Report or activist project
FACTORY OR INDUSTRIAL FARMING
Video: very gruesome
Factory farming
Framing issues
WHAT IS A FACTORY FARM?
Simply put:
Use of techniques and processes to produce meat intensively to maximise production and minimise costs.
Video
SIMPLE: It makes meat cheaper for consumers and more profitable for those who own the businesses ie shareholders and individuals
WHY HAVE FACTORY FARMING?
‘10 Things to Know About Industrial Farming’
UN Environment Programme 2020
1 According to some estimates, industrialized farming–which produces greenhouse gas emission, pollutes air and water, and destroys wildlife–costs the environment the equivalent of about US$3 trillion every year.
2 It can facilitate the spread of viruses from animals to humans
3. It has been linked to zoonotic diseases.
4 It fosters antimicrobial resistance
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/10-things-you-should-know-abo ut-industrial-farming
5. Its use of pesticides may have adverse health effects.
6. It contaminates water and soil and affects human health.
7. It has caused epidemics of obesity and chronic disease.
8. It is an inefficient use of land.
9. It entrenches inequality.
10. It is fundamentally at odds with environmental health.
‘10 Things to Know About Industrial Farming’
The law and factory farming in nsw
The law permits this institutionalised abuse by classifying farm animals as ‘stock animals’ and thereby excluding them from basic protections under anti-cruelty statutes. In NSW, for example, section 9 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (NSW) makes it an offence to fail to provide an animal with adequate exercise. Stock animals, such as cows, sheep, goats, deer, pigs and domestic fowl, are expressly exempt from this requirement.
In most jurisdictions, cruelty offences are only established where an act or omission is considered ‘unreasonable’, ‘unnecessary’ or ‘unjustifiable’. In effect, these qualifications serve as a potential shield for producers, as the law often deems cruel farming practices both reasonable and necessary in order to supply a growing population with cheap animal-derived food products
Voiceless 2015 animal law toolkit
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (NSW) 1979 No 200, Section 9
9 Confined animals to be exercised
(1) A person in charge of an animal which is confined shall not fail to provide the animal with adequate exercise.
Maximum penalty—250 penalty units in the case of a corporation and 50 penalty units or imprisonment for 6 months, or both, in the case of an individual.
(1A) Subsection (1) does not apply to a person in charge of an animal if the animal is—
(a) a stock animal other than a horse, or
(b) an animal of a species which is usually kept in captivity by means of a cage.
(2) In any proceedings for an offence against subsection (1), evidence that an animal referred to in that subsection was not released from confinement during a period of 24 hours is evidence that the person accused of the offence has failed to provide the animal with adequate exercise during that period.
(3) A person in charge of an animal (other than a stock animal) shall not confine the animal in a cage of which the height, length or breadth is insufficient to allow the animal a reasonable opportunity for adequate exercise.
Maximum penalty—250 penalty units in the case of a corporation or 50 penalty units or imprisonment for 6 months, or both, in the case of an individual.
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (NSW) 1979 No 200, Section 24
24 Certain defences
(1) In any proceedings for an offence against this Part or the regulations in respect of an animal, the person accused of the offence is not guilty of the offence if the person satisfies the court that the act or omission in respect of which the proceedings are being taken was done, authorised to be done or omitted to be done by that person—
(a) where, at the time when the offence is alleged to have been committed, the animal was—
(i) a stock animal—in the course of, and for the purpose of, ear-marking or ear-tagging the animal or branding, other than firing or hot iron branding of the face of, the animal,
(ii) a pig of less than 2 months of age or a stock animal of less than 6 months of age which belongs to a class of animals comprising cattle, sheep or goats—in the course of, and for the purpose of, castrating the animal,
(iii) a goat of less than 1 month of age or a stock animal of less than 12 months of age which belongs to the class of animal comprising cattle—in the course of, and for the purpose of, dehorning the animal,
(iv) a sheep of less than 6 months of age—in the course of, and for the purpose of, tailing the animal, or
(v) a sheep of less than 12 months of age—in the course of, and for the purpose of, performing the Mules operation upon the animal,
in a manner that inflicted no unnecessary pain upon the animal,
Additionally, the operation of industry guidelines significantly undermines the limited protections afforded under anti-cruelty statutes. These industry guidelines:
Institutionalise cruel standards for raising and keeping farmed animals, such as the use of sow stalls and farrowing crates for pigs, cages for chickens and intensive systems for all other livestock;
Sanction husbandry practices involving the mutilation of farmed animals, such as teeth clipping pigs, de-horning cows and beak trimming chickens; and
Function to effectively exclude farmed animals from the protections afforded under anti-cruelty statutes, as compliance with a particular industry guideline may be relied upon as an exception or defence to a charges of cruelty
Voiceless
The law and factory farming
Theorising Factory Farming: Hegemony and CAS
To think about
Three richest people in Australia 2021:
Gina Rinehart. Resources, agriculture. Rank1. $31.06b
= 31000 million
Andrew Forrest. Resources. Rank2. $27.25b.
Mike Cannon-Brookes. Rank3. $20.18b.
‘ordinary’ salary/wage earner works for fifty years at one hundred thousand dollars per year equals a life time earnings of five million.
Hegemony: The Cultural Power of Ideology
Role that ideology plays in reproducing the economic system and social structure.
‘Gramsci realized that there was more to the dominance of capitalism than the class structure and its exploitation of workers. Marx had recognized the important role that ideology played in reproducing the economic system and the social structure that supported it, but Gramsci believed that Marx had not given enough credit to the power of ideology. ‘
Shown through institutions like religion and education. And the role of the intellectual
Cole, Nicki Lisa, Ph.D. "What Is Cultural Hegemony?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/cultural-hegemony-
The Political Power of Common Sense
Gramsci discussed the role of “common sense”—dominant ideas about society and about our place in it—in producing cultural hegemony. For example, the ability of the individual to make it despite the odds
‘In sum, cultural hegemony, or our tacit agreement with the way that things are, is a result of socialization, our experiences with social institutions, and our exposure to cultural narratives and imagery, all of which reflect the beliefs and values of the ruling class. ‘
Cole, Nicki Lisa, Ph.D. "What Is Cultural Hegemony?" ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/cultural-hegemony
REPRESENTATION OF HEGEMONY
Examples of Hegemony and humans and animals
What we do not want to see.
Critical animal studies
CAS contests speciesism. Speciesism does not refer simply to human relationships with other animals, but means socially, politically, economically, and culturally constructed everyday practices and a body of knowledge that supports such relationships.
As Sorenson (2014) argued, unsettling speciesism is almost unthinkable as it is the basis of the capitalist economy and a tremendous material investment has been made in the institutions and practices of exploitation (e.g., agribusiness, experimentations, entertainment, and leisure). Domination thrives by masking or rejecting any recognition of the violence and the suffering that it inflicts. It makes exploitation seem natural and any challenge to exploitation not just impossible but inconceivable. (ie hegemonic) One task of CAS is to confront this unthinkability, the taken-for-granted assumptions that form a hidden structure.
CAS is committed to eliminating speciesism and violence through political involvement and politicising academic’s involvement in social change.
Critical animal studies
.’ The direct exploitation and killing of nonhuman animals are based on an underlying system of ideas that makes it acceptable to inflict this violence on certain individuals and groups. They are excluded from the possession of rights and intrinsic value and instead are considered raw materials or resources that exist only for human consumption (whether it is for food, clothes, entertainment, experimentation, or for other purposes).’
‘ Other animals’ agency is denied and they are reduced to the status of unfeeling objects to be used instrumentally. The contributors challenge this epistemic violence, the erasures of other animals’ subjectivity and their ethical significance from everyday practice as well as from epistemic standards of current academic practices in various disciplines. Seeking to avoid being complicit in these operations of epistemic violence, ‘
Matsuoka, A., & Sorenson, J. (Eds.). (2018). Critical animal studies