The Human Cost of Carnism
[A modified version of this article was first shared in May, 2016]
Carnism, a term first coined by author and social psychologist Melanie Joy in 2001, refers broadly to humankind’s attitude towards our use of animals, particularly the consumption of meat. As such, carnism has been described as the dominant belief system in most of the world when it comes to the treatment of animals and their use as a major food source. Thus, by its very definition carnism is a belief system built upon the argument that animals are rightfully purposed to serve humans, including but not limited to being our food, and therein implicitly considers animals not worthy of the same level of attention on an ethical level. This entrenched power system that oppresses animals has tremendous human costs as well, from the poverty of farmers and the mental health challenges facing slaughterhouse workers to environmental justice and food security concerns that disproportionately effect the most vulnerable populations.
Beginning in the same place that animals raised for consumption begin their lives, farms are a site of immense trauma and labor exploitation. Most farms around the developed world, particularly here in the United States, are not the Old McDonald stereotype we read about in picture books as children. Family run farms where chickens run free through the grass and the sound of cows grazing is accompanied only by the hard toiling of honest family members is now so far and in between in America that it is safe to say such farms hardly exist at all anymore. Most agricultural production in the U.S. is now controlled by a small number of very powerful and profitable corporations. A report by Duke University found that the hog market is “highly concentrated” with the top five companies controlling more than half of the entire market, with Smithfield Foods alone accounting for some 20% of the total market share.
What this consolidation in meat production means is that small business owners have been driven out off their farms by these large firms, leading to mass unemployment across small towns in rural America. It is no surprise to anyone who has researched modern developments in the animal agriculture industry to hear that suicide rates are highest among farmers and farming communities, as well as other instances of mental illness. The rural United States a has a higher poverty rate, overall as well as for children, than the country as a whole; as found in a 2015 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When firms like Tyson or Smithfield roll into a small town, they destroy many steady jobs once held by dedicated community members. Worse still, are the ways they treat those employees they hire in those rural communities and in their larger factories.
As detailed in his expose on the chicken industry The Meat Racket, Christopher Leonard has written at length about the regular activities by agriculture corporations that effectively “keep farmers in a state of indebted servitude, living like modern-day sharecroppers on the ragged edge of bankruptcy”, as Leonard himself explained in an interview with NPR. Through taking control of all stages of the meat production process, from the hatching of baby chicks and birth of piglets, to the final packaging and sale of store-ready meat products, the dominant firms in animal agriculture have effectively taken complete control of farmers’ lives. They own the animals and give them to farmers — who must pay for all their equipment out of pocket — on a temporary and monopolistic contract that extracts as much value for the firms as possible with no regard for the farmer’s health or financial well-being. This means that most of the financial burden for heavy equipment investment falls onto the farmer as well as most of the financial risk. If a disease outbreak occurs, it is the farmer left holding the bag (and owing money on his equipment) when the corporation refuses to pay up.
Farmers are far more likely to be injured on the job or to suffer long-term health consequences from their work, particularly respiratory illnesses borne from the prolonged exposure to harmful levels ammonia and excrement. Beyond their physical and mental health, farmers coerced into contracts with large companies are often required to modernize their machinery to the point of bankruptcy, and if they cannot afford it, or if a single bad batch of chicks come to the farmers from the Tyson- or Smithfield-owned hatcheries, then the contract will not be renewed and the farmers will be left to deal with their crippling debt on their own without any business.
Continuing along the production line, we get to the slaughterhouse. Dating as far back as Upton Sinclair’s enormously influential 1906 publication The Jungle, the exploitation of workers in slaughterhouses across the United States, and the world, has been well documented. In the decades after the publication of The Jungle, conditions did improve ever so slightly for slaughterhouse workers, and for a time it had some of the lowest turnover rates in industrial America. However, since the mid-to-late 1970s, as so many other industries did to workers on production lines, slaughterhouses began to “cut wages, cut benefits, and break unions”. Conditions have gotten so bad for slaughterhouse workers that Oxfam America released a report detailing how workers are forced to stay on the line to the point that they urinate themselves. This barbaric treatment of human beings largely goes unanswered for, as the federal government lacks the resources (and often the motivation) to investigate every slaughterhouse’s conditions, and individual workers are often afraid to speak up to their supervisors.
In addition to fear of retaliation for reporting poor work conditions, laborers may also fear legal consequences under anti-whistleblower “ag gag” laws passed in many farming states. Undocumented immigrants are also disproportionately represented among slaughterhouse workers, and so on top of potential language barriers there are fears of immigration consequences to speaking out.
During the Trump Administration, line speeds were increased in chicken slaughterhouses. This increases the risk of contamination of the final product and greatly ups the chances of physical injuries to workers. Many slaughterhouse workers end up with long-term injuries, particularly musculoskeletal disorders due to repeated, quick, and prolonged movements that can damage the shoulders and arms. These workers are also paid at or below minimum wage, with the average annual salary estimated by the Bureau of Labor to be only $25,010 per year.
Mental health is also an enormous burden on slaughterhouse workers. Individual workers, particularly on the earlier stages of the line nearer the killing floor itself, are often traumatized from the constant bombardment of animal screams, squeals, and kicks as these sentient creatures fight for their life. Having to look an animal in the eye as you kill it is no simple task, and having to live through that hundreds of times a day takes a serious toll. Slaughterhouse workers are far more prone to “domestic violence, social withdrawal, drug and alcohol abuse, and severe anxiety” from the emotional dissonance that comes with killing day-in and day-out.
Moving beyond the realm of food production in the United States, the rate at which we as a society consume meat is also taking a devastating toll on people around the world, many of whom do not even eat anywhere near the same level of animal products that we do. Approximately 40% of the planet’s land is used for agriculture of one kind or another, and a whopping majority of that (around 75% of all farm land) is used to grow food not for us humans, but to feed to animals we will later eat as food. As the world’s population continues to grow — by one billion over the next twelve years, according to UN estimates — we will start to run out of usable farmland. Animal agriculture also disproportionately uses up precious water resources, emits greenhouse gases, and is responsible for more clear-cutting of the rainforest than any other industry. The first to suffer from this carnist system of oppression will undoubtedly be the global poor, who will be unable to afford to enjoy in the “luxury” of carnism but will suffer first-hand the environmental consequences and will face the lack of basic foodstuffs which are instead being shipped off to feed cows for us to make burgers.
The gross exploitation of workers from the farm to the supermarket described here is inextricably linked to a system of food provision that relies on profiteering from oppression. Making more conscious decisions when we eat, if we have the privilege of options, is certainly a part of addressing this suffering. But we cannot consume our way out of the crisis of carnist capitalism. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated first hand the dangers of this system for humans and non-human animals. Vegan and labor activists alike should use this opportunity to work together to combat a food system that causes untold suffering for all living beings involved.
Photo Credits: some rights reserved by Jim Fischer
