Criminology Should Factory Farming Be Criminalised For A Critical Discussion

Factory Farming and Animal Welfare

Discuss about the Criminology Should Factory Farming be Criminalised for a Critical Discussion.

Non-human animal welfare, environmental protection and economic interests clash in a myriad of ways. Across the world, agriculture plays a significant role in providing jobs and income to a wider population. However, this same agricultural industry has the potential of harming and damaging the environment together with severe suffering of livestock (domestic animals). Given this understanding, various academic disciplines have ventured into trying to address this issue in many different ways, but criminology in many ways has lagged behind in animal welfare as well as agricultural concerns until a few years ago. This essay provides an oversight that must be rectify the harm and probably criminalise such inhumane acts thus exploring these activities are evidently discussed in here. In relation to factory farming, negative consequences to the environment as well as abuse of non-human animals are increasingly evident and pronounced due to the increasing factory farming operations. Despite animal farming raises major issues in relation to livestock welfare and consumption, factory farming creates other additional ethical concerns that arise from the welfare of livestock in factory farming as well as the welfare of people and environment in proximity to the factory farm. In this context, factory farming despite the myriad benefits that come with it, this form of farming has major impacts on the environment as well as animals that are confined indoors for commercial benefits. Given this scenario, this essay expansively discusses why rethinking about criminal law is critical while exploring different avenue through which factory farming should be criminalized. In order to achieve the objective of this essay, different factory farming forms will be explored and critically evaluated.  

A factory farm is a farm where livestock farming or crop farming is practiced on large-scale; thousands of animals are industrially housed and reared for commercial food purposes. These animals may include pigs, turkeys, cows and chicken which are treated with hormones together with antibiotics in order to enhance and maximise their growth and food productivity. Despite the extensive investigations by bioethicists together with non-human welfare advocates about livestock rearing, criminologists have not been loud (Wyatt, 2014). Given the fact that criminology is vital in shaping and creating definition of harm, which may eventually result into the development of criminal statutes and regulations, the field has been silent. Critiques of factory farming argue that, industrialised farming is one of the worst crimes in history (Harari, 2015); the fate of non-human animals that are industrially farmed is amongst the most heinous ethical questions of the current times. For instance, millions to billions of sentient reared animals with complex emotions and sensations live only to die on the production line (Harari, 2015).

Abuse of Pigs in UK Factory Pig Farming

Non-human animal abuse is strongly related to factory animal farming. Taking the context of pig farming in the UK will ultimately provide a clear picture and a useful context as to how non-human animals are unethically treated and abused. According to Defra (2011), in the UK Pigs in terms of sales are third as opposed to cattle and poultry which take the first and second position respectively. In the UK, it is approximated that more than 10 million pigs are slaughtered annually (RSPCA, 2013), and more than 400,000 are kept as breeding stock. Defra (2011) identified that despite the overall pig population declining in the UK, pig profitability has been on the rise. Since time immemorial, the UK has maintained an excellent pig farming industry earning huge returns from pig meat.

Abuse of pigs during factory pig farming is a pervasive and continual basis but still anchored in the legal sphere. For this reason, environmental justice advocates questions how these harmful practices are allowed to escalate. According to Viva (2008) pig factory farming begins from dark metal barns filled with straw with fully or partially grated floors. Straws are mainly considered to be sanitary and help in reducing the number of injuries while also allowing piglets to play. Grating is done to ensure that manure falls to the floor beneath the enclosures which is then washed to a waste lagoon or slurry pond for storage. Viva (2008) also observed that piglets are born in birth-crates. After birth, piglets introduced to selective breeding which is advanced by genetics, enhanced nutrition as well as improved barns; this increases the survivability of piglets (Eckblad, 2011). In pig factory farming, incisor teeth are snipped from piglets within the first 24 hours after birth as a cautionary measure to protect other piglets from harm. Furthermore, tail docking or tail clipping is also done to prevent piglets from biting each other’s tail when in contact with one another (UK Agriculture, 2011).

The issue pigs harming others raise more questions than answers. In a natural habitat of wild and feral pigs, these animals’ co-habits and their behaviour is non cannibal; factory farming in this regard creates a more stressful environment that pigs are unable to cope up with. The natural behaviours of pigs are suppressed within factory farming context. Furthermore, piglets in factory farming are only nursed for just one week after which the sow returns to the common housing area (Miewald et al., 2015). The piglets are left alone and bundled together. They are exposed to a wide range of life threatening conditions. The weak ones die and left to rot inside piglet units while the sows are imprisoned in metal cages little bigger than their bodies; while others are kept in barren concrete pens without beddings. In essence, a closer investigation to the entire pig factory farming brings to light the inhumane conditions that non-human animals are exposed to.

Health Hazards of Factory Farming

Viva (2008) also exposes worrying states of large-scale pig farms which are composed of filth, overcrowding, dead and dying animals with massive neglect. Consequently, Viva’s research shows that welfare checks and routine monitoring of factory farmed pigs are infrequent given the piglet carcasses that are left to decompose in the birthing crates while their siblings continue nursing. Many are time where tens to hundreds of piglet carcasses are cleared from the floor and their carcasses incinerated (Viva, 2008). Through Viva’s investigation there is no any single point where government regulations as well as agencies called upon to come to the plight of these animals. Factory farming has always been undertaken under a self-regulatory system thus factory farmers have done what they needed to do to increase their revenues without taking into considerations of the plight of the animals (Van Uhm, 2015). From a criminological point of view, the above discussed conditions constitutes harm and suffering and therefore substantive enough for addressing them in terms of regulation and research. In the event that non-human animals’ welfare cannot be guaranteed through official regulatory of self-regulatory schemes, criminalisation of this kind of animal abuse should be considered to warrant the safety, health and well-being of factory farmed animals (Guenther, 2013).

UK Agriculture (2011) also observed that after weaning the survived piglets, they are loose housed together with adult sows. From a historical perspective, the weaned piglets in factory farming were kept in sow stalls where they could not turn around; the UK law has permitted that weaned piglets should be loose housed in a larger communal space. Despite the UK government trying to address the wanting conditions of keeping weaned piglets in small sow stalls where they couldn’t turn, factory pig farmers complain that the legislation is a major source to their struggles and suffering due to additional costs of housing sows in this manner. Furthermore, farmers claim that the new regulation has made them to be less competitive in the larger European markets where the new pig welfare regulation has not yet been implemented (UK Agriculture, 2011).

Male piglets on the other hand, are fattened at an exponential rate in order to meet the needs of the meat market. In the US for instance, the use of growth hormones is liberally allowed in order to maximise weight gain; however, in the UK and other European countries the use of hormones is legally prohibited (UK Agriculture, 2011). Similarly, factory pig farming in the US allows the use of antibiotics in pig feeds to help combat infections and diseases that are a common case in crowded, unhygienic barns that are composed of artificially grained-based diet (Ruhl, 2001) instead of the natural foraging that pigs engage in (Tylor, 2003). In addition, UK Agriculture (2011) also found out that the poor sanitation, poor ventilation; together with close quarters are a recipe for disease outbreaks, including foot and mouth, sudden acute respiratory syndrome, and swine flu. The laxity in using antibiotics among factory pig farmers is ethically unacceptable and inhumane to pigs and thus provides ground for criminalization (AviBrisman & Richmond, 2013).

Factory Farming and Inhumane Techniques

The sows as aforementioned are allowed to nurse their piglets for only one week; UK Agriculture (2011) found out that after the sow finishes nursing she is taken back to heat thus beginning the cycle again. Due to hormone treatments and the use of antibiotics, the sows as well as breeding males grow over-size making the natural breeding almost impossible. Following this revelation, Key and McBride (2007) established that large scale pig farms use artificial insemination to impregnate the sows, a practice that is increasingly becoming common and obvious across the world. Ponnette-Gonzalez and Fry (2012) found out that this procedure demands for securely immobilizing the sow for the artificial insemination to take place and also enables selective breeding which is significantly instrumental in increasing pig litters. Regardless of this procedure being commercially profitable to the factory pig farmers, it is not ethical and infringes on non-human animal welfare (Sorenson, 2009). In this essence, legal regulations should be developed to govern the manner in which artificial insemination is conducted in factory farming.

At the age of 20 – 24 weeks male pigs are ready for slaughter because their weight is now between 60 and 100 kilograms (UK Agriculture, 2011). The specialised diet together with growth hormones helps pigs to gain massive weight within limited period of time. The weightier pigs are then taken to the abattoir. Regardless of the pigs’ capacity and known intelligence for pain, slaughter procedures take little or no consideration of emotional, psychological, and physical suffering inflicted on pigs during slaughter (Stevenson, 2001). Stevenson (2001) stated that pigs are killed using crude methods; the stun and stick procedure for instance, the pigs are either gaseously or electrically made unconscious and the blood vessels in their chests are slit. Electric or gaseous stun methods of slaughtering pigs are both inhumane given the fact that there is a possibility of the pig regaining its consciousness before or in the event that their blood vessels are cut, which causes severe pain (Stevenson, 2001). Pigs may gain consciousness especially when tool little electric current is used or when the current is only provided for a short period of time or the stun was executed on the wrong side of the head. Similarly, consciousness can be gained if the interval between stunning is too long, or the failure to sever all the carotid arteries. Given this understanding, the procedure used for preparing pig meat should be criminalised; pigs should be treated with dignity (Aatola, 2012). Regulations should be created to ensure that when slaughtering pigs, they should not be exposed to immense psychological, emotional and physical pain.

In conclusion, factory farming in spite of its high magnitude of profitability it should be regulated. The above essay has critically explored different avenues through which the plight of non-human animals is overlooked. Using factory pig farming the essay has expansively shown that in this type of farming animals are huddled together in confined together with little or no room to exercise their freedom. They are also kept under poor conditions, for example, piglets are only allowed to nurse for only one week after which they are weaned. Weak piglets are left to die while the strong ones are fattened with hormones and antibiotics to enhance food productivity to meet the market needs. In essence, from the beginning, non-human animal welfare is largely not taken into consideration and thus there is need to criminalise factory farming.

References

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