SEI Longform Series_ February 2020 Longform Series Sydney Environment Institute

Swinging the Pendulum Towards the Politics of Production: Animal-Based Food and Environmental Justice

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Dr Dinesh Wadiwel

Sydney Environment Institute 1 Sydney Environment Institute 1 Image by Carlos Neto, via Shutterstock. ID: 1517215121 Shutterstock. via Neto, Carlos by Image SEI Longform Series_

Presented at the annual Iain McCalman Lecture on February 6 2020 by Dr Dinesh Wadiwel, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney.

The Iain McCalman Lecture celebrates SEI co-founder and former co-director Iain McCalman’s generous and compassionate spirit, and his dedication to fostering and pioneering multidisciplinary environmental research. The lectures aim to highlight the work of early to mid-career researchers working across disciplinary boundaries to impact both scholarship and public discourse.

The research, events and operations of the Sydney Environment Institute take place at the University of Sydney, on the Gadigal lands of the Eora Nation. We pay our deepest respects to Indigenous elders, caretakers and custodians past, present and emerging, here in Eora and beyond.

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Sydney Environment Institute 2 Dr Wadiwel explores the impact of animal agriculture on climate, planetary health and justice, and the issues with focussing on individualised responsibility, rather than structural and institutional reform. His talk seeks to swing the pendulum from the politics of consumption towards the politics of production by seeking to understand the global “metabolism” of the historically unprecedented expansion of animal-based foods under capitalism.

The industrialisation of production within the context of capitalist economies has led to the mass production of animal foods as a source of profit, producing deep environmental impacts, and simultaneously exposing trillions of animals annually to the violence of intensified farming and fishing. This talk highlights that thinking about production, rather than consumption, allows us to explore the way the economies and institutions might be enlisted to create a “just transition” away from industrial animal agriculture.

I want to begin my talk by marking the apparent that we must take into account terrible moment many of us inhabit today, impacts for animals, and the environment, after the last few months of devastation as subjects of justice. have swept through so many lives. I don’t Indeed, for better or worse, the think it is hyperbolic to state that the devastation of the past summer in bushfires have marked a monumental Australia has highlighted that climate disaster in Australia, which has massively change represents an environmental impacted not only humans, but animals justice issue that goes well beyond the and the environment, in ways that defy human. It is not just that the effects measurement, and indeed imagination. of anthropogenic climate change will The connections between human induced disproportionately impact the poorest climate change and the catastrophe humans on the planet; actually, as we have around us have become undeniable, and I witnessed, the climate emergency will also think create a bittersweet opportunity for devastate the lives and communities of change, allowing us to consider afresh the non-humans on a mass scale. Like other meaning of environmental justice. environmental justice issues, those who Traditional understandings of benefit from environmental devastation environmental justice were interested in are shielded from its worst effects, while the distributional inequalities associated those who have no say in decisions that with the environmental consequences of contribute to global warming are those human activity, for example, the way that that are harmed without any benefit. industrial pollution always seems to impact Underlining this is a complete failure the poorest on the planet, even though of recognition – a systematic failure to these communities did not seem to recognise and value lives and flourishing benefit economically from the proceeds in the multiplicity of life forms which of industrial production. surround us. More recent work in environmental I: ANIMAL AGRICULTURE AND THE justice, including from SEI Director David CLIMATE EMERGENCY Schlosberg, has sought to highlight that My talk today is about animal agriculture injustices, either in the distribution of and its future. I recognise my talk arrives environmental consequences or the at a point of global crisis. At this time of failure to recognize status and rights, emergency, we must take seriously a range go well beyond the human – today it is of possible levers before us to mitigate

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the worst possible futures associated with much animal rights theory as a social and global warming. In my view the climate political problem of how societies manage Dinesh Wadiwel emergency creates a new context which food supplies and the role of animals changes the parameters for how we think within it, the easiest solution proposed Dinesh Wadiwel is a lecturer in about animal agriculture. It means that was for individuals to make an individual human rights and socio-legal we are finally ready to have a serious decision to opt out of supporting animal studies in the Department of conversation about how we transform agriculture by eliminating animal products Sociology and Social Policy this aspect of our food system, and take from their diets. That is, to ask consumers and Director of the Master of seriously justice for both humans and to vote with their feet by going vegan (or Human Rights. Dr Wadiwel is non-humans. vegetarian) or avoiding animal products. also a research affiliate of the Sydney Environment Institute In the not too distant past, critical All of this happened in a context in which and a researcher on the SEI/ discussions around animal agriculture animal rights theory and environmental FASS Multispecies Justice were framed in relation to prominent ethics appeared at odds with each other. Initiative. He is currently debates within animal rights theory and At least one prominent fault line in the writing a book exploring the environmental ethics. On one hand, from disagreement between animal rights relationship between animals the 1970s onward, prominent voices in theory and environmental ethics was and capitalism, building on animal ethics, such as Peter Singer, asked in relation to the rights of individuals his 2015 monograph, The War significant moral questions about our and the flourishing of communities. Against Animals. mainstream uses for animals. In many Traditional animal rights theory tended to cases animal ethics was responding to the emphasise the individual rights of animals, horrors of industrial animal agriculture, and count as harms infringements of particularly forms of agriculture utilising those rights. Environmentalists, on the intensive systems of containment and other hand, tended to speak about the the mechanisation of key processes such flourishing of ecosystems or species, as slaughter. Animal rights theory looked where individual harms were perhaps at the factory farm, at intensive animal tolerable in the name of the greater agriculture, and I think for good reason, good. Thus an environmentalist might be found that there were few consistent comfortable with the elimination of “non- moral arguments in favour of using native” species within an environment animals in these ways. because of the perceived benefits to an ecosystem or other populations. Animal rights and the focus on individual Further, while many environmentalists responsibility have recognised that many forms of While animal rights theory agreed that industrialised animal agriculture pose industrial animal agriculture posed an environmental problems, the objection to ethical problem, the strategies proposed animal agriculture is not directly informed for challenging the institutional forms of by a concern for the rights of animals animal agriculture focused upon individual – thus environmentalists may support actions. Peter Singer’s influential 1975 forms of intensive animal agriculture that book Animal Liberation included offer reduced environmental impact, vegetarian recipes in the back, and odd or alternatively, argue for modest low inclusion for a work of applied philosophy. scale animal agriculture as a sustainable I don’t mean to say that Singer thought alternative to large scale agriculture. All of that a commitment to mass vegetarianism this potentially placed environmentalists was the only strategy available to counter at odds with animal rights supporters. animal agriculture— actually a close However, something has palpably changed reading of Animal Liberation makes clear over the last decade around the politics that this was not the case. However, the of meat. A decade ago, it seemed that inclusion of the cook book in one of discussions about the problems with the appendices of this important work animal agriculture were extraordinarily in moral philosophy marks something fringe in nature. It would be rare to see distinct about the way in which advocacy articles in major newspapers questioning around the rights of animals has occurred the status of animals as food. At the same over the last 50 years. time, many would be aware of the cultural This advocacy has featured a very battles which have surrounded vegan and strong emphasis on personal practice; vegetarian diets over the last decade, indeed, I would say, an over-reliance with the meat industry (think about those on individual change as a strategy as Australia Day lamb advertisements) and opposed to systems change. Thus, while major media outlets belittling those who animal agriculture is presented within chose to pursue plant-based diets.

Sydney Environment Institute 4 “The reality of climate change has placed before us a concrete challenge which relates to our food systems, and a very clear message that we will need to massively reduce the number of animals being used for food in order to prevent a global warming scenario that we cannot adapt to”. — Dinesh Wadiwel

However today, there are almost daily To an extent, the developments over the media reports and opinion pieces which last few years have, at least in my mind, have drawn attention to the problems shifted the grounds for how we think surrounding animal agriculture, and at the about animal agriculture. This does not same time a veritable explosion of interest mean that the old debate between animal in plant-based diets. Veganism has gone rights and environmental ethics has been “mainstream” – shifting from a marginal resolved – far from it. However, the reality dietary practice to something which is of climate change has placed before us a now being actively embraced by major concrete challenge which relates to our supermarkets and fast food chains. food systems, and a very clear message that we will need to massively reduce the Animal agriculture and greenhouse gas number of animals being used for food emissions in order to prevent a global warming Perhaps the single most important scenario that we cannot adapt to. driver of this growing awareness are the If we add these concerns about the undeniable connections between animal environmental impact of meat production agriculture and anthropogenic climate to the prevailing concerns about the change. The numbers remain open to ethics of animal-based food industry, debate, however the United Nations we have a curious situation: perhaps Food and Agriculture Organisation for the first time, animal advocates suggests that total emissions from global and environmentalists can find a space livestock represent 14.5 percent of all of agreement on animal agriculture. anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever the shape of our future food Last year’s Climate Change and Land systems, our planet cannot sustain meat report provided some of the strongest consumption at the levels which currently language we have seen yet on this issue prevail. We can surely agree that change is from the IPCC. The report argued that necessary. a “dietary shift away from meat can reduce GHG emissions, reduce cropland So how do we get there? The challenge is and pasture requirements, enhance that I don’t think we have anything like a biodiversity protection, and reduce clear road map for how we might imagine mitigation costs.” In particular the IPCC restructuring food systems away from noted the potential of this transformation large scale animal agriculture. Indeed, it in allowing for adaptation and response to feels like the only solution being offered climate change, particularly in responding at the moment is to encourage people to deforestation and soil erosion. to “eat less meat”. This message is

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coming from multiple sources. We have About seven years ago I began a project prominent animal advocates arguing for of slow reading Karl Marx, and particularly people to “go vegan”. We now see an his work Capital. For those of you who emergence of very strong messaging from have had to read this painfully dense environmentalists also recommending work, I offer my commiserations. Marx dietary change, either encouraging is incredibly difficult to read, because people to abandon meat, or reduce he presents a very different way to look consumption. This is now supported by at the economy and its interaction with scientists including the IPCC who, as I society. mentioned, acknowledge that reducing However, in amidst all that complexity meat consumption is a solution. At the there were at least two things I learnt, same, newspapers and the internet seem which I think are valuable for thinking awash with vegan recipes, while, as I have about animal products and their relation mentioned, supermarkets and fast food to our economic system and the climate outlets seemed to have embraced plant- emergency. And in case anyone is based foods as a profitable outlet. worried, we don’t need to sign up as Should we focus on consumption or card carrying Marxists to take on these production? messages. However, all of this demonstrates The first is that for Marx it is production something of a framing problem we in economies, rather than consumption, have in relation to meat: namely that which we need to understand. This is we focus on consumption as problem because production sits at the centre of rather than production. This strong the incentive structure of capitalism. His focus on consumption is odd, since story is perhaps familiar to you already, much discourse around climate action but let me quickly explain, so that we today has thankfully moved away from are all on the same page. For Marx what individualistic obsessions around climate guides the logic of production is the footprints towards understanding instead acquisition of value from the production the structures and institutions we need process. You and I go to work because to change in order to address the climate we need a wage to survive. But in Marx’s emergency. This means we do not theory, the owner of production (i.e. expect that we can leave the problem the business owner) employs us not of mitigating the use of fossil fuels to because they want to do us a service, consumers alone – for example by waiting but because we can be paid less than for individuals to buy solar panels as a way the value we produce – that is, in short to end the coal industry. Instead we know hand, the capitalist can a make a profit that the debate over coal should centre from production by exploiting the labour on regulation of the coal industry and within. structural changes to end the use of coal as an energy source, hopefully including Production for profit, not need fair transitions for those employed within You and I might disagree about whether these industries. Marx was correct in his summary of capitalist production. However, there are In a similar vein, I want to stress that some interesting implications for how we what is missing today in relation to animal think about production, its relation to agriculture is a conversation about the the climate emergency and how we think production of animals as food. This is now about the production of animal products a structural problem in our food system in relation to consumption. that we have inherited and must deal with collectively, and not simply imagine that This is because I believe Marx names a it is up to consumers to make different rationality that I think we can see around individual choices. Taking this stance us – namely that we produce goods does not necessarily downplay the role and services in a way that is frequently of individual choice – the choices we all disconnected from need. This is because individually make are still important – but the immediate object of production is seeks instead to swing the pendulum back the value that can be extracted from towards the problem of production. this production – namely profit. We hope, perhaps in vein, that the free II: PRODUCTION AS THE DRIVER OF market will align in such a way as for CAPITALISM economies to produce things that are

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“My hope is that we have solutions that will guarantee equitable outcomes and not merely continue elite agendas.

Ideally any solution must facilitate a fair transition that maintains the livelihoods of those employed in animal agriculture, must have a strong buy-in from the public and not alienate groups of people or heighten existing forms of inequality.” — Dinesh Wadiwel Image by Tadeu Junior, via Unsplash via Junior, Tadeu by Image

Sydney Environment Institute 7 actually necessary for the flourishing of animals as a consumption commodity. lives. And occasionally it does. But we are confronted by a reality of the over Animals as commodity production of commodities, almost If we examine the use of animals as food everywhere, which do not seem to align in over the last 60 years (as long as the UN an ideal way with the fundamental needs Food and Agriculture Organisation has of societies. In fact, as climate change maintained records), we can notice some shows us, the needs of the economy to important, and perhaps, at least for animal continually expand and extract profit are advocates, disturbing trends. We are at odds with the flourishing needs of life on a point in history where we use animals the planet. This is because rationality for food on a completely unprecedented for production is the value that can be scale: today, humans extinguish the lives derived from the exploitation of labour. of an extraordinary number of animals as part of global food production, a number But we don’t need to think about labour as that has continued to grow. According something that only humans do. Recently to UN Food and Agriculture data, in 2017, a range of theorists have pointed out approximately 75 billion land animals were that capitalism does not simply focus killed for human consumption; chickens on human labourers, but extracts the alone comprised some 66 billion of these energies and labour of nature as a whole. animals. It is difficult to say how many Thinkers such as Jason Moore have fishes are killed annually, although, the argued that we need to understand the figure has been estimated to be close to 3 interaction between capitalism and nature trillion animals per year. with fresh eyes, recognising that the appropriation of natural resources – the It would be easy to conclude that this environment – was as central to the story expansion in the use of animals has simply of capitalism as the exploitation of wage followed human population growth. labour. However, the story is not that simple. The growth of animal-based food has The reason I think these accounts offer a exceeded the human population growth useful diagnosis of the relation between rate, in other words, there is increasingly capitalism and the climate emergency more animal-based food per person is the very real sense that we have an per year. In 1961, global per capita meat economic system that will continue to consumption, excluding fish and seafood, plunder the planet, to suck it dry and was at 23kg per person; in 2014 this had watch it burn, in the name of profit. Here nearly doubled to 43kg per person. World it is not just human labour that is the per capita fish consumption has more than object of exploitation, but everything it doubled over this period. Per capita dairy would seem – animals, natural resources consumption has grown and is predicted on land, in the sea, under the ground – are to grow, particularly in the global south. sucked into the machine of our economy in order to chase value. The destruction These figures can be contextualised to of entangled human and non-human lives Australia too. Despite much advertised and communities is treated as simply an interest in plant-based foods in this unfortunate by product of this economic country, animal product consumption progress. remains strong here – Australia maintains its top spot amongst the highest per capita Here the politics of consumption is still a meat consumers in the world, and despite reality, and I certainly don’t mean to say a decline in milk consumption, demand that the decisions of consumers do not for cheese, butter and yoghurt is stable or drive economic systems – we all consume has increased. UN Food and Agriculture and our demand for consumption figures suggest that seafood consumption products shapes realities. However, the by Australians has more than doubled on a demand to profit from production is also per person basis since 1961. part of the economic picture. If we want to address the problem, we cannot do so This shift in the availability and through the lens of consumption alone. consumption of animal-based foods has We need to look and production and its been an important part of the story of the relation to our economic system. way in which we have witnessed a global restructuring of human diets. It is here that I want discuss the second perspective I have gained from reading The cataclysm of colonialism Marx, and this relates to the role of

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"Animal agriculture in Australia is interconnected with a history of Indigenous dispossession and the colonisation of food systems. This means that our food system has evolved directly from our settler colonial legacy. From this standpoint in Australia, any conversation on how we change our food systems must happen in dialogue with First Peoples and their movements towards self-determination and food sovereignty. ” — Dinesh Wadiwel

In part, some of this restructuring the proliferation of animal-based foods. has been traced by some scholars As I have discussed, this proliferation to processes of colonialism, where is partly a symptom of the problem we traditional diets were replaced by have with an economic system whose European approaches to food, a process driving rationality is to produce because that went hand in hand with attacks on production itself is profitable. This leads traditional ways of viewing animals and to an overproduction of commodities, nature, including the attempt to dismantle and like so many other commodities we indigenous knowledges which accorded have around us which are proliferated agency and recognition to non-human and must disposed of – cars, mobile beings. As Canada Research Chair in phones, appliances, and too much plastic Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and – food is another commodity that is Environment Kim Tall Bear observes: over produced. And we know this over “Indigenous peoples have never production is not evenly distributed. forgotten that nonhumans are agential Instead we face a bizarre situation beings engaged in social relations that where some human communities lack profoundly shape human lives.” This story an adequate means of subsistence to of material dispossession tied with the survive, while there is manifold wastage of forgetting of alternative ways of knowing over produced food products elsewhere. and different food systems also resonates Further, as Jason Moore and Raj Patel with Australia, since our agricultural have noted, the process of creating sector, which includes vast pasture cheap food goes hand in hand with lands across much of the continent, has a drive to keep down the wage bill of directly benefited from the theft of land capitalism. Produce an abundance of which was part and parcel of our colonial cheap commodities and you effectively history. Wendy Foley describes the increase the buying power of wages. impact of colonialism on Indigenous food But this simultaneously puts downward practices as “cataclysmic” - a process pressure on the wage bill for the system, that involved “separating people from since low inflation reduces demands for their traditional lands and waters, limiting wage increases (a reality that is playing access to traditional foods.” out today in the Australian economy). So what can we say about this picture? For Moore and Patel, this quest for Marx gives us an interesting perspective cheap food explains the rise of chickens to consider. Humans need food in order as a food source in the twentieth to survive. An economic system, in order century – these beings can reproduce, to produce, must ensure that living be contained, grown, slaughtered and beings who produce value within that distributed using rationalised industrial system are able to have their subsistence technologies. Thus chickens have become needs met in order to continue to create the most consumed land animals on the profit – in Marx’s language, capitalism planet. must produce a means of subsistence which allows workers to reproduce their Fuelling the metabolism of the global own labour. The restructuring of human economy diets has included a strong emphasis on We have here then a curious “metabolic”

Sydney Environment Institute 9 relation between animals and humans of production and the levers of change individuals and families. The Australian which has been generated within the available to us. This will require some Chicken Meat Federation tells us that two context of the history of capitalism. The different lenses from simply encouraging large integrated companies supply 70% of massive expansion in the use of animals is consumers to eat less meat or adopt a Australia’s chicken meat for consumption. driven by an economic rationality which vegan diet. We should also take note that some of assumes that production is necessary the largest landowners in Australia also We could divide these strategies into for growth, profit and the creation of operate some of the world largest cattle three levels – the level of the state or value. Animals have been sucked into this stations. government; at the level of institutions and process, a situation that has progressively culture change; and finally, at the level of In this context, my hope is that we have intensified so that trillions of beings now grass roots action and social movements. solutions that will guarantee equitable face the violence of intensive industrial Each of these approaches are potentially outcomes and not merely continue production for human food supplies. useful, but have their limits from a elite agendas. Ideally any solution must This has led to a proliferation of animal strategic perspective. facilitate a fair transition that maintains the products as a means of subsistence for livelihoods of those employed in animal humans, cheap fuel if you like, which The state and government agriculture, must have a strong buy-in allows humans in turn to reproduce from the public and not alienate groups themselves and contribute labour to the At the level of government there are a of people or heighten existing forms of production of capitalism. Here our food number of ways to think about change. inequality. system captures the energies of animals, Perhaps the most obvious role for the state is as regulatory power over which in turn provides us humans the Institutional change energy which we in turn feed into work production and consumption. If what we under capitalism – not only in the form of are imagining is a form of “just transition” Perhaps some of the solutions are closer wage work but other labour including care – that is, a planned transformation of to home and relate to the institutions work. an existing high carbon emitting form of and structures we inhabit everyday – that food production towards forms of work is sites of work, education, sport and Indeed if we treat food as another energy and production that are more sustainable family. These solutions act at the level of source of capitalism – that is, as the and can provide meaningful employment everyday culture. Here I am thinking in means of subsistence for all of us that – then perhaps the state has a distinct particular of the work of my colleague contribute productivity to the economic role. Perhaps here shared thinking on Professor Daniele Celermajer, and her system – then this gives us a different way transforming animal agriculture through work on systems and institution change in to look at animal agriculture. We can see an Australian “green new deal” or similar the context of human rights. She suggests that we simply face another sustainability have some merit. Note also that such we take an “ecological” approach to problem in relation to human energy transformation might also partially meet change, acknowledging that we must work supplies. the demands of animal advocates – with institutions and cultures to change either by promoting high welfare animal not only everyday practices but how The reason I think this is a useful approach agriculture, or even, perhaps, agreeing individuals are formed; Celermajer states is that it allows us to gain a more complex that some forms of animal agriculture that “one has to curate the conditions and comprehensive picture of the way should simply not continue on the basis of under which those subjects emerge.” in which animals are implicated within the harms delivered to the environment our global economies. And thus the use Here, instead of using the blunt stick of and to animals. of animals for food has become tied the law to change behaviours, we could intimately to questions of human survival But I should note there are significant instead shape everyday practices and and the future of human productivity. tactical problems before us in relation institutions in such a way to make it to how the state might be enlisted as an easy for individuals to collectively alter It for this reason that I don’t think we agent in the crisis that currently faces dietary practices, and change institutional can simply imagine that demanding that us. I am not telling anyone here anything procurement processes. people stop eating meat is the only, or new when I point out that, at least here in indeed is an adequate solution, to the At this very moment the University of Australia, the state has proved an obstacle complex problem we have before us. Sydney is developing its next sustainability rather than ally in meaningful responses to Instead we face a challenge of how to deal plan. A university’s sustainability plan is a climate change, and it feels unlikely that with economies and structures which have powerful opportunity for the institution we are going to see significant change in in turn shaped human cultures, practices to make a significant difference – not relation to government action anytime and preferences. It is not that individual only through purchasing and investment soon. decisions about diet are unimportant – it’s decisions, transport planning and waste that we need a program of action that We could also express suspicion about management – but also through creating deals with the problem of production with the capacity of the state to challenge an environment in which sustainability for as much zeal as we approach questions of the strong vested interests in industries individuals becomes normalised. Here, consumption. that warm our planet – this has certainly thinking about food practices seems shaped the politics of coal. There are also like an opportunity. Because thousands III: THE LEVERS OF CHANGE strong economic interests tied to animal of people congregate at this place, It is here that I would like to propose some agriculture, and these are often the elite maximisation of the availability of plant different ways to think about a politics interests of large companies and wealthy based foods on campus is one of the most

The University of Sydney 10 useful strategies available for reducing Importantly, this would subtly challenge emissions. everyday food practices – rather than assume that animal based foods were the There are I believe over 60,000 students norm, there is an opportunity for a meal and staff at the University of Sydney. on campus to reinforce a sustainability We can reasonably assume that tens of message – not only in relation to thousands of people pass through the greenhouse gas emissions, but also campus everyday – the University’s own importantly, an opportunity to reduce travel surveys indicate as much. I have not the violence we expose animals to in our seen data on how many meals are served intensive food systems. at the University of Sydney. But I have seen a study of a US campus which suggests However, while I think there is much that 1 in 5 students purchase a meal to be done on an everyday level within on campus at least 3 times per week – institutions to alter practices and perhaps this is replicated at this University, knowledges, we are not necessarily and would suggest a massive number of getting to the heart of the problems I have meals served everyday, particularly if we discussed in this lecture – the challenge include catered food for conferences of animal based food production and the and seminars. The implications of economic system which has contributed moving towards a greater proportion of to the current climate crisis we face. plant based foods on campus would be immense. A 2014 UK study suggests that Alliances, grassroots campaigning and producing a high meat diet creates 2.5 change from within times as many greenhouse gas emissions The story I have told you today, about than an equivalent calorie plant based the explosion in the production of animal diet. In other words, for every meal served based foods over the twentieth century on campus there is an opportunity for and beyond, the way this has restructured significant reduction in emissions through our food supplies, and the way this is university procurement. deeply connected to the logic of our Image by Tuan Nguyn, via Unsplash

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economies, tells us that moving away from working to identify the use of forced animal agriculture will not be easy since labour in the industry and campaign intensive animal agriculture has been, it for better wage conditions. Arguably would seem, welded on to our ways of life any attempt to raise the value of labour – it is integral to our economies, and seen within supply chains will have a dramatic as integral to our food supplies. This is a effect on the financial viability of the problem we have all inherited, and much global industry, adding pressure to slow like thinking about how we make our down the violence wrought by global energy supplies sustainable, we cannot wild capture fisheries. Supporting achieve change unless there is strong labour advocates will not only help to consensus. Change proposals must not apply upward pressure on wages and alienate and disadvantage in the name of impact the viability of fishing operations, progress, particularly those who work in but also build solidarity and exchange industries. between labour movements and animal advocates. This will build awareness of In other words, if we need to transform the conditions faced by animals, and our food systems, then those who work promote a conception of structural within in them must be collectively change between workers and animal involved and benefit from the process of advocates that includes consideration change. of non-human interests. Here there It is here that we need a very different is a powerful opportunity for labour kind of politics that is able to address movements, environmental groups and both the non-sustainability of current animal advocates to work together to industries, but simultaneously work address this industry. towards a more just economic system Slaughterhouse line speeds which is able to distribute resources more fairly and provide more control to One more example. Late last year the communities over economies. Trump administration announced changes to rules which would reduce the number Here we need new alliances, not of inspectors within US pig slaughter merely between animal advocates and plants, and remove a cap on line speeds environmentalists, but also with labour for inspection lines. The effect of these movements and communities who are changes would be to permit higher line trying to address working conditions and speeds and reduce requirements to deal with the inequalities presented by monitor from official inspectors. The our economic system. United Food and Commercial Workers Allow me to give you two examples of International Union has already attempted opportunities for such campaigning. to block the new rules, arguing that increased line speeds would lead to Wild capture fisheries higher injury rates for workers. Food At present, wild capture fisheries, inspectors have also warned of the risk of particularly in the Asia Pacific, represent unsafe meat making its way to consumers something of a social and environmental under the new regime. catastrophe. The growth of the global From my standpoint, line speeds within market for seafood has expanded wild slaughter plants is an environmental capture fisheries to their limit. Human justice issue. For our climate, the capacity labour conditions are shocking, with the to produce more meat more quickly is rampant use of low wage and forced at odds with the directions we should labour in supply chains. The cost to be heading towards, that is to reduce animals is immense – as I have suggested, the production of animal-based foods. estimates suggest that up to three trillion For workers, increased lines speeds fish are killed each year by wild capture mean higher rates of stress and injury. fisheries. Current evidence suggests that Remember as well, and certainly in the fishes experience pain and emotions in US context, workers within industrial ways similar to land animals; it is notable animal agriculture are frequently low paid that the bulk of wild fish capture utilises and there are many reports about the no basic welfare precautions, such as substantial involvement of undocumented stunning before slaughter. migrants in this production. For animals, Globally there are a number of increased line speeds means an increased environmental and labour rights groups number of animals killed every year, and

Sydney Environment Institute 12 “Crisis creates unique opportunities. It thrusts unlikely stakeholders together as allies, and establishes the groundwork for new ways of living together.”  — Dinesh Wadiwel

an increased demand to birth, contain and about how we transform our food system. the crisis has created new opportunities utilise animals for food supplies. for change. The old debate between Further, as I have discussed, animal environmentalists and animal rights folk Here again there is a unique opportunity agriculture in Australia is interconnected now seems to lack the relevance it once for environmentalists, unions and animal with a history of indigenous dispossession had. Instead we are all being called to advocates to work together. And simply and the colonisation of food systems. This address a shared problem before us, and telling consumers to eat less meat will means that our food system has evolved presented with an opportunity for a more not solve this problem – instead we need directly from our settler colonial legacy. just outcome for humans, animals and a grass roots campaign to transform our From this standpoint in Australia, any environment. food supplies. conversation on how we change our food systems must happen in dialogue with First In all of this, I do not want to suggest that I have picked two examples that are at a peoples and their movements towards the individual decisions we might make in distance from Australia – that is industrial self-determination and food sovereignty. relation this crisis are unimportant. On the fishing in the Asia Pacific and line speeds contrary our personal ethics, our capacity in hog production in the US – however the IV: THE OPPORTUNITIES OF CRISIS to reflect on what is happening around lessons are useful for how we think about I think it is fair to say that we are in a us and alter our lifestyles to adapt to our strategies in an Australian context. period of crisis. Significant change in current circumstances, seems self-evident Over the last decade, labour conditions in how we do things, how we live and what as a responsibility within these times. Australia’s food industry have continually we value is likely to occur within our However, we need to do more to address been in the spotlight, with unions such as lifetimes. But crisis I believe creates the current crisis. With respect the the Australian Workers Union highlighting unique opportunities. It thrusts unlikely animal agriculture, swinging the pendulum systematic exploitation, often of short stakeholders together as allies, and towards the problem of production means term migrants. As a whole Australia’s establishes the groundwork for new ways opening the conversation about how meat industry has comparatively strong of living together. our food system must be transformed unionisation, however there are areas As an animal advocate, I believe we and how we should work with those such as chicken production, where there are facing a time of extraordinary within it to achieve something fairer are now numerous reported cases of contradiction, but also amazing and more sustainable. I believe we labour rights abuses. Once we recognise opportunity. On one hand, within our food have the opportunity now to make this animal agriculture as an environmental systems, animals are used on a scale that transformation happen; our success will justice issue, and recognise that this is cannot compare to any time in human depend on the quality of alliances we can a problem we all share, then there is history, and the impacts of this food build, our commitment to democracy and scope for variety of interests – unions, system on our planet, including billions inclusion, and our ability to articulate a environmentalists, animal advocates, of wild animals, is devastating. However, community groups – to be in conversation vision for a fairer society. ­­­—

The University of Sydney 13 SEI Longform Series_

Iain McCalman, Sydney Environment Institute Co-Founder and former Co- Director, Dr Dinesh Wadiwel, Research affiliate of Sydney Environment Institute, and David Schlosberg, Director of the Sydney Environment Institute

Sydney Environment Institute 14