Organic and Free-range: Convenient Myths
When faced with the arguments against intensive farming from the perspectives of the environment and animal welfare many people are tempted to opt for free-range or organic meats and dairy produce. This is a con.
Intensive agriculture in this country proliferated after WWII as a relief from food shortages. The idea is to produce as much food as fast and on as little land as possible. Animals are kept in crowded conditions which prevent them from ‘wasting’ energy moving about normally. Intensive farming made meat cheaper and more readily available. Now meat is consumed daily by most people. It simply isn’t possible to produce the same amount of meat to feed the same amount of people in a less intensive manner, there isn’t space.
Less intensive methods of farming animals are portrayed as being better for animal welfare. Even in free-range systems thousands of chickens may be packed into one shed; in order to be described as free range they must have theoretical access to the outside. Often this is merely some holes cut in the side of the shed through which animals can access a small outdoor area. As hens form strict hierarchies the reality is that very few animals ever actually go outside, the dominant hens will bully weaker animals and prevent them from being outside. The hens still have their beak ends removed, in a vain attempt to reduce aggression. Many of the birds suffer so badly with deformed limbs and other ailments that they are physically unable to go through the pop holes. Once outside there is little for birds to do and the areas are often no more than bare soil. The chickens are related to intensively reared birds and so are susceptible to illness and problems with extremes in temperature. The birds are still caught by rough chicken catchers before being taken to slaughter houses and killed in the same brutal way as all the others.
What ever the system animals are still routinely mutilated. Male chicks still don’t lay eggs (so are killed) and stressed pigs still have their tails removed. Organic milk comes from dairy cows which are fed organic food, but still have to give birth to a calf each year, a calf which will be taken away from her within two days.
Organic standards may well be better for our health, improve the situation for wildlife and reduce the amounts of chemicals released into the atmosphere, but they barely make any difference in terms of animal welfare and none in terms of animal rights. The only compassionate thing to do for farmed animals is to stop eating them. We do however recommend that people eat organic plant produce where possible as it reduces the amount of wildlife which dies because of modern agricultural methods, but for farmed animals only veganism makes sense.