so cop 26 finished recently and the
overarching feeling was one of
disappointment a two-week long
celebration of business as usual and
blah blah blah
yet whilst cop 26 involved discussions
about many of the most pressing
environmental issues that we currently
face one industry's involvement in the
climate crisis was astonishingly
overlooked animal agriculture in fact
animal agriculture is such a damaging
industry that the united nations
themselves have stated that the
livestock sector emerges as one of the
top two or three most significant
contributors to the most serious
environmental problems at every scale
from local to global but even though
this is the case at the same time that
the us the eu and other countries around
the world were signing a pledge at cop26
to reduce methane emissions by 30
by the year 2030 the us secretary of
agriculture tom vilsack was telling the
press that the u.s does not have to
reduce the amount of meat or livestock
produced to tackle the climate crisis
but perhaps this isn't so surprising
considering that tom vilsack has
previously been the president and chief
executive of the u.s dairy export
council and is a farmland owner who has
even benefited from some of the
legislation he has introduced since
being the secretary of agriculture
such as expanding a government subsidy
program that he financially benefits
from and as we come to the end of
another year plagued with climate
disasters such as floods and wildfires
the failings of cop26 to even
acknowledge in a serious and meaningful
manner one of the biggest drivers of the
climate crisis is yet another indictment
of how these industries and our elected
officials are happy to jeopardize the
future of our planet for some short-term
political and financial gains however
throughout 2021 there have been some
examples of a shift towards
acknowledging the ethical implications
of animal farming
in november of this year the uk
government officially declared that
lobsters crabs and shrimp are indeed
sentient which they defined as the
capacity to have feelings such as
feelings of pain pleasure hunger first
warmth joy comfort and excitement this
follows on from them making a similar
declaration about animals such as
octopuses and squids a week earlier this
declaration came about due to a review
of over 300 studies
however
the bill itself is only intended to
guide future policies meaning it will
not affect existing legislation or
industry practices like fishing it will
also not interfere with the shellfish
catching or restaurant industries either
unfortunately the only difference
currently for those lobsters and crabs
alive in tanks about to be boiled alive
is that we now know and can't ignore
that they are indeed suffering when we
boil them alive
in another example back in january it
was announced that germany was going to
ban the culling of male chicks in the
egg industry by the end of 2022 making
it the first country to do so the
culling of male chicks is a global
standard practice in the egg industry
because male chicks are useless to the
egg industry as they don't lay eggs and
because they have not been selectively
bred in the same way as the chickens we
raise for meat they are also useless to
the meat industry as they won't grow to
be as large as the chickens we farm for
their flesh but in germany instead of
culling the male chicks the proposed
plan is to determine the sex of the
chick inside the egg before they are
hatched and destroy the eggs containing
the male chicks and then on top of this
during the summer the european
parliament voted in favour of a
resolution to ban cages for farmed
animals however whilst the ban on the
culling of male chicks is undoubtedly a
good thing it doesn't mean the egg
production will become humane
unfortunately for the lane hens nothing
will change about the suffering they are
forced to injure and when it comes to
the banning of cages well battery cages
for egg lane hens were banned in 2012 in
the eu
and in their place enriched cages were
introduced this meant that the space per
bird was increased by 36 percent
but what this means in reality is that
instead of having an area of space
equivalent to a little under an a4 piece
of paper the hens now have an area of
space equivalent to just a little over
an a4 piece of paper not to mention that
within the resolution there are several
caveats such as it should be recognized
that in some cases some forms of cages
for housing bring more animal
welfare-related benefits than negative
effects for the animals concerned
in other words cages can still be used
if it is believed they are more
beneficial for the animal's welfare
which as well as being literally the
argument that farmers who keep animals
in cages used to begin with also begs
the questions who gets to interpret what
this vague cause means and if we really
are interested in the animals concerned
wouldn't not exploiting them at all
bring the most animal welfare related
benefits
whilst these events in 2021 fall
frustratingly short of actually
producing any real tangible benefit for
animals they do point to something very
important a growing awareness about the
suffering of animals if we take the
resolution on banning cages that came
from an initiative that was signed by
over 1.4 million people in the eu on top
of this the january had a
record-breaking year with more sign ups
than ever and data from this year showed
the brits slashed their meat consumption
by 17
within the past decade alone when we
take a look at food innovation the usda
made its first investment into cell
cultured meat and 3d printed meat has
begun to be introduced to consumers with
celebrity chef and restaurateur marco
pierre white stating that he was mind
blown by redefine meat's 3d printed
steak and is now going to sell it across
his uk restaurants it's the most clever
thing i've ever seen
in my 45 years of being in a kitchen
while these are small steps the
innovation behind them has the potential
to create a significant shift so even
though 2021 has been challenging and
frustrating for many reasons the
continuing growing awareness around the
suffering of animals and the increasing
innovation in the plant-based food space
is gradually eroding the animal farming
industries little by little
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