The last year has been one of unprecedented interest in the moral and ethical aspects of farming.
The events of the BSE crisis are perhaps the clearest example, but by the end of the year questions surrounding genetically-modified crops were also under scrutiny. We should not be too narrow in defining the true range of ethical issues and remember that each era tends to focus on its own set of priorities.
If we were in the mid to late 1980s, many would point to huge food surpluses in Europe as evidence of the Common Agricultural Policy being unethical. Now that surpluses are not the issue of the day, it is safe for the morally-outraged to turn their attention to the next campaign. In recent years, there has also been an underlying view that farmers should be as efficient as possible in order to lessen their reliance on subsidy. Today, few people would actively support farming subsidies, but the focus has shifted, temporarily, from how much money farmers receive to whether they can be trusted with modern technology.
Those who may previously have emphasised the obligation to maximise efficiency, are now considering whether a farmer pushing yields and animal production systems to the limit is also providing the type of environment that everyone demands. Much of our landscape is a feature of how farming has been controlled and sustained down the generations, not of a reliance on laissez faire economics.
Livestock industry
There are plenty of topics in crop production to fuel a discussion on the ethics of modern farming, and the European Commission's decision to allow the marketing of genetically-modified (GM) maize appears one of the more interesting at the moment. There is no space here to consider adequately the issues behind genetic engineering, but we must keep in mind the a principal reason for doing so is to reduce chemical inputs such as pesticides - generally seen as a good thing. The term 'genetic engineering' has a very negative connotation and therefore sets alarm bells ringing, so i6t is interesting that GM maize combines the attractive prospect of reducing pesticides with the alarming concept of introducing a new gene into the food chain with unknown consequences.
Such is the dilemma of interfering with nature, and predictably there are divisions between the scientists on how best to respond. Since the jury is still out, we are left needing to weigh up the merits of reducing chemical inputs in farming against the risks of introducing a scientific process whose long-term consequences we do not fully understand. Beyond this, we must also look at whether different processing techniques can reduce the risk to an acceptable level and whether legislation governing the growing, processing and marketing of such crops encapsulates the best knowledge we have.
These principles are just as relevant in the livestock sector, an area where ethical and emotional issues are often more high profile than in crop productions. For much of 1996, BSE was rarely out of the headlines, but in 1995 the welfare of animals and live exports was featured at length. When these have been exhausted, the use of growth promoters and hormones can be debated, or features of the intensive production systems which produce so much of the cheap meat consumers choose.
Nobody can say we are short of issues to confront and I believe that Christians not only have a duty to recognise such things, but also to tackle them in a way which is intellectually thorough, acknowledging the complex factors that are at work in agriculture. The general reaction to BSE was, perhaps understandably, that the feeding of animal remains to animals was an outrage, that the Government lurched from crisis to crisis with scant regard for consumers' concerns and that the sooner all beef producers, if not all farmers, go organic the better. The real process of apportioning criticism for what went wrong and rebuilding the beef industry in a way that satisfies both consumers and producers is not for the faint-hearted; neither is it for subscribers to single issue politics.
Recycling mistake
The recycling of ruminant proteins back into ruminant feeds seems to us now to have been such a clear-cut mistake that many are at a loss to explain how such a disaster was not checked earlier on. Science alone goes a long way to warn us that the risk of disease through cannibalism is an ever-present danger and, irrespective of someone's religious beliefs, there is unanimous agreement that, ethically, this practice was completely unacceptable.
Having agreed on the problem, the difficult task begins of reversing a series of practices which have been with us since the Second World War. Although the problems of bad practice in animal feed processing were identified in the mid-1980s, the first steps towards this situation began with the industry making maximum use of science to boost efficiency. In the 1940s and 1950s there were greater ethical dilemmas about having food shortages than there were about livestock rearing systems, and no-one questioned whether science might eventually contribute to such a devastating combination of manufacturing processes.
I believe there is a clear challenge here for us to examine modern technology as carefully as we can from an ethical standpoint, but it would be misleading to assume that through this we can enjoy scientific developments in a trouble-free environment. What we must be clear on though is that, having recognised a problem, our view on the ethical approach prevails and we commit ourselves to doing something about it.
Incompetent Government
It is common for farmers to see themselves as the innocent victims of the BSE crisis, because they bought contaminated animal feed in 'good faith' and felt obliged to be as commercially-minded as the next man. However, I suspect that many farmers are regretting now how much trust they placed in the commercial and scientific wisdom of the day, without pausing long enough to question whether this squared with their knowledge of animal health and husbandry.
When it comes to describing the Government's role, the word incompetence springs to mind more readily than unethical, not least because both farmers and consumers consider they have been let down. There are dangers in stretching a debate on ethics to the realms of party politics, since you quickly move away from the judgement of individuals to the collective decision of a faceless group of people with power. Agriculture is no exception and ethical issues are better looked at from the point of view of how individuals have responded to what they know to be right or wrong.
Pressure groups
However, if the relationship between political parties and ethics is complex, the connection between pressure groups and ethics is easier. The third common statement, about the need for organic agriculture, is linked partly with the rise of pressure groups, in that it is an example of an over-simplistic solution. People join a pressure group because they want to seize the moral high ground in a particular issue and bring about changes in legislation or practice.
Nothing wrong with that, you may say, and I would agree, but there are dangers in such a narrow approach, and Christians are also susceptible to embracing the bold statements of pressure groups without making their own thorough analysis of the issues.
One group is well-known for exposing the cruelty they believe is widespread in agriculture by using the term 'factory farming'. It would be difficult to dream up a nastier description, with all the images this creates of pollution and animals being force-fed. The dramatic effect intensifies when you realise that this has become a universal term for any form of modern agriculture and not just battery hens and broilers, where there may be reason to question whether the cheap chicken everyone demands can fully justify the production conditions.
Closely allied with the campaign against factory farming is the concept of animal rights and the view that animals should be accorded the same mental and emotional qualities as human beings. At this point, Christians should beware of endorsing the appealing slogans for chickens to break free of the battery cage until they have considered the wider philosophy of those involved. The idea that animals are of equal status to human beings and experience the same emotions and sensations quickly leads on to the argument that everyone should be vegetarian because it is ethically unacceptable to kill an animal for food.
There are two problems with using the approach of the pressure group to progress a debate of farming practices.
Over-simplifying
Firstly, it lends itself to prescribing simplistic solutions, because people believe that all current practice must be swept away and replaced with what sounds nice to those not actually doing the job. Insisting that all beef producers go organic is naive, because it implies that anyone who does not is producing unsafe food and inflicting cruelty on animals.
Moreover, the proponents of happy animals in lush, green fields where the sun always shines and disease is all a bad dream, often overlook the fact that nature is not 'kind' in the way we like to think, and science can play a part in reducing suffering as well as raising moral dilemmas about far the natural order should be manipulated for our benefit.
Technicalities
Secondly, we are apt to miss specific issues which should be changed, because we have not understood the technicalities involved. Last year, the export of live animals was the main issue hitting the headlines and, in my view, there are aspects of this trade which are distasteful. The temptation, however, is to go for the feel-good factor and declare that all such practices should be banned, whereas a more thorough analysis may lead you to the conclusion that the principles of trade are not ethically wrong, but that the infliction of cruelty through inappropriate transport conditions must be addressed.
Drawing these themes together, it is clear that ethics has a central role in agriculture; partly because a wrong view of what is ethical may have implications for food safety, and also because we are responsible for the preservation of God's creation not its exploitation. There are any number of topical agricultural issues where ethics are central to sound policy judgements, but Christians should not assume that the best-sounding slogans are the fastest route to the farming ideal. It is easy to express outrage over practices which, with hindsight, have led us into disaster, but it takes much more than this to apply ethical principles in a way which is economically sound and respects the natural world in which God has placed us.
Kate works for farmers in the livestock industry.
Ms Kate Trotman
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