Livestock in the Food Debate - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 508

strategy has created an “animal-based” food industry that has little in common with
traditional animal-rearing practices used in smallholder farming on mixed farms or by
pastoralists grazing on grasslands in Africa and Asia. With the only exception of West
Africa and North Africa, where grazing provides half of the meat produced in these
regions, it is through industrial systems that animal food is produced in the rest of the
world, driven by consumer demand and cost considerations (Smith 2008).
Livestock Rearing: the Pros and
the Cons
Livestock industrialization creates an efficient sector, vertically integrated—from the
breeding of dairy cows to the different milk packages and types found on the shelves.
This is true for all farm animals, independently from their characteristics, including
fish farming. This way of doing business with animal food is very successful, but it is
more capital and technology intensive than modern precision farming. Despite increas-
ing pressure from civil society and dwindling farm gate prices in Europe, this model
is spreading quickly to developing countries with silent or overt support of political
powers who are under pressure to fast-track economic growth. Developing economies
simply need more and safer animal-based food for their growing urban populations
with growing buying power. They have to respond to the same efficiency and economic
imperatives that have shaped the industry in developed countries. The annual urban
growth rates of developing economies are expected to double the levels of the 2000s in
the next 20 years (World Bank 2012). The animal business goes hand in hand with the
supermarket and fast-food revolution, spreading rapidly in several parts of the world.
The supermarkets and fast-food outlets bombard consumers with the most appetizing
animal-based food products, with an extremely wide choice of brands, prices, and qual-
ity originating from global agribusinesses. Yet, it also clear that the underlying com-
mercial logic behind the industrial animal production and related food industry is not
different from the one followed by the car industry, clogging cities' traffic arteries.
The industrialization of animal production has other critical consequences. There
are consequences of public interest in economic, social, and environmental dimensions
of sustainability. A first consideration is the gradual transfer of ownership of animals
from a large number of dispersed smallholders caring for and grazing their animals in
pastures to a few companies driven by economic efficiency and quality standards along
a chain that conforms to the food safety requirements of supermarkets. Rising market
demand for animal products pushes for larger-scale operations for the production of
beef, and bigger proportions of pork, poultry, milk, and eggs. For smallholders to stay
involved with this fast-growing segment of the markets, they need to meet evolving food
safety standards to establish credibility with market outlets. Present trends indicate that
prospects for smallholder livestock producers may not be good. For example, Delgado