Ethical Eating: Exploring the Intersection of Agriculture and Human Rights

12 Jan

We get it, you’re vegan for the animals, but what about HUMAN rights?

It’s January. Time to start fresh with habits like exercising regularly, not snoozing your alarm, focusing on self-care, or even eating less meat.

If you’ve been online at all this year, you may have seen ads for ‘Veganuary’, a not-for-profit organisation that encourages people to try veganism for the month of January. Some may have decided to give it a go, while others may be thinking, what’s the point?

The big argument we often hear in favour of a plant-based diet is ‘vegan for the animals’. But in a world plagued by racism, migrant oppression, Indigenous land theft, modern slavery, famine, colonisation and eurocentrism, it’s perhaps valid to ask: why focus only on ANIMAL rights, when we should also be focusing on HUMAN rights.

Many of us have read about the ongoing exploitation of migrant and vulnerable workers involved in fruit, vegetable and other crop harvesting Australia and internationally.[1]

But is there a link between animal agriculture, animal rights and human rights?

The way you eat is more than a personal choice. Let’s consider a breakfast classic - the bacon and egg roll - and dive into the journey it takes to arrive on our plate. Where did the bacon, egg, and cheese come from? And who is working in the supply chains that produce them?

Before reaching the shelves of the supermarket, meat products are processed in slaughterhouses or abattoirs. The work is generally considered dirty, demeaning and dangerous, and company profits often take priority over worker rights.[2] The Food Chain Workers Alliance reports that 65% of meatpacking and food processing workers have been injured on the job.[3] In Australia, the UK, the USA and Canada, meat processing workers are predominantly vulnerable members of low income, often BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) communities. In the United States, slaughterhouse workers are predominantly people of colour and immigrants.[4],[5],[6] In the UK, over two-thirds of slaughterhouse workers are immigrants.[7] Many of these workers may be undocumented, and therefore unlikely to report unsafe workplaces or injuries due to fear of retaliation, further compounding the systematic oppression of these already oppressed groups.[8],[9],[10]

Given the nature of the work, slaughterhouse/abattoir jobs continue to be difficult to fill. In 2016, Canadian meat processing facilities were so short on workers that the Canadian Meat Council lobbied its government to introduce ‘express entry’ to Canada to Syrian refugees willing to work in slaughterhouses.[11],[12]

Exploitation, trauma and violence

Abattoir workers often experience a form of PTSD known as Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress (PITS), which results from participation in the infliction of trauma on another being. The condition is often associated with military veterans, but has been shown to affect a large portion of animal processing workers, who develop associated symptoms including drug and alcohol abuse, anxiety, panic, depression, increased paranoia, a sense of disintegration, dissociation or amnesia, due to the “psychological consequences of the act of killing.”.[13] Some studies have also shown a link between animal processing work and spill over violence, with workers showing higher rates of antisocial behaviour, including vandalism, disorderly conduct, robbery, assault and sexual violence.[14],[15] A study published in the Journal of Society & Animals also identified this propensity for aggression among animal farmer workers in Australia compared to a community “benchmark”.[16]

What about a pescatarian or vegetarian diet? Surely the human rights impacts would be less, and isn’t going vegan a bit extreme?

Let me tell you about seafood…

As documented by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Global Slavery Index (GSI), there is increased risk of forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery in the fishing industry as the industry “tries to meet global demand for seafood”.[17] Workers in land-based fisheries and at sea have reported being trapped in debt bondage, and facing psychological, physical and sexual abuse[18]. The ILO states, “Fishers are forced to work for long hours at very low pay, and the work is intense, hazardous and difficult”, adding that “capture fisheries have one of the highest occupational fatality rates in the world”. [19]

and dairy, eggs, wool and leather…

Slaughterhouses are not exclusive to the meat industry; they are also integral to the operations of the dairy and egg industries. Animals such as male calves and chicks, as well as 'spent' chickens and 'dried-off' cows that can no longer contribute to the production cycle, are routinely sent to slaughterhouses. These animals are processed by the same vulnerable workers who may face exploitative conditions.[20],[21] Furthermore, it's crucial to note that human rights abuses extend beyond slaughterhouses and encompass various sectors of animal agriculture, including dairy and egg farms, and the production of leather and wool.[22],[23]

There have been several reported cases of trafficking and child labour on egg farms in the USA.[24] In the dairy industry, underpayment, forced labour, exploitation and trafficking is a global reality.[25] Like in abattoirs, the work is dangerous, with the industry having one of the highest rates of injury and death within the agricultural sector.[26] Links have also been drawn between dairy worker exposure to toxic chemicals and gases, and heightened risk of developing chronic diseases and cancers.[27] In Australia, more than 1400 dairy workers went on strike in 2023 to demand fair pay and personal leave. [28]

The animal products in our clothes also may be contributing to human rights abuses. In Australia, shearers are six times more likely to suffer from workplace injury than industrial averages.[29] A 2019 ABC article revealed that working conditions in the wool industry are increasingly poor, and some shearers have allegedly been paid in cash and drugs.[30] The human impact of leather is also extensive, with tannery workers often experiencing health deterioration due to exposure to heavy metals used in tanneries.[31]

Isn’t plant agriculture also a high-risk sector for human rights abuses? If we all followed a plant-based diet, wouldn’t we need more farms to grow all of the vegetables, adding to the exploitation of vulnerable workers?

In short- no. A 2021 study found that between 2016 and 2018, 80% of soy, 61% of corn and 20% of wheat produced globally were fed to livestock, not humans.[32] According to a report for Compassion in World Farming Trust, the world’s cattle consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, more than the global human population, meaning a plant based world would see lesser global famine and food insecurity. [33]

Researchers at Oxford University found that 83% of global farmland is used for animal agriculture, but only accounts for 18% of the world’s calories. A transition to a plant-based diet, according to the study, would free up 76% of farmland, an area the size of the US, EU, China, and Australia combined.[34]

Author Peter Singer notes that plants offer a more efficient use of space in producing equivalent levels of calories and nutrients compared to animal farming. He highlights that to produce equivalent levels of calories and nutrients, feeding a calf takes twenty-one pounds of vegetable protein to produce one pound of animal protein available for human consumption. Additionally, a one-acre broccoli farm produces sixteen times the amount of iron compared to a one-acre cattle farm, and five times as much calcium as milk.[35]

So, we would need to grow far fewer vegetables if the majority of people only ate plants? Could this help with global food shortages?

Research suggests it could.

A study published in the British Journal of General Practice, found that “82% of the world’s starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals that are then killed and eaten by more affluent individuals in developed countries like the US, UK, and in Europe”.[36]

Many developing countries with food deficits export grain to feed farm animals in the global north. The flaws in this food system have recently been put under the microscope due to the European food crisis, caused largely by the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine, often referred to as the ‘breadbasket of Europe’, is one of the top exporters of grain in the world. The export of crops has heightened food insecurity within the Ukraine, with the country’s citizens competing with meat and dairy farmers for grains. As these exports have become more inaccessible, Europe’s meat and dairy organisations have lobbied the EU to cover higher feed costs and loosen environmental policy regarding livestock production.[37],[38]

Marco Springmann from Oxford University highlighted that “global food insecurity is not caused by a shortage of food supply… [but] by unequal distribution”.[39]He emphasised that “discussing dietary changes in face of the [Ukraine-Russia] war is more significant than it might seem at first glance, in fact eating more plants instead of meat could make more food available to the world, simply because animal production is inefficient.” Springmann argues that “we can and should react to the short-term crisis in ways that are also suitable to tackle long-term crises of the world food system”.

The production of animal feed and animal products also poses a threat to many Indigenous communities around the world. In the Amazon, “cattle grazing is the biggest driver of deforestation, not logging” as is often assumed.[40] In just six years, over 800 million trees have been cut down to make way for cattle ranches and soy farms.[41] According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), cattle ranching accounts for 80% of current deforestation in the Amazon.[42] Similar statistics are seen in Australia, where approximately 79% of land clearing occurs to make way for animal agriculture, in particular for cattle grazing.[43],[44]

David Attenborough’s most recent ‘Planet Earth’ series highlights the impacts of deforestation in the Amazon on Indigenous peoples, with land clearing for animal agriculture destroying sacred lands and threatening traditional ways of life.[45] Indigenous activists opposing deforestation of ancestral lands have reported facing death threats and assassination attempts. [46] Recent investigations have identified logging companies to be behind the murders of forest defenders and Indigenous leaders in the Amazon, with five loggers being sentenced to 28 years in gaol for the murder of four Indigenous Ashéninka leaders.[47]

The global demand for beef and other animal products has increased demand for soy, with over 80% of the world’s soy crop is being used for animal feed in beef, chicken, egg and dairy production.[48] Further deforestation in the Amazon and around the world continues to occur to make way for the production of animal feed.

Deforestation also poses human rights risks, with logging being a high-risk industry for modern slavery, including for child labour, forced labour and human trafficking. The degradation of traditional livelihoods, combined with pre-existing vulnerabilities, has led to a heightened risk of Indigenous peoples falling victim to modern slavery, with communities “being forced off their lands and into slavery-like conditions where they are obliged to cut down their own forests to benefit these criminal enterprises”. [49], [50]

So, we’re destroying the Amazon to grow animal feed. Isn’t that also linked to climate change?

Absolutely! A United Nations Climate Change and Land Report estimates that one-third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are due to deforestation and agriculture, and a 2022 Stanford University study emphasises that shifting to a plant-based diet is “our best and most immediate chance to reverse the trajectory of climate change”.[51],[52] Climate change is inherently tied to human rights, with marginalised communities and people in developing countries bearing a disproportionately greater impact.

So, if we cut out the ‘middleman’ (i.e. animal agriculture), we could reduce human exploitation, return lands to Indigenous peoples, rebuild biodiverse ecosystems and feed more people in the process.

Okay, but exploitation exists in all sectors, including plant agriculture. Why not address the root causes of worker exploitation universally rather than singling out specific dietary choices?

Addressing root causes is one of the key strategies for mitigating and eradicating exploitative practices. It may be worth exploring the interconnected nature of different forms of oppression, and what is causing them. While we are uncertain if academic studies have explicitly explored this thesis, the idea that oppression, whether directed towards humans or animals, may share common roots is thought-provoking. Some activists argue that all oppression is interconnected, and fostering a culture that values all life, be it animal or human, from an early age could potentially contribute to breaking the cycle of oppression.[53],[54] This is a complex and nuanced concept, and its practical implications would require careful consideration. Nevertheless, it prompts us to reflect on the interconnected nature of exploitation and oppression and challenges us to consider whether addressing one aspect could have a positive ripple effect on others.

“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world”
– Paul Farmer

So, let’s go back to that egg and bacon roll. Mapping the supply chain of the animal products in this popular breakfast choice highlights that every tier includes documented cases of some form of human exploitation or human rights abuse.

Okay, I’d love to give it a go, but isn’t a plant-based diet largely suited to those with privilege of choice?

While the inaccessibility of fresh produce in many (often BIPOC) communities poses significant barriers to veganism, the responsibility to make morally and ethically driven decisions regarding food does not lie with those who lack the privilege of choice. [55]

If you already actively avoid fast fashion and other consumer items tainted by human rights abuses, or prioritise fair trade chocolate, tea and coffee, then why not extend that mindfulness to the other foods on your plate. While not claiming that all plant-based products are exploitation free, opting for a standard plant-based diet is a tangible commitment to minimising harm in an industry where exploitation is deeply ingrained.

The way you eat is more than a personal choice; it can be a powerful step towards dismantling systemic inequalities and fostering a more equitable future. If you have the privilege to choose what you eat, why not make your plate a reflection of your values - one that supports a fair, ethical and just global food system.

From the writer:

Vegans often get a bad rap for putting views across too strongly, or only seeing certain things in a negative light. The point of this article isn’t to compel an immediate shift to veganism, or to make you feel guilty about the foods you may enjoy eating. It is an invitation to delve into the repercussions of your grocery store choices and question the implications of all forms of agriculture.

I’m conscious that the issues explored in this article are incredibly nuanced, and changing one’s diet won’t inherently solve these problems. This article is not meant to overshadow the necessity for broader systemic changes, collective advocacy, and policy reforms to address the root causes of exploitation. I have written it to invite respectful discussion and debate.

The team at SD Strategies love to engage in debate where diverse perspectives are valued, and we encourage you to comment with your thoughts. How has this article affected you? Has it made you consider reducing your meat intake or even going vegan? Would you fully plant-based catering at your next corporate function? Or do you disagree entirely?

Let us know in the comments on LinkedIn!

Here are some discussion points to get you started:

· How can a shift towards plant-based diets accommodate cultural and dietary diversity, considering the wide range of global cuisines?

· What are the economic consequences for traditional livestock farmers if there is a widespread adoption of plant-based diets?

· How might a transition to plant-based diets affect local economies that rely heavily on animal agriculture? Can a transition to plant-based agriculture empower these communities and offer alternative, sustainable opportunities?

· How do personal autonomy and the freedom to make individual choices align with advocating for specific dietary preferences?

· Can adopting a vegan lifestyle be seen as a way to promote compassion and empathy, not only toward animals but also towards the environment and global communities?

· What role should governments play in regulating and promoting ethical practices in both animal and plant-based agriculture?

· How can initiatives address the accessibility and affordability of plant-based alternatives to ensure there are viable options for a broader population, including marginalised communities?

· How much influence does consumer demand have in driving changes in the agricultural industry, and can individuals truly affect systemic change through their purchasing choices

Interested in learning more?

We’ve compiled a list of further reading, viewing and listening. You may also like to follow human rights activists, vegan groups and community organisations on Instagram, all of whom are actively fighting for more just food systems.