Debating animal agriculture in contemporary India: Ethics, politics, ecologies

This paper investigates social science literatures and public discourse on animal-based food systems in India to examine how social, ecological, and animal justice concerns are addressed (or not). The Indian livestock sector is estimated to be the largest in the world, with significant implications for local and planetary natures and the individual animals that compose the sector. The intensification of livestock production in India has unfolded alongside serious, often violent, sectarian conflicts around meat and cow protection. In this paper, I discuss how scholarly and public debates have been centred on the cultural roots of vegetarianism, the right-wing contours of political bans on cow slaughter, beef, and eggs, while issues relating to the more-than-human impacts of animal agriculture have remained marginal. The paper brings these analyses together with an examination of the intensification of animal agriculture in the country, and the consequent animal, ecological, and social vulnerabilities. Through this multi-optic account of animalbased food systems in India, I argue that the single-optic focus on cows, consumption (of meat) and related identity politics has produced serious lacunae in scholarship and public debate in the form of the overlooking of the multiple, intersecting impacts of commercial livestock farming on social, ecological, and animal wellbeing. In the backdrop of global worry about animal agriculture, the paper inspects the role of the social sciences in creating possibilities for considered engagement with the plural justice implications of India’s rapidly intensifying livestock landscapes.

Translating Basic Research to Animal Agriculture

Procedures to maintain viability of mammalian gametes and embryos in vitro, including cryopreservation, have been exceedingly valuable for my research over the past 55 years. Keeping sperm viable in vitro enables artificial insemination, which, when combined with selective breeding, often is the most effective approach to making rapid genetic change in a population. Superovulation and embryo transfer constitute a parallel approach for amplifying reproduction of female mammals. More recent developments include sexing of semen, in vitro fertilization, cloning by nuclear transfer, and genetic modification of germline cells, tools that are enabled by artificial insemination and/or embryo transfer for implementation. I have been fortunate in being able to contribute to the development of many of the above techniques, and to use them for research and applications for improving animal agriculture. Others have built on this work to circumvent human infertility, assist reproduction of companion animals, and rescue endangered species. It also has been a privilege to teach, mentor, and be mentored in this area. Resulting worldwide friendships have enriched me personally and professionally. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, Volume 10 is February 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Eating Insects: A Christian Ethic of Farmed Insect Life

Proponents of entomophagy have argued that the farming of insects offers many advantages when contrasted with more traditional farming practices. This article explores the place of insect farming within a wider Christian food ethic and argues that insect farming has much to recommend it. However, through exploring the role of animal agriculture within the ideological structures of anthropocentrism, a more ambiguous picture of the ethics of insect farming emerges. This belies a simple endorsement or denunciation of insect farming as an ethical alternative to the farming of larger animals. Moreover, the example of insect farming reveals that Christian food ethics needs to radically reimagine the entire food provisioning system if it is to inculcate substantive change in human relationships with nonhuman animals.

135 Grand Challenges in Domestic Agricultural Animal Reproduction

The ASAS Public Policy Committee (PPC) provides updates of Grand Challenges (GCs) which clearly articulate research priorities while providing science-based information for shaping public policy and enhancing future funding for research and education programs in animal sciences (AS). Among the GCs is reproduction of domesticated animals (cattle, swine, sheep, goats, poultry, horses, and aquatic species) that is integral to sustain and improve global competitiveness of U.S. animal agriculture, understand and resolve complex animal and human diseases, and advance fundamental research in sciences that are critical to understanding mechanisms of action and identify future targets for interventions. Historically, federal and state budgets have dwindled and funding for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) competitive grants programs remained relatively stagnant from 1985 through 2010. This shortage in critical financial support for basic and applied research, coupled with the underappreciated knowledge of the utility of non-rodent species for biomedical research, has hindered funding opportunities for research involving livestock and limited improvements in both animal agriculture and animal and human health. In 2010, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) established an interagency partnership to promote the use of agriculturally important animal species in basic and translational research relevant to both biomedicine and agriculture. The “Dual Purpose with Dual Benefit” program encouraged One Health approaches for comparative medicine studies that use farm animal models that mimic human developmental, physiological, and etiological processes to promote human and animal health, better understand disease origins, interspecies transmission and mitigation strategies, and improve efficiency of assisted reproduction technologies. This presentation will review the successes of the 9-year Dual Purpose effort and highlight opportunities for tackling GC research in reproduction of domesticated agricultural animals.

542 Rethinking/reexamining Grand Challenges Within Teaching for Workforce Readiness – a Scorecard and Recalibration

The ASAS Public Policy Committee (PPC) provides updates of Grand Challenges (GCs; www.asas.org/about/public-policy/asas-grand-challenges) which clearly articulate research priorities while providing science-based information for shaping public policy, and to enhance future funding for research and education programs in animal sciences (AS). In this nexus symposium for 2021, PPC examines previous stated priorities and provides a progress report card and offers additional perspectives and recommendations for research needed to address some of the GCs continuing to face animal agriculture. Among the GCs is teaching for workforce readiness (WR) as the preparation of graduates for diverse roles in the modern workforce has provoked substantial research in recent years. Ensuring new and returning workplace entrants are prepared to enter the workforce with requisite knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiential attributes required in a diverse array of occupations is a GC. Through an examination of the past, present and future instructional landscape, we will examine a gap which exists between WR and expectations of future employers. Expected employee competencies will include critical thinking and problem solving, mastery of human relationship skills and leadership mindsets, diverse and effective communication abilities, influence skills and workplace emotional intelligence. Instructive to meeting the GC are principles identified in ASAS Accreditation Standards for Animal Science Programs. Those standards strive to ensure graduates can communicate the importance of animal agriculture and STEM biology to an increasingly non-ag world. Among the GC of providing experiences are increased emphasis on high-impact programming around internships, externships and apprenticeships layered onto a knowledge, scaffolded curriculum. Use of research methodology to develop and incorporate into practice varied instructional modalities, technologies and practices within a dynamic higher education landscape requires intentional, systematic, and iterative scholarly approaches; which will enable creation of adaptive learning experiences and learning outcomes needed for an ever-changing workplace with its unique challenges and opportunities.

165 Rethinking Methane - Livestock’s Path to Climate Neutrality

Animal agriculture is often shouldered with a large part of the blame when it comes to climate change, but that’s because we haven’t been looking at all greenhouse gases correctly. While methane is a potent climate pollutant that we can and need to reduce, it warms our atmosphere differently than other gases because of its short lifespan. By rethinking methane, we can see that animal agriculture can be on the path to climate neutrality with scalable solutions and give the global community tools to fight global climate change.