The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food

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Will it solve all the problems the world’s animals face? No – but given the sheer volume of animals on factory farms, it comes close. It will also be a huge leap toward educating consumers about what they eat and the plights of factory-farmed animals.

There’s a certain excitement that comes from measuring the moral progress of a generation: new directions, hard work, little victories. This book is a battle cry. Expanding humanity’s moral circle Sachdeva S, Jordan J, Mazar N (2015) Green consumerism: moral motivations to a sustainable future. Curr Opin Psychol 6:60–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.03.029

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Consider that individual rhetoric centres consumers of animal products—who make up over 99% of the population—as the enemy (Faunalytics, 2014). Calling for individual change implies that the consumer is doing wrong. This implication is rarely lost on the audience of farmed animal activism. In many contexts, from social media to street activism to lobbying politicians, the most common reaction to farmed animal activism is defensiveness, perhaps because the audience feels accused of wrongdoing. Reese thinks a lot about how to overcome the psychological barriers that prevent people from acting on animal welfare issues. First, because the problem is so large, it’s important to come up with hopeful paths toward solving it. He writes that “when people are provided with an achievable path to a better world… [they] become not just more able to take short-term action but they become fundamentally more concerned.” They will be more likely to act if you spend less time on the “why” question (why is this a problem?) and more on the “how” question (answering how you propose to have them fix it). Mohr JW, Friedland R (2008) Theorizing the institution: foundations, duality, and data. Theor Soc 37:421–426. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-008-9071-3 Even more illuminating, one study revealed that 44 percent of Millennials view their furry friends as “starter children.” In other words, their pets are considered valuable parts of their families, which is more evidence that we’re living in a culture of animal lovers. One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals — inspired by his philosophy of Animalism — plot a rebellion against Jones. Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall.

Moral licensing could pose a similar challenge for farmed animal activism. However, there is little reason a priori to expect licensing over consistency in these situations because no clear trends have been shown in the literature. Indeed most animal activists themselves began taking small actions for animals before scaling up their involvement. So overall, the considerations of moral licensing and moral consistency do not seem to be compelling evidence for either the institutional or individual approach. Caviola L, Everett JAC, Faber NS (2018) The moral standing of animals: towards a psychology of speciesism. J Pers Soc Psychol. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000182 Klandermans B, van der Toorn J, van Stekelenburg J (2008) Embeddedness and identity: how immigrants turn grievances into action. Am Sociol Rev 73:992–1012. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240807300606 Initially, the rebellion is a success: The animals complete the harvest and meet every Sunday to debate farm policy. The pigs, because of their intelligence, become the supervisors of the farm. Napoleon, however, proves to be a power-hungry leader who steals the cows' milk and a number of apples to feed himself and the other pigs. He also enlists the services of Squealer, a pig with the ability to persuade the other animals that the pigs are always moral and correct in their decisions.The last three to four generations have started using fertilisers, pesticides and going from big, bigger to biggest,” he says. “That was the societal trend in agriculture, but I think we have to become smartest. I don’t want to have a grandchild saying to me: ‘you broke that tradition of farming because you destroyed the Earth.’” At the end of Animal Farm, Pilkington and other human farmers come to eat dinner with the pigs at the farmhouse. As the other animals watch through the window, they find they are unable to tell pigs and humans apart. The pigs have started to dress and behave exactly like humans. The book’s final image expresses the animals’ realization that the pigs have become as cruel and oppressive as human farmers. The ending also makes the argument that political power is always the same, whoever has it and whatever ideology is used to justify it. Powerful people are cruel and selfish whether they’re pigs or humans, Communists or capitalists. Above all, the ending suggests that all powerful people are liars and manipulators. In our last glimpse of the dinner party, Mr. Pilkington and Napoleon are arguing because they have both tried to cheat at a card game in the same way at the same time. The ending doesn’t offer much hope for a workable political system with true equality for all. Rather, the ending posits that the corrupting nature of power dooms all political systems to failure. Instead, Scheepens argues, pigs need a more natural environment, to be able to root around in beds of straw or wood chips and have outdoor access, with a special toilet replacing slatted floors (where urine and faeces fall through and mix).

Ferrara EL, Chong A, Duryea S (2012) Soap operas and fertility: evidence from Brazil. Am Econ J 4:1–31. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.4.4.1 By creating an alternative solution to the meat industry, such as clean meat — also called “cultured meat” and many other names, as mentioned above — we will be able to make a positive impact on the lives of millions of animals who would otherwise face grim conditions and eventual slaughter. What Is Clean Meat?In addition to moral outrage, there is ample experimental evidence that peer pressure strongly motivates behaviour across areas of life including teenage drug use, music preferences, and household energy use (Asch, 1956; Hansen and Graham, 1991; Salganik et al., 2006; Schultz et al., 2007). Social pressure, from both authorities and peers, has been implicated in a variety of historical tragedies such as the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust. Tomasik B (2006) Does vegetarianism make a difference? https://reducing-suffering.org/does-vegetarianism-make-a-difference/. Accessed 22 Feb 2019 When I was 14, I learned that the vast majority of farmed animals lived on factory farms, not pasture. It seemed obvious that I should go vegetarian; there’s no way any small benefit to me of eating meat was worth that immense suffering. I don’t think I even considered veganism at the time; it just wasn’t on my radar or it seemed impossible. I’m not sure.