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Grass-Fed Beef, Alterity, and Care: Complicating food Binaries, Relations, and Practices

Grass-Fed Beef, Alterity, and Care: Complicating food Binaries, Relations, and Practices Alternative food networks (AFNs) have become increasingly important in response to growing concerns about industrial animal agriculture’s harmful impacts on animals. Alternative animal agriculture seeks to address problems with industrial animal agriculture given its purported emphases on animal welfare and, more controversially, “happy” meat. Debates in critical food studies and animal studies literature, however, caution against the glorification of “alterity” and how welfare claims provide an ethical façade for violence towards farm animals. These debates, while critically important, leave little room for exploring the complexities of alternative animal agriculture, human-farm animal relations, and care. In this article, I build upon the insights of critical food studies scholarship that takes a reflexive and hybrid approach to studying AFNs and literature that explores the complex dynamics of human-farm animal relations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with grass-fed beef farmers in Ontario, Canada, I present an analysis aimed at unsettling divisive thinking about food practices and relations. First, I reflect on how farmers understand their work as an ethical alternative to industrial beef production, benefiting animals, people, and the environment. I then detail the emotional dynamics that shape cows’ commodification and relations with farmers, adding to scholarship that demands more attention to affective dimensions of care for animals in AFNs. Lastly, I discuss grass-fed beef farming challenges and contradictions, empirically exploring, for example, how grass-fed beef farming operates as a niche market whose accessibility is shaped by socio-economic privilege. Collectively, these insights contribute to discussions about the complexities of grass-fed beef farming as an alternative food network with benefits and problems, impacting the wellbeing of animals, people, and the environment. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Springer Journals

Grass-Fed Beef, Alterity, and Care: Complicating food Binaries, Relations, and Practices

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References (23)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © Crown 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
ISSN
1187-7863
eISSN
1573-322X
DOI
10.1007/s10806-023-09906-w
Publisher site
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Abstract

Alternative food networks (AFNs) have become increasingly important in response to growing concerns about industrial animal agriculture’s harmful impacts on animals. Alternative animal agriculture seeks to address problems with industrial animal agriculture given its purported emphases on animal welfare and, more controversially, “happy” meat. Debates in critical food studies and animal studies literature, however, caution against the glorification of “alterity” and how welfare claims provide an ethical façade for violence towards farm animals. These debates, while critically important, leave little room for exploring the complexities of alternative animal agriculture, human-farm animal relations, and care. In this article, I build upon the insights of critical food studies scholarship that takes a reflexive and hybrid approach to studying AFNs and literature that explores the complex dynamics of human-farm animal relations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with grass-fed beef farmers in Ontario, Canada, I present an analysis aimed at unsettling divisive thinking about food practices and relations. First, I reflect on how farmers understand their work as an ethical alternative to industrial beef production, benefiting animals, people, and the environment. I then detail the emotional dynamics that shape cows’ commodification and relations with farmers, adding to scholarship that demands more attention to affective dimensions of care for animals in AFNs. Lastly, I discuss grass-fed beef farming challenges and contradictions, empirically exploring, for example, how grass-fed beef farming operates as a niche market whose accessibility is shaped by socio-economic privilege. Collectively, these insights contribute to discussions about the complexities of grass-fed beef farming as an alternative food network with benefits and problems, impacting the wellbeing of animals, people, and the environment.

Journal

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics – Springer Journals

Published: Jun 1, 2023

Keywords: Alternative food networks; Alternative animal agriculture; Grass-fed beef farming; Human-animal relations

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