If+slaughterhouses+had+glass+walls+everyone+would+be+vegetarian

Student: Andrea Ortiz n8663033 Tutor: Michelle Cornford

1.- TOPIC

The ethical, environmental and health aspects of eating meat

2.- ARTEFACT

This video corresponds to the Animals Australia “Make it possible” initiative. This campaign targets factory farming and animal cruelty. It was released on 2012. The video aims to create awareness about the conditions that animals raised for food are kept in and the cruelty and pain that these intensely farmed animals have to endure in order to sustain the increased demand for meat products today. It also emphasises that factory farming is ecologically unsustainable and thus encourages Australians to get involved in making a change, to make kinder choices and refuse to consume factory farmed products and to reduce the increased demand by consuming fewer meat products or going meat-free.

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3.- PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE CENTRAL TO MY ANALYSIS

This Artefact represents the public health issues that the proliferation of factory farming has created. The main focus areas are:
 * Animal welfare: to encourage the public to look at factory-farmed animals as more than just products that will end on a supermarket shelve.
 * Human health: given that extensive research indicates that fat intake, associated to meat consumption, is related to increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and some types of cancer.
 * The environment: as the high concentration of animal wastes and the unsustainable consumption of natural resources that this industry requires contribute significantly towards our natural world’s deterioration.

4.- LITERATURE REVIEW

Australia is one of the main producers and exporters of red meat worldwide as it accounts for around 3% of the global production and 25% of global exports (Thomason, 2007). This industry has such an importance because it has played a critical role in shaping Australia’s economy, seeing that no other agricultural activity contributes to the state’s economy as the meat industry does (ABS, 2013). Furthermore it has helped define the character of the Australian ‘outback’ culture, as well as the typical Australian diet (Williams & Price, 2010). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013), the gross value of agricultural production in 2010 was $39.6 billion. Cattle and calf slaughtering was the main contributor to the gross value of production ($7.3b), followed by milk ($3.4b) and sheep and lamb slaughtering ($2.6b). Pig and poultry farming are highly intensive industries in Australia. In 2010, pigs numbered 2.3 million head and poultry farmers bred 71.3 million chickens for meat production and 11.7 million for egg production. A few decades ago farming was done in a traditional way: family farms and open pastures. Additionally, meat in Australia was considered a luxury. Nowadays the search for lower prices has shifted the industry towards an intensively industrialized system. Around 95% of the red meat produced in Australia is factory farmed (ABC, 2013). Factory farming is the industrialisation of conventional farming. Unfortunately this industrialization focuses only on efficiency –maximum output for the cheapest price. This reduction of costs entails much more than what meets the eye. Meat becoming cheaper only represents lower costs for the consumer however this price does not represent the true cost for the environment, human health and for the sentient beings who will endure a life of immense deprivation and pain to provide our society with food sources that could be obtained elsewhere (ABC, 2013).

According to Animals Australia (n.d), RSPCA (2013) and PETA Australia (2013), animals raised for food are only seen by the industry as production machines. They are grown in sheds designed with the sole purpose of maximizing the efficient production of large numbers of animals, disregarding animal welfare. Sows are legally kept in metal stalls practically immobilised during their pregnancy and they are forced to give birth to their young in concrete or metal floors. Meat chickens are forced to grow at three times their natural rate. Consequently a large amount of them die from organ failure or from the inability to reach food or water, as they are incapable to support their own weight. Three to five hens are crammed into battery cages smaller than an A4 size paper where they spend 30 hours to produce just one egg (RSPCA, 2013). Australian laws also allow for surgical procedures to be performed on factory-farmed animals without pain relief, for example piglets will have their tails and teeth cut off or they will be castrated if they are male. Battery hens have their beaks seared off with hot blades to prevent aggression that may arise from overcrowding. Male chicks are gassed or grinded on their first day of life while they are still alive and over 700,000 week-old calves are slaughtered yearly as waste products of these industries. Dairy cows are kept almost continually pregnant to keep and meet the milk demand (Animals Australia, n.d).



If these facts are not enough reason to reconsider Australia’s current meat consumption, factory farming also takes its toll on the environment. This industry is highly dependant on water, energy, crops and land. The agriculture sector is the largest consumer of freshwater resources. In 2000, agriculture accounted for 70% of global water usage and 93% of water depletion worldwide (ABC, 2013).As stated by the UN, livestock production is the largest contributor to green house emissions. The public is unaware that the meat on their plates contributes far more largely to climate change than the car they are driving.One dairy cow alone produces 500-700 litres of methane, which impacts 23 times more towards global warming than CO2, a day (ABC, 2013). In a year that same cow will have produced the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions as a medium sized car that has travelled 70,000 kilometres. Every car, bus, train or plane combined makes up 13% of global greenhouse gases. Factory farmed animals make up a surprising 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Animals Australia, n.d). The environmental damage does not stop there;factory farming releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. Rainforests such as the Amazon and the Cerrado in Brazil are important carbon-absorbent resources, unfortunately these are being cut down to produce soya bean crops, 75% of which are used to feed animals raised for human consumption in Western countries. Livestock production utilizes more food than it produces, leaving less food for everyone else.It takes around 7Kg of grain to produce just 1Kg of meat (Animals Australia, n.d). Additionally, animal product production requires ten times more land than that needed to produce the same amount of vegetables, 57% of Australia’s land is used for agricultural businesses, 87% of which is covered by grazing land for domestic cattle, and dairy. These figures should not be ignored as they illustrate how the use of land and energy resources devoted to this industry make it considerably unsustainable ( Williams & Price, 2010 ).



Finally, eating meat also represents public heath concerns for human health. Leading health experts conducted several studies, which revealed that there is a direct connection between increased meat intake and the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer. The ‘high-speed’ meat production entails a greater risk from food borne pathogens, for these reason large amounts of antibiotics are given to animals raised for food, this may alter their effectiveness in medical use (Thomason,2007). Pesticides are also heavily used in industrial food production. Their residues enter the human body through food and are associated with elevated risks of cancer development as well as endocrine and reproductive dysfunction for workers and consumers ( Horrigan, Lawrence & Walker, 2002). According to Pluhar (as cited in Pollan, 2006) because of pesticide contamination of lands adjacent to farmland, people who refuse to consume factory farm products and even vegetarians are at risk from the pathogens released from this industry. Pluhar also states that workers from factory farms are the most badly affected in terms of the emotional effects of such employment and says that they usually become sadistic as consequence of what their job forces them to do hourly and daily.

To conclude, the ethical, environmental and health consequences central to the development of factory farming outlined by this literature review should raise consciousness on why this problem should be a priority for society worldwide.

5.- SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS

The problems that arise while studying the consequences of factory farming can be discussed from many angles and by many social theories. Factory farming can be perceived as the ‘ McDonaldization ’ of traditional farming. McDonaldization refers to the rationalisation of the modern world, where resources are exploited to their limit and its sole purpose is to maximize profits. Industrialized farms fit into this description as they prioritize the expansion of their corporate interests in such magnitude that environmental and ethical boundaries constitute merely minor, or temporary, obstacles to be overcome in the process of rationality, as this morality could stand in the way of the optimal exploit of resources. For these reason meat production has become automated, with humans playing a minimal role within the industry to avoid unreliability, unpredictability and to generate a controlled and extremely profitable environment. The new farming techniques allow the farmers to predict how fast and how much their animals will grow or live, disregarding their welfare. Technology has provided the farmers with greater control over animals, which in turn has lead to the maximized efficiency calculability and predictability of this industry (Smart, 1999). Furthermore, capitalism and globalization have also played an important role in encouraging factory farming by suggesting that industrialized meat production is the only way to supply the current demand for meat, they have done this by encouraging the public to grow a taste for their products and by making them necessitate their services (Smart, 1999).

However, animal welfare organizations such as Animals Australia see the moral side that rationalization evades. These organizations encourage the public to critically examine the modern meat production practices and to reconsider their current meat consumption. They take a utilitarian approach and argue in favor that all sentient beings have the right to live a live without experiencing suffering or pain (Smart, 1999). Environmentalists say ecosystems should be morally considered and therefore find factory farming unsustainable and unacceptable. So do feminist theories in general, as they are against the objectification and consumption embodied by industrialized livestock production (Pluhar, 2009). Many other moral theories oppose the continuation of factory farming. They advocate for the moral case for vegetarianism and state that animals should not be seen only in terms of what they can produce and nature should stop being viewed only as an object. The dangerous consequences of factory farming for the environment, human health, and farm animal welfare make of industrialized livestock production a problem that affects all social and cultural groups, where not even vegetarians and non-factory farmed meat eaters are exempt. For these reasons awareness of this issue is crucial. As previously stated vegetarianism is promoted by animal welfare organisations, health and environmental experts as a highly sustainable form and strategy to replace meat consumption as no animals would be slaughtered, there would not be a need to feed them food which could otherwise be given to starving humans and the land utilized for animal food production could otherwise sustain sizeable human communities or be employed to produce plant-based food (Smart, 1999). Additionally, according to Smart (1999) vegetarianism is a strategy to resist McDonaldization. At present however, evidence suggests that as long as eating meat is an available option most people will continue this practice seeing that most people ignore the effects of factory farming on animals raised for food, on human health, and upon the environment (Pluhar, 2009).

6.- ANALYSIS OF THE ARTEFACT AND LEARNING REFLECTIONS

The make it possible video summarizes in a very concise and assertive way the truth about what really happens inside factory farms. The reason I liked this video was because it is not gruesome and yet it still delivers a very harsh and clear message as to why factory farming is cruel and unsustainable. I think this is why this video made a big impact on me and has affected the way I think. Prior to doing this assignment I have never watched any videos about meat production precisely because I did not wanted to know the extent of the cruelty animals in this industry have to endure. The statistics that surprised me the most where the ones about the impact that’s livestock production has in our environment and how the multiple resources used to produce meat could be better applied in a plant-based industry and I realised that many people may not know either. The video made me aware of how we all contribute to the ongoing existence, prosperity, and growth of factory farming by consuming the products of this industry and by eating meat in general. However it also made me understand that small changes do make a difference and that consumer sentiment can impact the big corporations that have the power to create significant changes for this industry. Proof of this is that supermarket giants such as Coles and Woolworths have committed to make all their own brand pork, products sow stall free by 2013. Also, as of this year all Coles brand eggs are cage free and by 2018 Woolworths will phase out all battery hen eggs (Animals Australia, n.d). I can conclude by saying that thanks to this assignment I choose my supermarket products really carefully and I have encouraged my family and friends to do the same.

7.- REFLECTION

1.- http://healthcultureandsociety2013.wikispaces.com/page/messages/%27Know%3DNo%27 2.- http://healthcultureandsociety2013.wikispaces.com/page/messages/All-Stars+or+metal+bars%3F+The+background+of+Sweatshops

8.- REFERENCE LIST

ABC. (2013). Factory farming masks meat's true costs. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4770226.html

Animal Australia. (n.d). What is factory farming? Retrieved from http://www.makeitpossible.com/facts/what-is-factory-farming.php

Animals Australia. (n.d). Meat the truth. Retrieved from http://www.unleashed.org.au/features/meat-the-truth/

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2013). Agricultural production. Retrieved from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~Agricultural%20production~260

Horrigan, L., Lawrence, R. S., & Walker, P. (2002). How sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of industrial agriculture. //Environmental Health Perspectives, 110//(5), 445-456. doi:10.1289/ehp.02110445

Pluhar, E. B. (2009). Meat and morality: Alternatives to factory farming. //Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 23//(5), 455-468. doi:10.1007/s10806-009-9226-x

Pollan, M. (2006). The omnivore’s dilemma. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

PETA Australia. (2013). The Truth About Chickens Used For Food. Retrieved from http://www.peta.org.au/issue/the-truth-about-chickens-used-for-food/

RSPCA. (2013). Layer hens. Retrieved from http://www.rspca.org.au/campaigns/layer-hens

Smart, B. (1999). //Resisting McDonaldization//. London: Sage Publications.

Thomason, D. (2007). Production practices for red meat in australia. //Nutrition & Dietetics, 64//, S192-S195. doi:10.1111/j.1747-0080.2007.00212.x

Williams, J. E., & Price, R. J. (2010). Impacts of red meat production on biodiversity in australia: A review and comparison with alternative protein production industries. //Animal Production Science, 50//(8), 723. doi:10.1071/AN09132