Happy animals at small scales: farmers’ portrayal of local food systems in New Jersey as an organic answer for farm animal welfare ethical concerns

At a time when fast-food restaurants are serving plant-based “meat,” debates over the ethics of eating animals are strongly contested. Local food systems, by offering an alternative means of production and consumption, may give rise to new possibilities, and new considerations, pertaining to food an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organic agriculture 2023-03, Vol.13 (1), p.55-72
Main Authors: Halprin, Franklin R., Schoolman, Ethan D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Animal products
Animal welfare
Animals
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Consumers
Content analysis
Environment
Ethics
Farmers
Farms
Fast food
Food
Food consumption
Food plants
Food production
Life Sciences
Local food systems
Plant Sciences
Qualitative analysis
Questions
Restaurants
Sustainable Development
Websites
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:At a time when fast-food restaurants are serving plant-based “meat,” debates over the ethics of eating animals are strongly contested. Local food systems, by offering an alternative means of production and consumption, may give rise to new possibilities, and new considerations, pertaining to food animals and ethical consumption. Utilizing qualitative content analysis of New Jersey farmers’ websites, this study argues that farmers marketing food directly to consumers understand themselves as raising animals ethically—most strikingly, by portraying their animals as “happy”—and that these representations are relevant for debates over whether it is morally permissible to eat animals and animal products. This set of values and practices also suggests new dimensions to the contemporary concept of “organic” food. Farmers embedded in local food systems raise pressing questions about how animals experience the world, what consumers would like to know about their food, and what the implications of these questions might be for crafting ecologically conscious and moral systems of animal food production.
ISSN:1879-4238
1879-4246
DOI:10.1007/s13165-022-00414-1