Who Are The Animal Farmers?

1989:

If we were strangers to the ways of this world we’d see a farmer as an unsavoury gaoler who tortured animals for a living. There’s no kinder way we could possibly see them, unless we also saw the equally cruel people who urged the farmer on, to do what he or she is doing so that they, the customer, could benefit.

We are not strangers to the ways of farmers, in fact every child on the planet will be made aware of the role these people play in ‘bringing food to our table’, an obviously useful and essential service to the community – thus, the child thinks well of the animal farmer and carries that opinion on for the rest of his or her life.

Business people like animal farmers use animals to make a wage for themselves, especially in country regions where there are few other employment opportunities. If living off the land is difficult it’s even more so on marginal land where crops won’t grow, where farming animals is the only way to make ‘a living’. It seems that human survival will always trump any detriment to animals, and as it happens also to human health.