Rural Life Today

2001:Posted Sunday 4^th June

Life in the country today

Animal farming is just about the only reliable source of income for people who live in the countryside. They use the ‘resources at hand’. They farm animals, sometimes because the profits are better than from plant-growing, and sometimes because the land can only support animal grazing. The more marginal the land, the more cattle and sheep will be ‘run’ on it. Using the land, converting its energy for our use, is the name of the game. When the primary ‘converter’ is an animal, it is regarded merely as a machine for ‘using the land profitably’.

The cruelty factor has exponentially increased over the past 60 years owing to competition for market share. There has been a vast explosion of (hungry) populations in urban concentrations. The ever-present threat of someone else exploiting the market has made intensive farming inevitable.