Economics of Farms

1479: 

Perhaps humans don't have any sadistic inclination to harm animals, just for the sake of it.  It’s just that economics dictates how we keep them whilst alive and how we bring them to their deaths.  We do what we have to do, to get what we want from them, without spending too much money.  Since the world is a very competitive place, it all has to be done at the lowest cost.  Those with lowest ethical standards set the benchmark.  For example, caged eggs are the cheapest to produce, so every egg-producing farmer in the world must cage their hens or go out of  business. It’s the same with all commodities.  If milk is cheaper to ship in from overseas, then it will come from there, whatever conditions are like for their dairy herds.  Economics determines customer choice, and if it's overseas milk we buy, then Australian dairy farmers - eat your heart out!

         

To get milk (her milk) and sell it for a profit (our profit), a cow must be cheap to produce and cheap to keep.  Oceans of milk must flow at a minimum cost - rivers of milk supply maximum numbers of consumers.  If this is how milk production works then it’s the same cruel system that's applied to all farmed-animals.  If we want it, the animals must suffer and die for it.

It’s unusual, this idea vegans have, of being compassionate enough to refuse being implicated in the harming of these animals.  In our culture we are so used to animal products, that to voluntarily deny ourselves of them seems absurd.  In our culture, the enjoyment of food is linked with sensual taste.  We think of animal-based cuisine as an art form.  The enjoyment of animal food is greater still if we think it makes us strong.  It’s unimaginable to deny ourselves something we enjoy on the basis that these products are unhealthy and represent human cruelty.  And likewise, omnivores can’t imagine animal products being satisfactorily replaced by plant-based products.  They just don’t believe it’s possible.  And because they can’t imagine it (whereas of course vegans can), they continue to demand these products and, in consequence, deprive animals of their lives and help to sustain a particularly ugly industry.