!

  3. I agree with all that is said in your article. There are two important aspects to the issue: one is the welfare of the animals we decide to eat – and by the way this goes from slaughtering them in a humane way to leaving young fish to grow in the sea so their stocks are replenished and the balance of nature is not destroyed – the other is the very urgent and important need to finally stop being fed the hormones and other harmful substances which animals are fed and which are harmful to ourselves. But to conclude the whole argument, like you do, by advocating the butchering of animals at home simply gives an absurd twist to the whole thing: how on earth can we, in developed countries, who in the vast majority live in cramped housing within cities, be expected to set up a butchery in our own homes?? We must get real. Naive conclusions like these simply put people off.

    1. “Naive conclusions like these simply put people off.”

      That’s a bit harsh. I understand your point of view, however, I think as a whole we are better off when articles like these get published, whether everybody completely agrees with them or not. After all, its title is “Ideas”…not the Final Solution.

      1. Besides – even in urban situations people can keep and butcher small livestock, like chickens for example. In most countries people always did that in the past. Even today I’ve seen many countries where chickens and even goats are kept in urban situations. The people who live across the road from me have turkeys, for example.

  4. Dear Charlotte. Chickens are an excellent small animal to keep and I have 15 of the fun little creatures here. They’re a happy collective and even get to live out a full retirement once their egg production declines (it hasn’t ceased here yet and I know of someone with a 17 year old chicken). The elderly chickens perform the useful function of teaching the youngsters their place and what/how to forage, plus the manure is a real bonus. Every day they get to have a mooch around the food forest here picking a few greens and sampling some insects. Good stuff and more efficient than the native birds.

    My question to you is that, I hear your concerns, but what are you personally doing about your concerns?

    1. Hi Chris,
      Thank you for your comment and apologies for the delay in replying. I do think it’s important to share our own personal stories. I stopped eating meat 17 years ago when as a stubborn child I insisted on not harming the animals. 5 years ago I was eating together with some ladies in a mosque from a communal plate of cous cous, vegetables and halal chicken. They noticed that I wasn’t eating the chicken and insisted I eat some, thinking I was just being polite. At around the same time I watched some friends of mine slaughter their own rabbits, which they then cooked with food produced on their permaculture farm. Though I was interested to watch the process I could not bring myself to eat the rabbits, so they made me a different meal, of imported vegetables, rice and non-organic cheese. These experiences got me thinking about meat and about the fact that it’s not just the animals we need to be considering, but all of the food we eat and how much it is encouraging a regenerative culture. This article is about ‘ideas’, and the more we have of these the more resilient and effective we can make our new culture. Storytelling is a big part of this which is why I felt moved to respond to you (finally). I still don’t eat meat, or any animal products really except eggs, but my body is healthy and happy with this situation. It is up to everyone to make the choice of what is going to be best for them to do by themselves. In my article ‘Language and Permaculture part 2’ I touch on the idea of trying out a horticultural-style diet. Maybe this is a preferable approach to slaughtering our own animals for some people. However, the reason I suggested learning how to butcher is that I feel it can help us to regain our connection with and respect for the animals we eat.

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