For centuries, humans have domesticated animals. We have provided food, water, shelter, protection from predators, assistance with birthing, medicine, and other forms of support. In return, animals have provided us with many essential elements for our existence: warmth, companionship, food, clothing, power to plow and haul, transportation, and, ultimately, their lives. Indeed, the term “husbandry” is derived from the Old Norse words hus and bond, meaning that the animals were bonded to their households. The essence of husbandry was thus grounded in animal care. This is the basis of the “ancient contract” we have with domesticated animals, and, as part of that contract, it is important that animals experience good welfare throughout their lives and die humanely at the end of their lives.
This ancient contract is widely viewed as a sustainable relationship between man and animals. But in the historical scenario described above, animals often starved and suffered, as did their human companions, during harsh winters, droughts, and food shortages. Therefore, rather than reflecting on some imagined scenario of the past, it is more helpful to reconsider sustainability in relation to modern livestock production and to determine how welfare improvements to our current systems may be made—thus rewriting the ancient contract. This is the task that Marian Stamp Dawkins and Roland Bonney have attempted to address in The Future of Animal Farming: Renewing the Ancient Contract, which comprises 15 invited essays by redoubtable experts in their fields. Following a brief introduction by the editors, the first four essays attempt to provide the arguments for changing current farming methods. Bernie Rollin tackles the ethical basis with gusto, and Mary Midgley and Joyce D'Silva argue urgently against continued animal suffering.
The overriding driver of the book, however, is not poor animal husbandry but rather a lack of environmental sustainability—the hypothesis that we will run out of space, food, and water, and will become overcome by disease and pollution if we continue as at present. Kate Rawles pursues the case for connecting animal welfare and environmentalism, pointing out that the two issues have shared roots. Climate change is thus part of the justification for improved animal welfare. A discerning reader who critically explores the arguments may find some flaws, but Rawles nonetheless makes her case for reconsidering how we raise our food.
The second part of the book tackles how to bring about change. The authors acknowledge that rewriting the ancient contract will require that farmers be able to stay in business. Thus good welfare must be a commercially viable goal, which means in turn that consumers must be able to have their expectations for animal welfare met through effective farm inspection and labeling. Major retailers (including supermarkets) play a key role here, and the drivers are well described in these chapters. Helen Browning also ably reminds readers of the important role that welfare must play in organic farming.
Consumers no longer need to make the blunt decision between eating or not eating animals; instead, they can make more subtle choices for welfare-friendly production systems.
In concluding, Dawkins and Bonney concede that they have not provided complete answers about the future of animal farming. However, they and their contributing authors have raised important questions and posed some challenges.
Perhaps the most important link in the food chain is the consumer. Through informed market choices, consumers will determine the desired quality of the food that they eat, and consumers will ultimately determine how we will deal with the environmental impacts of livestock production. Producers exist only to serve consumers. However, from a functional perspective, consumers are not only individual food-buying households but also—and more significantly—major food retailers and caterers who have their own commercial strategies. The engagement of producers in a powerful dialogue with all these consumers is absolutely essential. Consumers no longer need to make the blunt decision between eating or not eating animals; instead, they can make more subtle choices for welfare-friendly production systems—and these choices must be based upon dialogue and information.
In a perhaps surprising foreword, Peter Singer (renowned for his pivotal book Animal Liberation) acknowledges that while vegetarianism is on the rise in the developed world, the numbers of animals raised and killed for food are increasing. This raises a dilemma for the animal rights movement, which, he argues, can no longer confine itself to promoting veganism but also must engage in the debate about production systems that promote good welfare.
If there is such an enlightened animal rights movement, The Future of Animal Farming will give hope to it. But in a wider and more important sense, this book will encourage others who are directly involved in the production of animals for food, and those in the chain between producers and consumers, to think more critically about their practices and to explore options for better welfare within commercially viable systems. Finally, the book may persuade consumers to be more vocal in expressing their choices, and in demanding information to ensure that those choices are informed ones.
