Breeding and Rearing Farmed Animals

Abstract

This chapter examines the mass breeding and raising of animals for meat and other animal products (such as eggs and dairy products). It argues that the normative everyday practices of animal agriculture, within which billions of animals are bred and raised, are collectively part of the most widespread and systematic abuse. The chapter first focuses on the prevalence and specific nature of the abuses involved in the intensive breeding and rearing of farmed animals. It then examines explanations for the forms and degrees of abuse endemic in the breeding and raising of animals for food. Finally, the chapter considers responses to issues raised by the breeding and rearing of farmed animals in terms of policy changes adopted by national and international organisations of governance, changes in industry practices and the demands of different campaign organisations in civil society which expose and contest the harms involved in the raising of animals for food.

Throughout this chapter, the term ‘farmed’ rather than ‘farm’ animals will be used. This is consistent with critical approaches in animal studies which emphasise that the raising of non-human animals for food is something which is done to non-human animals rather than a neutral status which some kinds of domesticated species occupy.