Source: Troubled slaughter: Big Ag fights to keep out prying eyes (Susie Cagle).
Covid-19 is capable of exposing the flaws and highlighting existing weaknesses in our global economy. It has not been a coincidence that meatpacking and slaughterhouses have been some of the largest breakout areas of the virus in Canada and the United States. Workers at these plants are vulnerable communities 87% of these cases affected racial or ethnic minorities according to the CDC. Pew Research Center estimates 27% of all food processing workers in the US are undocumented, forced to work in unsanitary conditions that make it impossible to contain a virus. Workers, therefore, have little recourse to expose the conditions that they work in as their ability to survive depends on their continued employment. It is an intersecting issue of supply chain management and the rights of underprivileged communities and workers. Working to enable people to speak out on these could shift consumer habits and in turn benefit our environment.
Conservatively, the FAO estimates that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for animal agriculture represent 14.5% of all human-induced emissions disproportionately beef and dairy products are some of the highest emitting products. While rates of beef and dairy consumption are stagnating in Canada and the US the average American and Canadian still consume upwards of ten times the amount relative to someone in a developing country. Contributing significantly more GHG in nations where many have access to more sustainable alternatives. This is obviously an example of climate justice and bears questions on current western consumption habits. Some have argued for a range of different policies to further reduce GHG emissions of this industry in developed countries from shifting current subsidies towards alternatives to de-incentivize macro-consumer trends through taxation.
Part of the difficulty in starting these conversations is that they are deeply unpopular. industrial farms and slaughterhouses conceal what happens on their property. As mentioned before workers’ rights are often lacking. Undercover reporting, investigations, and whistleblowing are all of the key ways we find out what is going on in these places and if conducted properly they can shift some consumption habits. Animal and environmental advocacy groups often try to destabilize these industries by documenting the inherent cruelty present in the current treatment of animals along with environmental data. We have seen these reports shift consumer behavior recently, for example with the exposure of Fairlife Dairy’s mistreatment of calves. Fairlife products were then taken down from store shelves across the country.
Even the origin of modern meatpacking laws and protection in the United States is based on environmental whistleblowing. Over one hundred years ago Upton Saintclair wrote The Jungle documenting the abuse immigrants faced and the horrible packaging plant conditions in Chicago, while eerily similar to modern working conditions, it did lead to some government oversight. There are plenty of other examples of similar reports and videos and they cause similar public reactions, undercover journalism thus has the power to shift the dialogue and reframe what we consider normal. Part of this is that we must enable people to show what their work conditions are like and to make public an industry that largely hides from view. If part of the solution is transitioning to more sustainable sources of protein, then part of the conversation should be destabilizing what we see as normal, agricultural whistleblowing is needed.
This is why it is a shame that both Ontario and Alberta in Canada have passed so-called Animal agriculture gag laws (ag-gag for short). They are presented as ways to protect farmers and meat processing plants from trespassers. What they do in practice, however, is make it impossible to conduct independent investigations on regulations and standards of animal welfare and make it difficult for workers to expose the conditions they are forced to work in without considerable personal risk. Legal avenues like this silence dissent and enable animals to be treated as commodities and continues a public discourse that sees modern animal agriculture as necessary. In destabilizing western ideas of production and commodity arguably we could impact the total GHG emissions emitted by this large industry. If starting to do so in western countries like Canada we can shift global narratives of animal production and commodification.
Specifically in Ontario bill 156 prevents workers from getting a job under false pretenses effectively preventing all journalists from working and reporting on these places. It also allows them to fine 15-25 thousand dollars to any activists found in these locations. Any form of film or documentation on these premises is effectively prohibited. Even providing animals with water while being shipped to slaughterhouses is effectively prohibited. The language is arguably vague and little is done to define ideas like false pretenses (getting a job for any other reasons than seeking employment) so the application could have a wide range of consequences. It is meant to intimidate and suppress information.
It would be naive to suggest that the constant filming of meatpacking, industrial farms, and slaughterhouses would completely shift our food supply chain. However, the inability to document and film makes gathering information difficult. It is imperative to work hard to strike down these laws for the numerous injustices and groups they take advantage of. More needs to be done to protect the vulnerable groups who work in and out of these areas to enable them to speak out on what they see. Furthering our protection of migrant and undocumented migrants will also improve the transparency of these locations and hopefully, this is all done before another pandemic. This will not fix embedded institutional practices that cause harm to animals but it will allow a level of transparency that can begin the public discourse on workers’ rights, public health and allow for new options for our current climate.
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