Are ethical arguments for addressing farm animal welfare compelling?
Ethical arguments exist for addressing farm animal welfare, including it being ‘the right thing to do’ for the animals themselves; however, these arguments may not be compelling to all important parties engaged in this sector.
What animals are included in the 2012 census of Agriculture?
2012 Census of Agriculture; includes mules, burros, and donkeys. 8 Catfish is published as total sales (not value of production). 9 2012 Census of Agriculture.
What are the criteria for participation in the Animal Industry Leadership Program?
Participants were invited through country-based collaborators based on the following selection criteria: that they were leaders in the animal production sector, working for an organisation with a maximum of two government vets and with the ability to implement change into private businesses (see Table 2).
What is animal agriculture?
What is Animal Agriculture? Animal agriculture, or factory farming as it’s commonly known, is the mass industrialization of the breeding, raising, and slaughter of animals for human consumption.
How does Community Supported Agriculture affect agriculture?
Community supported agriculture also encourages ecologically sound farming practices such as organic or biodynamic growing methods. This type of farming also minimizes food waste by producing just the amount of food members need, with minimal unused surplus.
What is an example of community supported agriculture?
Community Food Systems: Farm-to-School, Food Circles, and Farmers’ Markets. Local Food Systems.
How does Community Supported impact the environment and the food supply?
Community supported and shared agriculture encourages ecologically friendly practices with environmental benefits on the farm, in surrounding ecosystems and beyond. Many smaller farms commonly struggle in response to the financial realities of market gardening.
Why is community supported agriculture important?
CSAs provide consumers with a valuable opportunity to obtain fresh, local produce from farmers who enjoy growing food for people in their communities. Understanding who is likely to join a CSA from both the farmer’s and consumer’s perspective is invaluable to both parties and helps ensure a positive relationship.
How can we support agriculture?
Join the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Buying harvests directly from farmers through the CSA system is also a great way to have fresh fruits and vegetables regularly. Through CSA, you are sure that you get to support a local farmer and at the same time, you know that the food you eat is safe and nutritious.
When did community supported agriculture start?
According to Steve McFadden, writer and speaker, the CSA movement started in 1986 in the US, but was not directly influenced by the initiatives discussed in Japan. The CSA influence in the United States came from Europe. Robyn Van En was the cofounder and original owner of Indian Line Farm in the South Egremont, MA.
How does community shared agriculture CSA work how is it related to soil?
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a production and marketing model whereby consumers buy shares of a farm’s harvest in advance. Consumers become CSA members by paying an agreed amount at the beginning of the growing season, either in one lump sum or in installments.
What are some benefits of using a sustainable agriculture system?
Benefits of Sustainable AgricultureContributes to Environmental Conservation. The environment plays a huge role in fulfilling our basic needs to sustain life. … Saves Energy for Future. … Public Health Safety. … Prevents Pollution. … Prevents Air Pollution. … Prevents Soil Erosion. … Reduction in Cost. … Biodiversity.More items…
What is a farming community?
(ˈfɑːmɪŋ kəˈmjuːnɪtɪ ) noun. a community where farming is the main industry.
How do communities benefit from urban farms?
Urban agriculture provides multi-dimensional benefits, especially as regards food security for low income groups, employment and training opportunities for disadvantaged and marginalised groups, enhanced access to fresh fruit and vegetables, and reduced environmental impacts through less transport, packaging and …
What are the pros and cons of joining a CSA?
The Pros and Cons of Joining a CSAPro: You’re supporting a specific local farm sans middleman.Con: You’re limited to that farm.Pro: The food is fresh.Con: You must be ready to use it.Pro: It’s inexpensive.Con: You have to spend it all at once.Pro: It’s interactive.Con: There are requirements.More items…
What is the importance of agriculture in national economy?
One of the central goals of every developing country is to reach high-income status. Agriculture plays a critical role in transforming economies to reach the goal, along with achieving other essential development goals like ensuring food security and improving nutrition.
Why do multinationals have complete control over their own production?
And because they are able to contract the dwindling number of farms to produce animal products their way , they have complete control.
How has animal agriculture made it possible for food corporations to turn farms into efficient factories?
The advent of industrial animal agriculture has made it possible for food corporations to turn farms into efficient factories, by doing so, disregarding the fact that they are dealing with sentient beings and forcing them to endure a lifetime of suffering and cruelty.
Why don’t humans need animals?
Humans don’t need to consume animals in order to be healthy and survive. And we certainly don’t need to treat animals like machinery or commodities. Industrial animal agriculture is responsible for the suffering and slaughter of trillions of animals each and every year around the globe. It is responsible for the degradation …
How does factory farming maximize profits?
Factory farming, from a business perspective, is a brilliant way to maximize profits by dramatically increasing the supply while at the same time bringing down production costs. And if factory farming was dealing with the production of cotton T-shirts or toys then it wouldn’t be as objectionable as it is.
What is factory farming?
Factory farming is the answer corporations found when the question was about turning animal agriculture into an industrial operation.
What would happen if people cared about animals?
If they care about animals, they wouldn’t breed them into existence for imminent slaughter in the first place.
Why do farmers treat animals the same as workers treat equipment or machinery in a factory?
By treating farm animals the same as workers treat equipment or machinery in a factory, farmers are able to raise and produce animals at extraordinary rates. Doing so makes it final product, clothing or food in most cases, significantly cheaper for the consumer.
What scale is donation question on?
Multiplying the “donation” question by 50% to so all questions are on a 0-6 scale.
What is a weak negative?
Weak negative. The animal-based foods I purchase (meat, dairy, and/or eggs) usually come from animals that are treated humanely. For example, the animals are given enough space and kept in good health. 75.4%.
How many significant associations were found in the first regression?
The first regression results were as follows. There were four p=0.05 significant associations: [14]
What is factory farming?
The factory farming of animals is one of the most important social issues in the world today. (A factory farm is a large industrialized farm , especially one on which a large number of livestock are raised indoors in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost.) 68.8%. 25-48%. Strong positive.
Why did we not randomize the order of the questions in the survey?
We chose not to randomize the order of questions in the survey because the survey questions were already complex and unusual enough that we wanted to maximize understandability. This could make questions that came later in the survey less comparable with those that came earlier due to priming, anchoring, or social desirability effects. Similarly, we chose not to reverse many questions (e.g. “I do not support a ban on factory farming”) in order to minimize confusion, but we were conflicted about both of these and might have made the wrong decisions.
How many people think that farmed animals are treated well?
58% of US adults think “most farmed animals are treated well,” despite those same estimates and over a decade of undercover investigations in the US and USDA data suggesting over 99% of farmed animals live on factory farms. [4] This suggests either we have insufficient awareness of factory farming, or people have refused to accept the evidence, perhaps due to the emphasis on individual diet change and subsequent cognitive dissonance with their own eating habits.
What should we eat to reduce animal based diet?
People should consume fewer animal-based foods (meat, dairy, and/or eggs) and more plant-based foods (fruits, grains, beans, and/or vegetables).
1. Exploitation of Factory Farm Workers
The negative effects of animal agriculture can be seen immediately, starting with the thousands of workers who are employed within the factory farms that litter the country. These people typically work very long hours for barely minimum wage.
2. Pollution in Local Communities
The effects of the animal agriculture industry don’t stop with the animals and workers confined inside factory farms – they are much farther reaching. Local communities often suffer terribly when factory farms set up shop nearby or expand small operations into industrials monsters.
3. Drought
You can scarcely read the news today without coming across a story discussing the terrible drought that is sweeping across California. To combat the drought, Governor Jerry Brown has placed massive water restrictions on urban water use, calling residents to shorten showers and stop watering their lawns at all costs.
4. Global Hunger
The animal agriculture industry’s effects extend far beyond the people and land in its immediate vicinity as well. Though more than 850 million people go hungry every day throughout the world, the animal agriculture industry continues to funnel the majority of our grain into farmed animals, who we then slaughter and eat.
5. The Health Crisis
On the flip side of global hunger, the animal agriculture industry is at least partially to blame for the United States’ current health crisis. In 2015, two-thirds of Americans are overweight, one-third of Americans are obese, 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer, and more than 600,000 people will die from heart disease.
Animal Issues ARE People Issues!
As the above facts illustrate, the animal agriculture industry has wide-reaching effects. Factory farms disregard animal welfare, exploit workers, and destroy local communities.
How long is a session in NVivo?
The average time of sessions was 3.5 h, with an average of eight participants. Sessions with higher numbers of participants often ran approximately 30–45 min past the scheduled 3.5 h to offer all participants adequate opportunity to contribute. Transcripts were uploaded into NVivo software for Mac 11.4.3 for analysis.
What is the remainder of focus group content?
The remainder of focus group content considered specific animal welfare issues, solutions, meanings and motivations, which will be presented in separate manuscripts.
Why is animal welfare important?
A major benefit identified in the scientific literature centers on the notion that the public, as evident in many parts of the world, is demanding better treatment of animals [13]. Improving animal welfare offers the business benefit of mitigation of risk to the brand through bad publicity, loss of purchase partnerships and even the jeopardy of a whole industry. In some parts of the world, this is a concern, fuelled by advocacy lobby efforts that have seen reformation of farming practices, such as the abolition of veal crates, cage eggs and sow stalls in the European Union [14], and it has likewise caused periodic market collapses, such as that experienced by the live export industry in Australia [15]. In addition to avoiding poor publicity, improving animal welfare also provides positive marketing, which has the opportunity to improve the public’s perception of the livestock industries as a whole [13]. Finally, in terms of business benefits, the scientific literature identifies employment benefits. By going through 10 years of industry data, it was discovered that improved animal welfare makes the animals safer and easier to handle , which results in a need for fewer staff, who are more satisfied, likely to have substantially less time off and have less medical expenses [9,16].
How many translators were used in NVivo?
To avoid presenting misleading data, linguistics and tone are not reported, as all data were translated, abbreviated, and summarised through six translators, from six different languages to English. For this reason, rather than focussing on word usage, more attention was paid to the careful analysis on the key themes (benefits), the frequency of their appearance across countries, the general context and meanings that were applied to them by the participants and how they relate to one another. However, word frequency functions in NVivo were utilised in the identification of sub themes and were reported infrequently in the results. Direct quotes are presented in the results according to the country in which they were collected, with the abbreviated codes presented in Table 1.
Why are focus groups used in research?
In this instance, focus groups were selected as the method of data collection in preference of surveys due to their scope to collect broader qualitative data , which, once identified, can then be measured quantitatively in future studies. Likewise, focus groups were chosen in preference of individual interviews to enable the collection of data from a wider sample size, to encourage cross-participant discussion that may lead to more in-depth and honest data collection and to allow for frequent consensus checks where the facilitator can ascertain if sentiments are shared, or contested, by the participant group. Within the focus groups, participants were asked an open-ended question at the onset of the focus group by the lead researcher (MS), i.e., ‘what do you see as the benefits to addressing animal welfare’. Their collective round table responses were recorded and presented back to the participants later during an activity that invited a group discussion on ranking the benefits from most important to least important, as a group. Participants that felt strongly towards certain benefits chose to advocate for a higher ranking of those benefits, in discussion form, and the groups ultimately voted democratically by raising their hands to vote for the ‘most important benefit’ from top to bottom. The discussions surrounding the benefits of improving animal welfare and the final rankings delivered through the activity were documented and form the basis of this study.
What are the key tenets of animal welfare?
Key tenets of successful international animal welfare initiatives have been outlined in a recent study, which emphasized the importance of engaging with the industry and establishing mutual benefits as a basis for collaboration [4]. According to the literature, apart from the obvious benefits to the animals themselves, the espoused benefits for improving animal welfare vary. One study focuses on the fact that economic benefits have been historically omitted from consideration and that economists, amongst others, should play an important role when developing animal welfare initiatives [5].
Why is farming important?
It has the potential to cause suffering in large numbers of animals, over prolonged periods of time, ending in a death that has the conceivable ability to epitomise that suffering. As an industry that has systematically experienced rapid growth and intensification in most regions of the world, methods employed during farming, transport and slaughter are frequently the focus of public concern and advocacy lobby. Ethical arguments exist for addressing farm animal welfare, including it being ‘the right thing to do’ for the animals themselves; however, these arguments may not be compelling to all important parties engaged in this sector. Depending on the area of the world, other influential factors make more compelling motivators [1], and the literature on this point paints a much more complex landscape than one of basic ethical value, particularly in emerging countries [2,3]. Animal agriculture is not simply a theoretical interface between humans and other species, it is an economic endeavour; it functions foremost as a business, and the stakeholders in the position to have the most power over the welfare of the animals in the sector are those working within the livestock industry.
How many hogs were slaughtered in 2017?
In the last 3 years, the number of hogs slaughtered commercially reached a low point in May or June, then increased until peaking in October or November in preparation for the holiday season (fig. 1). Commercial hog slaughter totaled 121.3 million head in 2017, 2.6 percent higher than 2016.
How many equids are in a farm?
For purposes of equids, a farm is defined as any operation with at least $1,000 in sales of agricultural products annually (the usual definition) or any operation that has at least five equids (other than commercial enterprises such as race tracks).
How many horses are there in the US in 2012?
The 2012 Census of Agriculture estimated 3.62 million horses and ponies reported on 504,795 farms and 292,590 mules, burros, and donkeys on 98,379 farms (table 9). The number of farms with mules, burros, and donkeys was up over 300 percent from only 29,936 in 2002. There is a broad and even distribution of equids across the United States.
What is cattle feed?
Cattle on feed (steers and heifers) are fed a ration of grain or other concentrate in preparation for slaughter, and the majority are in feedlots in States with large grain supplies.
What is the value of cattle in 2017?
In 2017, the cattle industry had the highest value of production at roughly $50.2 billion. The poultry industries were the next largest commodity in the United States, with production valued at around $42.7 billion, followed by hogs and pigs at $19.2 billion (table 1). The value of milk production was about $38.1 billion, 9.8 percent higher than in 2016.
How many chickens hatched in 2017?
Hatchery statistics for 2017 include 9.62 billion broiler-type chickens hatched, 582 million egg- type chicks hatched, and 291 million poults hatched in turkey hatcheries. The collective capacity of the 288 chicken hatcheries on January 1, 2018, was 951 million eggs, and the capacity of the 55 turkey hatcheries was 41.1 million eggs.
What is relative magnitude of industries?
Relative Magnitude of Industries, by Value of Production