Ethical Issue- Animal Welfare

Problem:

With the exponential growth of population over the past few decades comes a greater demand for housing, food, and natural resources.  These areas are constantly competing for space, but when does it all become too much?

Analysis of the Problem:

It has been found that many people throughout the world recognize that farmers have animals, but they claim that’s not where their food comes from; their food comes from the grocery store or Wal-Mart.  There are many uneducated people that don’t acknowledge the importance of farmers and the plain and simple fact that they feed the world. Which leads me to a question not many people can answer, How are farmers supposed to feed greater population than ever before if their resources and land is being cut daily?

Agricultural Point of View:

Farmers have never had the problem of competing for resources to maintain their livestock until recent years. With the growth of population, farmland is being developed into housing, creating less space for the farmer to grow crops or produce livestock. This, in turn has caused farmers to intensify their farming methods, or in other words, using minimal space to raise a greater number of animals than ever before.

With the intensification of farming, the animal’s natural habitat is taken away. This causes the animals to be raised in confinement with a greater concentration of animals in fewer locations. Confinement has been the most beneficial solution for animals with regards to the growing population. The barns allow the animals to have clean feed and water readily available, clean bedding, a roof over their head, and the farmers are much more able to find the sick animals or the ones that need to be treated.

Non-Agricultural Point of View:

As modern farming changes to be fewer farms with a greater amount of livestock per farm, the animals are unable to live a natural way of life in their natural habitat.  Even though the animals are not living in their natural habitat, what is to say they aren’t “happy”?  Happiness is an example of a term used by humans, “to anthropomorphize”, which is to personify a thing or being. For example, when people ask if the animals are “happy” when they’re in confinement, there is no real way of knowing their true level of happiness. However, through their signs and body language they give us a pretty good idea of whether or not they are comfortable and satisfied.

The most difficult part for people that are not involved with modern animal agriculture is that most of them see it as “the easy way out” for the farmer. Many people believe that the food is of lesser quality and have decided to no longer eat meat, as they don’t support the modern “confined” methods of farming. There have been many news articles published as well as commercials about modern farming and how it is contaminating the precious resources we have left, the animals are not happy being in a confined space, their welfare is being “compromised”, and the farmers are doing this because “factory farming” is the easier, more efficient way to go. The commercial put out by Chipotle during recent music awards gives a great description of what the general public thinks of modern animal production.

Conclusion:

I can personally argue that after much research and class time in the barns with these animals, they are being looked after much closer than ever before. They are being pampered living in a barn versus living in their natural habitat out in the cold exposed to many predators and outside diseases that could potentially affect the herd. I have heard horror stories of entire herds dying of a disease transferred through plants or animals dying of sickness because the owner somehow missed the animal when checking for sickness throughout the herd. When animals are in confinement, these types of problems will no longer happen.

The concept of farming today is much different today than it was ten years ago, and that is all to benefit the growing world population. Farmers are doing their best to provide a balance between supplying enough food to feed the world and provide a comfortable way of life for the animals. With that being said, there is no real way of knowing whether or not an animal’s welfare is being compromised. Farmers are doing their best to maintain a balance of a “happy” and healthy lifestyle for their livestock while producing more livestock than ever before. This is just the beginning of the struggle and it will only get worse in years to come.