Political Ecologies of Meat

2015

This book chapter focuses on some of the implications of what has been represented as a radical change in livestock breeding for thinking about meat in relation to living farm animals: the use of genetic techniques in selecting breeding animals. The chapter draws on Foucault’s theorisation of biopower to describe some of the key dimensions of this shift, articulating this concept with an argument that breeders’ engagement with these techniques is part of a changing political ecology of livestock farming at the inter-related scales of the gene, the body, the herd or flock, the farm and the meat production system

Journal of Rural Studies, 2014

Cattle and sheep breeders in the UK and elsewhere are increasingly being encouraged to use a variety of genetic technologies to help them make breeding decisions. The technology of particular interest here is 'classical' statistical genetics, which use a series of measurements taken from animals' bodies to provide an estimate of their 'genetic merit' known as Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs). Drawing on empirical research with the representatives of national cattle breed societies and individual cattle breeders the paper explores the complex ways in which they are engaging with genetic breeding technologies. The concept of 'heterogeneous biosocial collectivity' is mobilised to inform an understanding of processes of co-construction of breeding technologies, livestock animals and humans. The paper presents case studies of livestock breeding collectivities at different scales, arguing that the ways in which the 'life' of livestock animals is problematised is specific to different scales, and varies too between different collectivities at the same scale. This conceptualisation problematises earlier models of innovation-adoption that view farmers as either 'adopters' or 'non-adopters' of technologies and in which individual attitudes alone are seen as determining the decision to adopt or not adopt. Instead, the paper emphasises the particularity and specificity of coconstruction, and that the co-construction of collectivities and technologies is always in process.

Life Sciences, Society and Policy, 2007

This paper explores the analytical relevance of Foucault's notion of biopower in the context of regulating and managing non-human lives and populations, specifically those animals that are the focus of livestock breeding based on genetic techniques. The concept of biopower is seen as offering theoretical possibilities precisely because it is concerned with the regulation of life and of populations. The paper approaches the task of testing the 'analytic mettle' of biopower through an analysis of four policy documents concerned with farm animal genetics: the UK's National Scrapie Plan (2003); the UK National Action Plan on Farm Animal Genetic Resources (2006); the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Committee's report on Animals and Biotechnology (2002); and the Farm Animal Welfare Council's report on the Welfare Implications of Animal Breeding and Breeding Technologies in Commercial Agriculture (2004). Of interest is whether and how the four policy case studies articulate a form of biopower in relation to human-livestock animal relations in the context of genetic approaches to livestock breeding, and how biopower is variably expressed in relation to the different policy issues addressed. In concluding, the paper considers the overall applicability and relevance of biopower in the context of regulating animal lives within livestock breeding, highlighting both possibilities and limitations, and offers suggestions for taking forward research on livestock populations from a neo-Foucaultian perspective.

Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 2023

Background: The environmental and social impacts of cultured meat, and its economic viability, are contingent on its implications for food production and for agriculture. However, the implications of cultured meat production for farmers have not yet been thoroughly investigated and are poorly understood. The aim of this research was to engage with the farming sector in critically assessing cultured meat as a technology which could profoundly affect future farm livelihoods, land use, rural and farming communities and agricultural value chains. Ensuring farmers’ voices, and potential ‘counter-narratives’ inform the development of cultured meat is not only inclusive, but could identify unexpected impacts of this emerging technology and contribute to the framing of the social license of the industry developing them. Methods: Six focus groups were undertaken with 75 UK farmers from a variety of farming sectors and regions. Questions focused on what the term ‘cultured meat’ means to farmers, the potential impacts of cultured meat, and potential business scenarios arising for farmers. All meetings were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. Results and discussion: Farmers expressed complex and considered reflections on cultured meat, raising several perceived opportunities and risks associated with the themes of ‘ethics and affective’ narratives, ‘environment-based’ narratives, and ‘socio-economic’ narratives. Aspects of foci of power, food system control and transparency associated with cultured meat emerged from the conversations, as well as cultured meat’s potential impacts on the environment and on jobs, farming/rural communities and connecting with the land. Conclusion: Globally, meat production underpins the livelihoods of many rural communities, so a transition to cultured meat is likely to have deep-seated ethical, environmental, and socio-economic impacts. Within the discourse on cultured meat the voices of farmers are often lost. While not claiming to be representative of all UK farming, this study engaged UK farmer perspectives as a way of starting the substantive process of greater stakeholder inclusion in cultured meat innovation pathways, and which should underpin responsible technology transitions in agriculture.

2024

This report explores what UK farmers think about cultured meat and how the technology could affect them in practice. It summarises a two-year interdisciplinary study, analysing social media, discussing the technology with groups of farmers, working with diverse farm businesses across the UK, and modelling novel approaches to cultured meat production based on agricultural by-products. Our team and partners included natural and social scientists, farming representatives, cultured meat businesses, NGOs and policy makers.

Animals, 2013

The global rise in demand for animal products for human consumption may well have an increasingly significant impact upon the natural environment, human health and the lives of farmed animals. This paper reviews some of the evidence for that impact and the future trajectories for livestock farming that it may well entail.

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2009

Genetic techniques have become increasingly prevalent in livestock breeding, associated with new types of knowledge-practice and changes in the institutional and geographical relationships related to animal husbandry. This paper examines the value of Foucault's concept of 'biopower' to theorising livestock breeding and the implications of the rise of genetic knowledge-practices in agriculture, developing the concept to apply to nonhuman animals and to situations where humans and nonhuman animals are co-constituted through particular knowledge-practices and corporeal meetings. It focuses on the idea of 'population' as a central component of biopower, and relates this to conceptualisations of biosocial collectivity. Reacting to the inherent humanism of Foucault's outlining of biopower, the paper argues for its relevance in relation to nonhuman populations, and for heterogeneous conceptualisations of biosocial collectivity. Drawing on research with UK beef cattle and sheep breed societies, the paper explores how, in practice, populations are constructed in relation to the production of particular sorts of truths concerning, and particular modes of intervention in, the lives of nonhuman animals. It explores how heterogeneous biosocial collectivities are constituted around these interventions. The emergence of genetic techniques is shown to transform the processes constituting populations and heterogeneous biosocial collectivities, and this is discussed in terms of a new inflection of agricultural biopower associated with novel interventions in the lives of livestock animals. key words UK biopower genetics livestock breeding population biosocial collectivity

Geoforum, 2009

This paper explores some of the key institutional transformations in livestock breeding associated with the increasing significance of genetic techniques, situating this within an assessment of an emerging agricultural bioeconomy. Focusing on beef cattle and sheep breeding in the United Kingdom, the paper examines how a move towards the involvement of international and corporate interests in livestock breeding is restructuring the network of institutional interests affecting the knowledge and decision making of individual breeders. The paper suggests that the structural transformation of beef cattle and sheep breeding is complicated by the need for negotiation between breeders' 'traditional' knowledge-practices and the 'geneticised' techniques being made available to them. We are thus seeing the emergence of new and complex interactions between the major actors which are reconfiguring power relationships in the UK livestock breeding sector.

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2012

Cattle and sheep breeders in the UK and elsewhere increasingly draw on genetic techniques in order to make breeding decisions. Many breeders support such techniques, while others argue against them for a variety of reasons, including their preference for the 'traditions' of visual-based and pedigree-based selections. Meanwhile, even for those institutions and breeders who promote genetic techniques, the outcomes are not always as predicted. We build on our recent use of Foucault's discussions of biopower to examine the effects of the introduction of genetic techniques in UK livestock breeding in order to begin to explore the diffuse and capillary nature of resistance within relations of biopower. We focus specifically on how resistance and contestation can be understood through the joint lenses of biopower and an understanding of livestock breeding as knowledge-practices enacted within heterogeneous biosocial collectivities. In some instances these collectivities coalesce around shared endeavour, such as increasing the valency of genetic evaluation within livestock breeding. Yet such mixed collectivities also open up opportunities for counter-conduct: heterogeneous resistances to and contestations of genetic evaluation as something represented as progressive and inevitable. We focus on exploring such modes of resistance using detailed empirical research with livestock breeders and breeding institutions. We demonstrate how in different and specific ways geneticisation becomes problematised, and is contested and made more complex, through the knowledge-practices of breeders, the bodies of animals, and the complex relationships between different institutions in livestock breeding and rearing.

2018

Over the last century, livestock breeding in France has experienced significant changes. The impacts on the natural and human environment, and the growing sensitivity of the population to animals’ living conditions have led to increasingly radical criticism of certain farming practices, from different segments of French society (NGOs, citizens, politicians, media...). Such challenges concern livestock husbandry in its operation, organisation and even in its basic principles. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the diversity and strength/magnitude of society’s expectations towards livestock farming systems as well as an understanding of their foundations/origins based on many studies and PhD research in sociology conducted from 2014 to 2018. With the aim of identifying the subjects of controversy involving breeding in France, all animal production systems being considered, and to describe the diversity of actors and arguments, fifty interviews were conducted...