I’ve discussed here why buying from ethical farms to try and make them more prevalent is not an effective way to reduce animal suffering. But perhaps you’re not convinced by those arguments. Or maybe you feel that even if it’s not the best solution, it’s better than nothing, and giving up meat sounds too difficult so you’ll settle for a compromise. Here I’m going to explain why I think this does more harm than good.
It’s clear that many people care about the welfare of farm animals: here is an excellent compilation of surveys and statistics. Consider these examples:
25% of consumers believe firmly that the meat, milk, and eggs that they buy come from animals who are humanely treated.
52% said personal food choices have a large impact on the well-being of farm animals, and 49% said they consider the well-being of farm animals when they make food purchasing decisions.
But the beliefs of these consumers don’t match with the reality. The vast majority of farm animals are treated very poorly. Why this mismatch? Where does the belief that animals are treated well come from?
Vegans who regularly discuss the problems with animal agriculture online know how common it is for someone to join in and talk about how they grew up on a farm where they treated the animals wonderfully. They may argue that vegans exaggerate claims about farming practices, that they don’t know what they’re talking about, that most farms treat animals well, or at the very least that animals can be treated well in theory. Either way, the point is that the existence of factory farms is not a reason to go vegan. People get distracted or the discussion goes off track. In the end, hundreds or thousands of bystanders may read the discussion. A few might have decided to eat less or no animal products were it not for the arguments made by the ‘ethical omnivore’ side. Instead, they will now either think that there isn’t a serious problem to be solved, or they will think that buying from ethical farms is the solution.
There are two reasons this is so common. The first is that thousands of people may view an online discussion, even if only a few choose to comment. Ethical omnivores and farmers are much more likely to comment than the average person because they want to defend their way of life. This is entirely fair, but it heavily skews people’s perception of the numbers. The second reason is that most farms are small, and out of these a decent number may actually be ethical. However this is the wrong thing to focus on; the vast majority of animals still come from factory farms, even though there’s fewer of these farms. Many people don’t realise this, so they see the frequency of ethical farmers (either from personal encounters or actual statistics) as evidence in their favour, even though it’s largely irrelevant.
Then there’s the problem of questionable labels such as ‘free range’ which often mean very little. Most animal products which market themselves as ethical really fall into this category; they may be slightly better than typical factory farmed products, but are definitely not ethical. However the existence of a few truly ethical products makes it much easier for the other products to convince consumers that they’re also ethical. If you visit one idyllic farm and see animals treated perfectly, you’ll probably be much less inclined to carefully research every other product and label. I’m not saying that every person exposed to an ethical farm will fall for every meaningless label, just that many people will significantly lower their guard. Even products which don’t seriously claim to be ethical can influence consumers by using images of happy cows in green pastures in their packaging and advertising.
The problem is magnified by the fact that people want to believe that they are ethical, so they are subject to confirmation bias and place greater weight on evidence that the food they buy is ethical. This makes them trust the ethical omnivore side more and believe that there are more well-treated animals than there really are. It also means that people who buy a combination of ethical and unethical food remember the ethical food more and feel like they’re solving the problem more than they are. For example, someone who makes sure that the boxes of eggs they buy are free range eggs may not think to check the eggs used as ingredients in prepackaged foods or restaurant meals.
So ultimately, ethical farms are indirectly part of the problem. I applaud anyone making an effort to buy ethical animal products and research carefully, but the sad reality is that there are many more consumers who are too lazy or gullible to realise that what they’re buying is much less ethical than they believe. If there were fewer ethical farms, there would be less misinformation and skewed perceptions, and more people would realise the truth and eat less or zero animal products. The solution which is actually working would progress faster and the number of factory farms would decrease, saving animals from lives of intense suffering.
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