My blog post requires us to accept that animals are in fact treated inhumanely (and one could even say unlawfully, although technically the American justice system does not acknowledge such) in factory farms, and that American factory farms are, in general, detrimental to animals, humans and the environment. Although this seems obvious after the portion of Singer and Mason’s book we have read so far, I mention my presupposition in case some people are still resistant to fully agreeing with these findings.

The main problems, then, are how to alter an entire country’s diet so that less meat is eaten, and how to alter the production of meat so that it is less damaging to the environment, animals and humans. These two dilemmas are interrelated – consumer demand drives the factory farms’ desire for increased productivity.

As Singer and Mason have repeatedly acknowledged, increased productivity usually leads towards increasingly unsafe measures within factory farms. Factory farms avoid allowing the animals “amenities” (for instance, shade in 90 degree weather, euthanizing downed animals, anesthetic before painful operations, more effective stunning before being killed) in order to preserve themselves against competing factory farms. In this way, quantity of the meat consumed (and I suppose also quality of the meat’s taste – consider the purpose of malnourishment for making “tasty” veal) is more important than the quality (ethical treatment of animals, proper disposal of waste) of factory farms.

In order to change this, consumers must demand for better quality of factory farms, even if this does mean an increase in food prices and a lesser abundance of meat. Singer and mason realized that “the system seems to recognize animal suffering only when it interferes with profitability” (54). Pressuring for better life conditions for animals with factory farms, society could make it such that profitability of a company’s animal products depends upon their just treatment of animals. We need to ask ourselves why this demand is not more prevalent in society. One reply may be that consumers are not informed about the effects of factory farming. This is indeed extremely true. Singer and Mason acknowledge that factory farms are “invisible to the public” (47). It was at this point they compared factory farming cruelty to zoo cruelty. While I agree that “public disapproval helped persuade” zoos to rectify these cruelties, I think there are some fundamental differences between zoo cruelty and factory farm cruelty which will hinder the efforts to rectify factory farm cruelties. People go to zoos to look at animals. A pleasant zoo experience involves people enjoying what they are seeing, and most people do not enjoy looking at beings suffer. It seems obvious that people would complain and express public disapproval, because they are not reaping enjoyment from the animals’ suffering. On the other hand, a pleasant meat-eating experience is gustatory in nature, during which people enjoy the meat they are consuming. The animal cruelty and environmental detriment necessary to create meat does not affect the tastiness of the meat. Should someone be informed about factory farms and upset enough to consider the experience of eating meat ruined, I should hope that they become vegetarian! But the majority of meat eaters either is fully informed as to the nature of factory farms and just does not care, or chooses to make animals invisible so that guilt will not affect the enjoyment of a tasty meaty meal.

Overall, I am still left wondering what will inspire the masses to act against factory farms. Despite some opinions to the contrary from others in class, however, I do think that it is possible to create great strides for better conditions of factory farms. Extreme measures are not necessary for this to happen (ie. that everyone must become a vegetarian), but as Spira noted, “If McDonalds moves a millimeter, everyone else will move with them” (70). Perhaps Halverson is right, and not much will be gained by making minor improvements in a “fundamentally bad system” (72), but given the present state of America’s dependence on factory farms, I think this is our only option.