Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
“One of the best things modern animal
agriculture has going for it is that most
people . . . haven't a clue how animals are
raised and processed. . . . In my opinion,
if most urban meat eaters were to visit an
industrial broiler house, to see how the birds
are raised, and could see the birds being
'harvested' and then being 'processed' in a
poultry processing plant, they would not be
impressed and some, perhaps many of them,
would swear off eating chicken and perhaps
all meat.”
—Peter Cheeke, Ph.D., Oregon State University
professor of animal agriculture, in his textbook
Contemporary Issues in Animal Agriculture
10,000 years since humans first went down the path of domesti-
cation, we have successfully domesticated only some seventeen
animal species—out of the thousands we've tried to conquer. And,
in our own day, domestication has been carried to an extreme,
morphing these animals to suit our economic designs. The indus-
try has transformed animals into meat-, milk-, and egg-producing
machines and overproductive “breeders.” All standards of com-
passion and ethics have given way to productivity and efficiency.
Fifty years ago, animals were raised on small, diverse, family-
run farms, and agricultural students learned “animal husbandry.”
Gradually, independent farmers lost out to intensive corporate
factories, and animal husbandry gave way to “animal science,” a
change in terminology that signaled the new industrial ethos in
the way we view and treat animals. Animals became “production
units,” and agribusiness's goal shifted to “growing” billions of
