Blog written by Julie Hurst, volunteer blog writer

“I can totally see that from afar, particularly if you’re not a meat eater, farmers might seem like heartless bastards”, claims Patrick Galbraith, “but the reality, as evidenced by Jeremy Clarkson breaking down over the death of his piglets, is very different.” Writing originally in The Telegraph, the journalist explains that rather than a simple case of “keeping beasts in servitude before eating their flesh”, the reality is that farmers have a “relationship and bond” with their animals which vegans seemingly fail to acknowledge, and as such he argues that the picture veganism paints of farming as an unfeeling money-driven industry is a lie. But is there really more to the “abhorrent” practice of farming animals for food? How much truth actually is there in Galbraith’s reality? And was Clarkson’s anguish as clear cut as he believes?

THE FARMING INDUSTRY’S FAMILY-RUN IMAGE IS OUTDATED

Clarkson's Farm debuted on Amazon Prime in 2021, and filming for the fourth series of the show is currently underway. The former Top Gear presenter has traded fast cars for life on a 1,000 acre Cotswolds farm, and not only has the programme broken viewing records, but former Environment Secretary Victoria Prentis said it had done “a huge amount” to raise the profile of agriculture and the challenges it faces. However, despite the popularity of the show and the image of farming it portrays, small family farms such Clarkson’s don’t actually reflect the true nature of agriculture in the UK today. The reality is that our food system is highly industrialised, and intensive farming is on the rise across the country.

MEGA-FARMS ARE TODAY’S FARMING MODEL 

According to a recent report by World Animal Protection on the ‘stark reality of UK farming’, 90% of pigs and 95% of chickens are confined inside intensive systems, and in conditions which Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) chief executive, Philip Lymbery, has described as “utter depravation”. The report notes that over the past five years, the UK has seen a huge rise in this method of farming – a business model based on how quickly the animals can be made to grow, how tightly they can be packed, how much or little they can eat and how sick they can get without dying, according to Eating Animals’ author Jonathan Safran Foer - with capacity on so-called mega-farms increasing by over 22 million animals. 

With a focus on producing as much as possible for the lowest price, farms with less than 2,500 animals are simply not economically viable according to a National Pig Association spokesman. And indeed, as Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council has said, “The UK has 65 million people needing three meals every day, so all production has to be, by definition, large-scale.” This is all a far cry from the image of pastoral life depicted in Clarkson’s programme. And it’s not just the sheer size and profit-driven nature of farming that define agriculture in the UK today, but the industry’s structure. 

FARMING ANIMALS IS BIG BUSINESS

As the World Animal Protection report notes, most animal farms are contracted to meat processors like Moy Park, Tyson and Cranswick. Many of these are, in turn, owned by multinational meat companies such as the Brazilian-based JBS – thought to be the largest meat supplier in the world – which owns or has a controlling stake in some of this country’s most well-known brands, including Walls and Mattesons. These contracts often determine the breeds to be farmed (in many cases young animals are even supplied) and dictate the standards to which animals are raised. And the companies also own or have their own contracts with slaughterhouses, as well as relationships with many of our leading supermarkets, restaurants and catering companies. Much of the control is therefore taken away from farm owners.

So-called Big Meat’s hold on UK farming is not only felt practically but has far-reaching ethical impacts too. The report states that not only has JBS ‘perfected a profit-making factory farming model with high inputs and low-cost outputs’, but the company and its subsidiary network have also been linked to allegations of high-level corruption, modern-day ‘slave labour’ practices, illegal deforestation, animal welfare violations and major hygiene breaches. And in 2017, its holding company agreed to pay one of the biggest fines in global corporate history, $3.2bn, after admitting to bribing hundreds of politicians. 

CLARKSON’S SADNESS WAS GENUINE HEARTBREAK

Farms like Clarkson’s are the exception, rather than the rule. But even if there was an abundance of smallholdings dotted across the countryside, filled with animals who are farmed leading a “happy life”, they would be there simply because we eat them. Despite Galbraith’s claims that the farmer/animal relationship is “so much more than meat”, the purpose of the animals’ existence, as Jeffrey Masson writes in The Secret World of Farm Animals, “is almost entirely defined by their death or exploitation.” Animals who are farmed are bred to be killed and to profit from.

And Masson goes on to note, “Even those who honestly attempt to give a farm animal a good life know that that animal’s life will never be optimal.” Galbraith himself talks about a farmer’s pride in “doing right by his herd” before sending the animals off to the abattoir. And to this end, the journalist imagines that the sadness Clarkson felt when several litters of piglets died prematurely on his farm was because, “He hadn’t managed to take them right through to be slaughtered, after a happy life, and then turned into bacon.” However, what Clarkson actually felt was genuine heartbreak. 

Watching several sows settle into life on his farm, give birth, and then witnessing the untimely death of their piglets visibly affected the presenter. He had clearly become very fond of them, as had many of the show’s viewers who took to social media to express their “absolute distress”. And this same distress is experienced by vegans every single day, not only in the knowledge that millions of animals face the same premature fate, but that this will be at the direct hand of fellow humans.

VEGANISM IS MUCH MORE THAN A DIETARY PREFERENCE

Veganism is routinely discredited, and subject to ridicule, resistance, criticism or indifference. Many of those who argue against it present the issue as a simple matter of personal choice, whether to consume animals or not. But it is not just a dietary preference, it’s what lies behind it, which is that every animal’s life is valuable in itself, regardless of any ‘usefulness’ humans may assign to it. Each animal has a mother and father, siblings and friends, and as Masson notes, “even though they (animals who are farmed) are bred to be killed, their emotional capacities are not altered by that breeding.” They all have thoughts, feelings and desires, and deserve to be safe, loved and respected. They have as much interest in freedom and staying alive as we do.

Others disregard vegans as sentimentalists, valuing emotions over reality. But the suffering of animals within the agriculture industry is not imagined, it is reality, and one in which vegans see the majority colluding every day. The fact that this complicity is for reasons of pleasure and is entirely unnecessary simply heightens the torment.

ALL ANIMALS DESERVE OUR CARE AND COMPASSION

Most of us are brought up to view certain animals as worthy of care and compassion and others, such as those bred for meat, as less important or unworthy, expressed clearly by Patrick Galbraith who believes that the highest form of pig worship is “Enjoying a good (bacon) sandwich”. But this totally arbitrary distinction was visibly called into question by Clarkson’s programme, which showed pigs and piglets as the living beings they are, not mere objects for consumption. In doing so, rather than exposing veganism as a lie, as the journalist asserts, the presenter’s anguish exposed the compassion at its heart. And given, as Ingrid Newkirk writes in the foreword to The Secret Life of Pigs, that the animals are “emotional, social, curious, feeling individuals, who value their lives”, how difficult can it be, she says, “to realise that we should treat them with compassion?”

As always,

For the animals.