Abstract
Alternative food networks (AFNs) have become increasingly important in response to growing concerns about industrial animal agriculture’s harmful impacts on animals. Alternative animal agriculture seeks to address problems with industrial animal agriculture given its purported emphases on animal welfare and, more controversially, “happy” meat. Debates in critical food studies and animal studies literature, however, caution against the glorification of “alterity” and how welfare claims provide an ethical façade for violence towards farm animals. These debates, while critically important, leave little room for exploring the complexities of alternative animal agriculture, human-farm animal relations, and care. In this article, I build upon the insights of critical food studies scholarship that takes a reflexive and hybrid approach to studying AFNs and literature that explores the complex dynamics of human-farm animal relations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with grass-fed beef farmers in Ontario, Canada, I present an analysis aimed at unsettling divisive thinking about food practices and relations. First, I reflect on how farmers understand their work as an ethical alternative to industrial beef production, benefiting animals, people, and the environment. I then detail the emotional dynamics that shape cows’ commodification and relations with farmers, adding to scholarship that demands more attention to affective dimensions of care for animals in AFNs. Lastly, I discuss grass-fed beef farming challenges and contradictions, empirically exploring, for example, how grass-fed beef farming operates as a niche market whose accessibility is shaped by socio-economic privilege. Collectively, these insights contribute to discussions about the complexities of grass-fed beef farming as an alternative food network with benefits and problems, impacting the wellbeing of animals, people, and the environment.
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Notes
Current scholarship on grass-fed beef farming in North America concentrates primarily on US rather than Canadian beef production, further justifying a need for research on grass-fed beef farming in/within Canada.
Most farmers I spoke with were not grass-fed certified; many discussed accreditation programs as expensive and unnecessary given farmers’ transparency and direct-to-consumer selling practices.
Most farmers with larger pasture and herd sizes had mixed animal operations.
Most grass-fed beef farmers I interviewed were unfamiliar with the term “alternative food network.” However, they explained in our conversations how and why they felt grass-fed beef farming is an alternative to mainstream/industrial beef farming.
Farmers I interviewed charge, on average, between 8 and 11 dollars (per lb) for ground, grass-fed beef.
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I would like to thank the research participants for their generous insights, transparency, and time, and anonymous reviewers for their assistance with strengthening this discussion.
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MacKay, C. Grass-Fed Beef, Alterity, and Care: Complicating food Binaries, Relations, and Practices. J Agric Environ Ethics 36, 10 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-023-09906-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-023-09906-w