The Vanishing Ethics of Husbandry

The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics - Animals in Our Midst: The Challenges of Co-existing with Animals in the Anthropocene ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-63523-7_12 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 203-221

Author(s):

Paul B. Thompson

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Food Production ◽

Animal Ethics ◽

Production Systems ◽

High Volume ◽

Considerable Degree ◽

Philosophical Work ◽

Philosophical Discussion ◽

Economic Rationale ◽

Factory Farms

AbstractThe ethics of food production should include philosophical discussion of the condition or welfare of livestock, including for animals being raised in high volume, concentrated production systems (e.g. factory farms). Philosophers should aid producers and scientists in specifying conditions for improved welfare in these systems. An adequately non-ideal approach to this problem should recognize both the economic rationale for these systems as well as the way that they constrain opportunities for improving animal welfare. Recent philosophical work on animal ethics has been dominated by authors who not only neglect this imperative, but also defeat it by drawing on oversimplified and rhetorically overstated descriptions of the conditions in which factory farmed animals actually live. This feature of philosophical animal ethics reflects a form of structural narcissism in which adopting a morally correct attitude defeats actions that could actually improve the welfare of livestock in factory farms to a considerable degree.

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Consumer demand for animal welfare products.

The economics of farm animal welfare: theory, evidence and policy ◽

10.1079/9781786392312.0053 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 53-74

Author(s):

Faical Akaichi ◽

Cesar Revoredo-Giha

Keyword(s):

Economic Theory ◽

Supply Chain ◽

Willingness To Pay ◽

Supply Chains ◽

Animal Welfare ◽

Food Production ◽

Consumer Demand ◽

Production Systems ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Demand Side

Abstract Modern agricultural practices have increased the efficiency of food production with a decrease in their cost and prices for consumers. However, to some extent this has been detrimental to the ethical way in which livestock are treated, particularly in more intensive production systems. On the demand side, an increasing number of consumers are interested in the way that food is produced and the attributes behind it. Animal welfare is one of those ethical attributes that are particularly important for consumers, and at the retail level, it is reflected in a number of labels aiming at passing cues (due to its nature as a credence attribute) to consumers. For meat supply chains, these labels have the possibility to positively affect sales if consumers are willing to pay more for products with those attributes. Moreover, if increasing animal welfare implies higher costs of production, it is important for the supply chain to know whether these costs can be passed on to consumers. These issues have motivated a substantive literature on the measurement of consumers' interest in animal welfare and their willingness to pay for its attributes. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the economic theory behind the measurement of animal welfare and some empirical applications.

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Animal Business: an Ethical Exploration of Corporate Responsibility Towards Animals

Food Ethics ◽

10.1007/s41055-021-00094-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Monique Janssens

Keyword(s):

Business Ethics ◽

Animal Welfare ◽

Corporate Responsibility ◽

Food Production ◽

Animal Ethics ◽

Blind Spot ◽

Food Sector ◽

Managerial Implications ◽

Business Sectors ◽

Corporate Practice

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to take normative aspects of animal welfare in corporate practice from a blind spot into the spotlight, and thus connect the fields of business ethics and animal ethics. Using insights from business ethics and animal ethics, it argues that companies have a strong responsibility towards animals. Its rationale is that animals have a moral status, that moral actors have the moral obligation to take the interests of animals into account and thus, that as moral actors, companies should take the interests of animals into account, more specifically their current and future welfare. Based on this corporate responsibility, categories of corporate impact on animals in terms of welfare and longevity are offered, including normative implications for each of them. The article concludes with managerial implications for several business sectors, including the most animal-consuming and animal-welfare-threatening industry: the food sector. Welfare issues are discussed, including the issue of killing for food production.

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In-silico characterisation of the complete Ly6 protein family in Fasciola gigantica supported through transcriptomics of the newly-excysted juveniles.

Molecular Omics ◽

10.1039/d1mo00254f ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah Dawn Davey ◽

Iain W Chalmers ◽

Narcis Fuentes ◽

Martin T Swain ◽

Dan Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

In Silico ◽

Food Production ◽

Production Systems ◽

Global Scale ◽

Fasciola Gigantica ◽

Protein Family

Fasciola gigantica is one of the aetiological trematodes associated with fascioliasis, which heavily impacts food-production systems and human and animal welfare on a global scale. In the absence of a...

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Animal Harms and Food Production: Informing Ethical Choices

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani11051225 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 1225

Author(s):

Jordan O. Hampton ◽

Timothy H. Hyndman ◽

Benjamin L. Allen ◽

Bob Fischer

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Food Production ◽

Production Systems ◽

Human Life ◽

Food Choices ◽

Wild Plants ◽

Industrial Countries ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Ethical Choices ◽

Negative Impacts

Ethical food choices have become an important societal theme in post-industrial countries. Many consumers are particularly interested in the animal welfare implications of the various foods they may choose to consume. However, concepts in animal welfare are rapidly evolving towards consideration of all animals (including wildlife) in contemporary approaches such as “One Welfare”. This approach requires recognition that negative impacts (harms) may be intentional and obvious (e.g., slaughter of livestock) but also include the under-appreciated indirect or unintentional harms that often impact wildlife (e.g., land clearing). This is especially true in the Anthropocene, where impacts on non-human life are almost ubiquitous across all human activities. We applied the “harms” model of animal welfare assessment to several common food production systems and provide a framework for assessing the breadth (not intensity) of harms imposed. We considered all harms caused to wild as well as domestic animals, both direct effects and indirect effects. We described 21 forms of harm and considered how they applied to 16 forms of food production. Our analysis suggests that all food production systems harm animals to some degree and that the majority of these harms affect wildlife, not livestock. We conclude that the food production systems likely to impose the greatest overall breadth of harms to animals are intensive animal agriculture industries (e.g., dairy) that rely on a secondary food production system (e.g., cropping), while harvesting of locally available wild plants, mushrooms or seaweed is likely to impose the least harms. We present this conceptual analysis as a resource for those who want to begin considering the complex animal welfare trade-offs involved in their food choices.

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Phosphorus: Past History and Contributions to the Global Food Supply

10.24047/bc10316 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 103 (1) ◽

pp. 6-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Terry Roberts

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Food Supply ◽

Food Production ◽

Production Systems ◽

Past History ◽

Phosphate Fertilizer ◽

Global Food ◽

Global Food Supply

Since its early rudimentary forms, phosphate fertilizer has developed in step with our understanding of successful food production systems. Recognized as essential to life, the responsible use P in agriculture remains key to food security.

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