
''Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat'' is a 2014 non-fiction book by
Philip Lymbery and
Isabel Oakeshott
Isabel Oakeshott (born 12 June 1974) is a British political journalist.
Oakeshott was the political editor of ''The Sunday Times'' and is the co-author, with Michael Ashcroft, of an unauthorised biography of former British prime minister Dav ...
. It surveys the effects of
industrial livestock production and industrial
fish farming
Fish farming or pisciculture involves commercial breeding of fish, most often for food, in fish tanks or artificial enclosures such as fish ponds. It is a particular type of aquaculture, which is the controlled cultivation and harvesting of ...
around the world. The book is the result of Lymbery's investigations for which he travelled the world over three years. Isabel Oakeshott is the political editor of ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'', Lymbery is CEO of
Compassion in World Farming. The book was published by
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
.
Synopsis
The thesis examined in the book is that globalised production chains of industrialised agricultural systems negatively affect farmed animals, human health, the countryside, rivers and oceans, biodiversity in rainforests and many of the world's poorest people. The authors seek to shed light on the conditions in
intensive agriculture which, according to them, often differ from the image that the industry wants to sell to the public. Intensification in animal farming goes along with a growing demand of cropland to grow animal feed – factory farming is thus not a means to save space.
[Farmageddon by Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott, review]
Tom Fort, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 10 February 2014 They argue consequently that to feed the world population factory farming is not the solution but a threat, not least since more than a third of the world's
arable harvests are being used to supply farmed animals.
[Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat by Philip Lymbery – review]
Tristram Stuart, ''The Guardian'', 31 January 2014 According to the book the consumer price of
cheap meat does not include the overall costs of industrial
meat production.
The reader follows Lymbery's journey from his start in California's
Central Valley. There he finds
dairies
A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...
where 10,000 cows can be milked at once. He travels to enormous piggeries in China and visits the
fishmeal industry of Peru, which converts millions of tonnes of
anchovies
An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water.
More than 140 species are placed in 1 ...
to fishmeal for supplying the livestock industry with feed. In Taiwan he visits a farm (labelled "
organic") where 300,000 laying hens are being starved and held in batteries. A visit is paid to the
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...
in Virginia, US where he finds the
marine ecosystem
Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in Saline water, waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 7 ...
impacted by waste from the
poultry industry. The author talks to a community in Mexico in an area dominated by pig sheds. There he documents a lake of effluent and air and
water pollution
Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of Body of water, water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and ...
, and discusses the outbreak of
swine flu.
[
One chapter of ''Farmageddon'' is dedicated to the question "What happened to the vet?" Lymbery says that veterinarians work in an industry with an "inbuilt flaw". He states that veterinarians often comply with the industrialization of animals, for example in the prophylactic use of antibiotics which are applied in the ]mass production
Mass production, also known as mass production, series production, series manufacture, or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines ...
of animals, eggs and milk instead of demanding a different (pasture-based) agricultural system. According to Lymbery, veterinarians should not support systems that are "inherently bad for animal welfare", which allegedly is the case in "mass production of broiler chickens, caged production of eggs, the large-scale permanent housing of dairy cows (so-called mega dairies) and highly intensive pig production where mothering pigs are kept in confinement where they can't turn around for weeks at a time"."Have vets really sold out to industrial agri-business?"
Lucy Siegle, ''The Guardian'', 19 January 2014
In order to prevent ''Farmageddon'' the authors come up with suggestions for consumers, policy makers and farmers: Consumers should eat less meat. Fish should be fed to people rather than converted into fishmeal. Animals should be fed with grass and animal farming should be a pasture-based system. These changes would save resources by reducing the competition of humans and animals for food and land.
[
]
Table of contents
The book is divided into the following sections:
*I Rude Awakenings (chapters 1-2)
*II Nature (chapters 3-6)
*III Health (chapters 7-8)
*IV Muck (chapters 9-10)
*V Shrinking Planet (chapters 11-13)
*VI Tomorrow's Menu (chapters 14-19)
The following is a list of chapter titles:
# California Girls: a vision of the future?
# Henpecked: the truth behind the label
# Silent Spring: the birth of farming's chemical age
# Wildlife: the great disappearing act
# Fish: farming takes to the water
# Animal Care: what happened to the vet?
# Bugs 'n' drugs: the threat to public health
# Expanding Waistlines: food quality takes a nose-dive
# Happy as a Pig: tales of pollution
# Southern Discomfort: the rise of the industrial chicken
# Land: how factory farms use more, not less
# Thicker than Water: draining rivers, lakes and oil wells
# Hundred-dollar Hamburger: the illusion of cheap food
# GM: feeding people or factory farms?
# China: Mao's mega-farm dream comes true
# Kings, Commoners and Supermarkets: where the power lies
# New Ingredients: rethinking our food
# The Solution: how to avert the coming food crisis
# Consumer Power: what you can do
Reception
Tristram Stuart wrote in a review for ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' that although he is critical towards the "orthodoxy that large-scale farms and industrial agricultural technology are inherently wrong", "this catalogue of devastation will convince anyone who doubts that industrial farming is causing ecological meltdown".[
]
See also
*We are fed up
We are fed up! () is the theme of a series of demonstrations in Germany against industrial livestock production and for more sustainable farming. The biggest demonstrations take place every year in Berlin since 2011 and attract up to 30,000 peopl ...
References
{{Portal bar, Food, Books, Society
2014 non-fiction books
2014 in the environment
Bloomsbury Publishing books
Agriculture books
Ethically disputed business practices towards animals
Environmental non-fiction books
Intensive farming
Works about the meat industry