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The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food System
A bold yet realistic vision of how technology and social change are creating a food system in which we no longer use animals to produce meat, dairy, or eggs.
Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals brought widespread attention to the disturbing realities of factory farming. The End of Animal Farming pushes this conversation forward by outlining a strategic roadmap to a humane, ethical, and efficient food system in which slaughterhouses are obsolete—where the tastes of even the most die-hard meat eater are satisfied by innovative food technologies like cultured meats and plant-based protein. Social scientist Jacy Reese Anthis analyzes the social forces leading us toward the downfall of animal agriculture, the technology making this change possible for the meat-hungry public, and the activism driving consumer demand for plant-based and cultured foods.
Reese contextualizes the issue of factory farming—the inhumane system of industrial farming that 95 percent of farmed animals endure—as part of humanity's expanding moral circle. Humanity increasingly treats nonhuman animals, from household pets to orca whales, with respect and kindness, and Reese argues that farmed animals are the next step. Reese applies an analytical lens of "effective altruism," the burgeoning philosophy of using evidence-based research to maximize one's positive impact in the world, in order to better understand which strategies can help expand the moral circle now and in the future.
The End of Animal Farming is not a scolding treatise or a prescription for an ascetic diet. Reese invites readers—vegan and non-vegan—to consider one of the most important and transformational social movements of the coming decades.
Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals brought widespread attention to the disturbing realities of factory farming. The End of Animal Farming pushes this conversation forward by outlining a strategic roadmap to a humane, ethical, and efficient food system in which slaughterhouses are obsolete—where the tastes of even the most die-hard meat eater are satisfied by innovative food technologies like cultured meats and plant-based protein. Social scientist Jacy Reese Anthis analyzes the social forces leading us toward the downfall of animal agriculture, the technology making this change possible for the meat-hungry public, and the activism driving consumer demand for plant-based and cultured foods.
Reese contextualizes the issue of factory farming—the inhumane system of industrial farming that 95 percent of farmed animals endure—as part of humanity's expanding moral circle. Humanity increasingly treats nonhuman animals, from household pets to orca whales, with respect and kindness, and Reese argues that farmed animals are the next step. Reese applies an analytical lens of "effective altruism," the burgeoning philosophy of using evidence-based research to maximize one's positive impact in the world, in order to better understand which strategies can help expand the moral circle now and in the future.
The End of Animal Farming is not a scolding treatise or a prescription for an ascetic diet. Reese invites readers—vegan and non-vegan—to consider one of the most important and transformational social movements of the coming decades.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published November 6, 2018
About the author
Jacy Reese Anthis
2 books61 followersJacy Anthis is a social scientist and co-founder of the Sentience Institute. His acclaimed book, The End of Animal Farming, analyzes the development and popularization of food technologies such as plant-based and cell-cultured meat. Psychologist Steven Pinker said the book "places the issue of factory farming in the context of human progress and presents compelling arguments on how we should deal with it today.”
Anthis' research has been featured in The Guardian, Vox, Forbes, and other global media outlets, and he has presented at conferences and seminars in over 20 countries. He is currently a PhD Fellow at The University of Chicago. He is from Huntsville, Texas and lives in San Francisco with his wife Kelly Anthis and their rescued dogs Apollo and Dionysus. Please get in touch to discuss collaboration, interviews, lectures, or other matters.
Anthis' research has been featured in The Guardian, Vox, Forbes, and other global media outlets, and he has presented at conferences and seminars in over 20 countries. He is currently a PhD Fellow at The University of Chicago. He is from Huntsville, Texas and lives in San Francisco with his wife Kelly Anthis and their rescued dogs Apollo and Dionysus. Please get in touch to discuss collaboration, interviews, lectures, or other matters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
August 21, 2018
I’ve been closely tracking the Clean Meat Revolution, Effective Altruism, and factory farming for years but still learned a ton from this book. Reese is a rigorous thinker and has packed these pages with powerful ideas. This book is a great read for anyone but especially (aspiring) entrepreneurs, scientists, activists and Effective Altruists. The next decade will be monumental in bringing down factory farming and those on the right side of history will prosper while freeing the world from a great deal of suffering.
September 5, 2018
61 key insights and thoughts after reading Jacy Reese’s new book, The End of Animal Farming
(Disclaimer - while I am part of the effective altruism community, I have no special incentive to give this a high rating just because I have interacted with the author before. My words are mine alone, although I thank Jenny Burrowes for her comments and suggestions.)
1. The scale of animal suffering is in the hundreds of billions killed *every year*. Most of that is unnecessary, which further adds to the tragedy. However, horror on this sort of scale just doesn’t motivate some people. For them, we need to talk about other things - or the message simply won’t stick.
2. Vegetarianism being thought of as bland dates back to the 1800s, where it was suggested as a way to reduce immoral or sexual behaviours. (Other things suggested: enemas, vibration therapy.)
3. Plant-based diets are taken more seriously today because they are adopted for the sake of concrete ends, such as the animals themselves, the environment, and the wellbeing of other humans - not just some abstract notion of purity.
4. Inefficiency. Ten calories of plant food on average goes to make one calorie of animal food. Ten grams of plant protein becomes two grams of animal protein. From an efficiency standpoint, nothing about our current food industry makes sense. We don’t want the world to be inefficient, do we?
5. If we can grow meat from a cell that’s biologically similar at half the cost, why would we need to go to all the trouble of animal farming in the first place? Efficiency is the bottom line, the ‘ace in the hole’ as Reese puts it.
6. Reese describes his childhood growing up around farmland in rural Texas. His decision to go vegetarian was a small change that had a great positive impact. This relates to effective altruism more generally. It was not preordained somehow that he would become involved in animal advocacy. It followed from the idea of how to do the most good.
7. People often say pets help young children appreciate ‘life and death’. Are they implicitly saying that there is some similarity between the death of a loved animal and the death of a loved human? Where does that similarity end?
8. The principle of parsimony says that we should prefer the simplest explanation first, because that’s the best strategy to take when forming and updating our beliefs. We observe pet dogs appearing to enjoy pleasure; elephants and rats appear to show altruistic behaviours; pigs appear to demonstrate object perception and long-term memory, as well as coming when called by name after training; elephants even appear to show grief. Might the simplest explanation be that animals do indeed have some kind of sentience? What is the simplest theory that fits the observations?
9. Recognising animal sentience is relatively recent. Only in the 2010s was there scientific agreement on animal experiences of pain; in 2013 an article titled ‘Dogs Are People, Too’ appeared in the New York Times, confirming what many dog owners presumably had known privately for some time.
10. We may have progressed past the ‘desperate need for human superiority’. After the film ‘Blackfish’ was released, highlighting the suffering of their orca whales, SeaWorld’s revenues collapsed within a year.
11. Contradictions. We experiment with rats to learn about human emotional response, while justifying it by pretending they have no emotional response. Similarly for testing painkillers. We suppose dogs have no sophisticated awareness of the world, while relying on them for help when we lose our ability to see. Are rat brains so different from chicken brains? Are dog brains so different from pig brains?
12. Lobbying in the animal food industry is not fundamentally different from that for guns, or for tobacco. Post-war demand slumped, and profits were threatened. Memorable marketing campaigns ensued. Got slogans?
13. Sometimes the only way to be taken seriously is to slowly collect a long record of evidence. Then people are more willing to listen.
14. Virtual reality headsets are a thing now, and they can be used to help the cause of advocacy. [Sometimes I see certain orgs use a ‘good cop, bad cop’ approach to their advantage. Mercy For Animals (https://mercyforanimals.org/) would be in this category, with their viral video content switching between cute, relatable animal videos and horrific videos of farmed animal suffering.]
15. A recent study indicates that 47% of Americans support banning of slaughterhouses in principle. Although promising, the framing of the question matters a lot, so we should treat this insight with caution.
16. Veganism does not equal animal advocacy. This is perhaps one of the most important lessons to be learned from the past few decades.
17. Many executives are in fact concerned about factory farming and animal cruelty more generally, but see it as a ‘necessary evil’. One task for animal advocates therefore is to try and change that ‘necessary’ to an ‘unnecessary’ in people’s minds.
18. Appealing to economic efficiency is a short circuit to the same end goal. Getting executives to care about their bottom line is easier than getting those same executives to spend money on ethical initiatives.
19. There have been over 1000 years of interest in ‘mock meats’, specifically in East Asia.
20. Products like the Impossible Burger (https://impossiblefoods.com/) are so close to the taste of an average beef burger that the difference is probably within the general variance of cheap and expensive beef burger products on the market today. This matters.
21. There are cultural differences in some parts of the world between ‘plant hunger’ and ‘meat hunger’. At least one language even has a different word for each of the two concepts.
22. Look up ‘heme’ (or ‘haem’). It’s the Fe-containing, ‘bloody’, compound thing that makes beef taste beefy. So much so that in some tests, when it was added to chicken, people mistook it for beef. It’s also the key ingredient in the Impossible Burger.
23. Some people really love the taste of saturated fat. As (some) plant-based meats get very close to resembling traditional meats, they might need the same health warnings too. The upside: consumers will be able to make the choice for themselves without missing out too much, as there will be a wide range of plant-based meats to choose from, not all of them unhealthy or even bloody.
24. Suffering per calorie. Unfortunately, the smaller the animal, the more suffering there is per animal for the same amount of calories. [This is true even with a moderate weighting for levels of sentience.] For 500 calories’ worth of food, suffering can range from many days (fish) to a few days (chicken, eggs) to many hours (pork, beef).
25. This leads to a suggested priority: we should find substitutes for chicken meat, eggs, fish, and other products with these ingredients (such as mayo).
26. Perhaps the dairy industry feels threatened by the sales of plant-based milks growing to be as large as 10% of their own sales volumes. Their response? Make ‘milk’ a protected term, only referring to the ‘secretions’ of a cow. I guess they have never heard of goat milk, or soy milk? Reese suggests ‘goat juice’ as an alternative, a phrase that is sure to haunt me for the next few days.
27. If ‘butter’ becomes a protected term, because non-dairy butter confuses consumers, then I guess I need to stop referring to ‘peanut butter’ and ‘cocoa butter’. Peanut paste anyone?
28. If something you consumed was harmful for you, like a cigarette, would you want it to be labelled on store shelves? What about to ‘protect the children’? Now what if that product was a high-cholesterol animal product? Does it get an exception? Why?
29. Although ‘fake meat’ is a memorable shortcut to mean plant-based meat [I definitely use it casually in conversation from time to time], overuse of the term ‘fake meat’ could establish that plant-based products should always be viewed as inferior, or second-best.
30. Calling something like the Beyond Burger (http://beyondmeat.com/) simply ‘meat’ without qualification suggests to consumers that they can get the same flavour profile, mouth feel, and satisfaction from a plant-based product as from an animal-based product. This is ultimately more helpful for activism than the alternative. This is also why names matter.
31. ‘Clean meat’ and ‘cultured meat’ are the terms we’re left with for this concept, and both terms have their upsides and downsides. It really depends on what audience you’re dealing with.
32. Learn the Four Ns. Normal. Necessary. Nice. Natural. When surveyed, people tend to associate animal foods with these categories about 80-90% of the time.
33. People are pretty easily influenced by what others think - researchers have got people to completely change their opinion of songs just by manipulating what they told them about how many previous downloads that song had prior to them seeing it. Knowing what other people think about a practice, such as our habits when it comes to the food on our table, matters for animal advocacy.
34. Celebrity endorsement works. If Ariana Grande* can do it, then it must be something normal! (*Insert your favourite celebrity here.)
35. It’s hard to claim that animal foods are necessary for good health when so many professional vegan athletes exist (there are even vegan Olympians). As long as people continue to provide examples, the ‘necessary’ claim becomes steadily weaker over time.
36. There is more variety in (vegan) food available now than ever before in human history. Nowadays, vegan food is genuinely nice. The Victorian, puritan conception of these diets has been replaced by global food trends, viral recipe videos, and vegan ‘junk’ food. There really is a vegan dish for everyone.
37. There are plenty of examples of things which are ‘natural’ or have a long history, which are horrific and have no place in modern society. I’ll leave you to come up with examples of your own.
38. Chickens are 4x larger than they were in the 1960s. Fifteen-year life spans have been reduced to 42 days. ‘Natural’ can really mean anything critics want it to mean.
39. On the other hand, naturalness is often meant as a precautionary principle. If some food item has a long history of not being toxic for people, then it probably isn’t toxic for people now. However, our modern animal food processes are anything but natural, which is why people worry so much about cross-contamination and food poisoning in animal products like chicken and beef.
40. When talking to people, work out whether they use ‘natural’ as a proxy concept for ‘food safety’. If so, talk about the safety of plant-based foods.
41. The fifth justification for animal farming outside the four Ns is that some animal farming is ‘humane’, therefore animal farming generally can’t be completely wrong. There are problems with this line of reasoning.
42. Reese mentions three reasons why the ‘end animal farming’ message should not be replaced by the ‘end factory farming’ message. First, exploitation might be wrong independently of whether suffering occurs. Second, animals raised on so called high-welfare farms still suffer in important ways. This is bad enough even without mentioning the additional environmental harms of these farms over plant-based agriculture. Third, psychological refuge. People often use high-welfare farms to derail the conversation, to get in the ‘thin end of the wedge’. From this point, they can claim that they (of course) only consume high-welfare animal products (which is mostly impossible), and therefore that there is really nothing to worry about.
43. A 2017 survey found that 75% of US adults claim that they usually consume ‘humane animal products’, whereas the proportion of non-factory farms in the US is about 1%. This suggests that consumers are uninformed.
44. A thought experiment might help us make sense of these concepts. We imagine that humans, in some alternate history, became the ‘happy’ slaves of some different, more advanced species. They raise us and kill us painlessly once we have stopped growing, in order to eat us. Let’s say that we are killed at age 16. Is this bad? We might appeal to our sense of not having had a fair shot at life (a ‘fair innings’) or the chance to experience life to the full. We haven’t been made to suffer, but we also have lose out on many years of potential joy. This loss of potential joy might be relevant to the cause. [For a longer illustration of this kind of situation, albeit in a very different context, I’d recommend looking at the sci-fi novel/film by Kazuo Ishiguro ‘Never Let Me Go’.]
45. Scaling up truly humane farming operations to the current level of global demand is practically impossible. To feed everyone over the long term, we need an alternative to animal farming. What’s the best way to bring that world about? At least in part, it means campaigning for the end of animal farming.
46. As Reese puts it: “So even if humane animal farming is possible in theory, it seems exceedingly difficult to achieve at a financially accessible global scale.”
47. If you are a small or large farm operation, you are still constrained by economics. With margins already thin in the industry, there is no incentive to go beyond the minimum level of welfare protections if no one else is doing so. Even the fancier ‘upmarket’ brands still have to run a business and still have to keep costs low in order to be profitable.
48. [A moral uncertainty argument: let’s say that you are unsure whether or not ‘harm-free’ exploitation is bad. Due to the scale of the problem, with 100s of billions of animals killed every year, if we’re wrong about this, it ends up being really bad - just because of how many animals there are. Is it really worth the risk if we turn out to be wrong?]
49. The most important insight from advocacy research: the higher priority of institutional change over individual change.
50. Can institutional messaging be seen as too aggressive, or even totalitarian? Perhaps. This is important to bear in mind. Stories, then statistics.
51. Try to work with all communities before dismissing or thinking of criticising their contributions. For example: black veganism is a thing, in part because black communities have long highlighted the historical factors leading to differing preferences for animal foods. Unfortunately, not every vegan feels at home in the vegan movement as it currently exists.
52. There is such a thing as liberal messaging and conservative messaging. Conservatives often (but not always) value things like loyalty, authority, and sanctity, more than liberals do. Highlighting the concept of oppression might not be as useful as showing how avoiding animal suffering helps to ‘preserve American values’.
53. Consider these two statements: ‘America is a nation of animal lovers.’ ‘America is a leader in technology and innovation.’ If you found those relatable, then you might agree in principle with promoting new plant-based food alternatives without necessarily realising it.
54. Intersectionality is a real thing: build bridges with other movements.
55. Maintain a global scope. Lewis Bollard of Open Philanthropy Project reminds us that about 49% of farmed animals currently live in China. With rising prosperity often comes increased demand for animal products, perhaps as a signal of wealth.
56. The Big Four regions to focus on: China, US, EU, India. China and India for sheer size, the US and EU for influence.
57. Be careful not to perpetuate racial stereotypes. If a tiny fraction of the Chinese population have regularly consumed dog meat, associating it with the whole nation is just offensive.
58. There will always be a case for moral circle expansion, as there has been throughout history. It is naive to think that we are at some final end-stage of moral development. Effective altruism thrives when we are constantly keeping open minds. What about the far future? What about wild animal suffering? What about artificial beings?
59. Keeping animal advocacy related to the moral circle means being less open to criticisms relating to changing evidence on health risks or environmental risks, where new (often contradictory) evidence seems to be arising all the time. The immorality of animal suffering is not vulnerable in the same way - it will matter for anyone that takes the time to understand what suffering really means.
60. A roadmap to a plant-based future, after the end of animal farming. Replacement of animal products in supply chains, schools, and catering companies, for reasons of cost efficiency and sustainability. For example, switching cheap chicken nuggets in schools with healthier (perhaps even tastier) alternatives. Consumer tastes will take longer to shift. For top-end, luxury markets, wealthier consumers will have more scope to care about their health, ethical sourcing, and cutting-edge ingredients. They might also respond better to celebrity, high-status endorsements.
61. Be uncertain in your future predictions. Remember that above all, great value comes from being part of a great community!
I really enjoyed reading this, and I hope you’ve learned something from it too. But don’t take my word for it - you can buy the book for yourself as it’s coming out at the end of 2018 (see http://jacyreese.com/ for more details). I hope when you read it that you have the same enjoyable, memorable experience that I did.
---
(Guide to my rating system)
5☆ - A classic. Influential on a 50-year scale and/or something which I have very strong personal feelings for.
4☆ - A great book. Influential on a 10-year scale and/or something which I really enjoyed reading.
3☆ - A good book. Influential on a 1-year scale and/or something which I liked reading.
2☆ - A not-so-good book. Possibly not worth the time to read and/or something which I disliked reading.
1☆ - A near-useless book. Probably not worth the time to read and/or something which I really disliked reading.
---
(Disclaimer - while I am part of the effective altruism community, I have no special incentive to give this a high rating just because I have interacted with the author before. My words are mine alone, although I thank Jenny Burrowes for her comments and suggestions.)
1. The scale of animal suffering is in the hundreds of billions killed *every year*. Most of that is unnecessary, which further adds to the tragedy. However, horror on this sort of scale just doesn’t motivate some people. For them, we need to talk about other things - or the message simply won’t stick.
2. Vegetarianism being thought of as bland dates back to the 1800s, where it was suggested as a way to reduce immoral or sexual behaviours. (Other things suggested: enemas, vibration therapy.)
3. Plant-based diets are taken more seriously today because they are adopted for the sake of concrete ends, such as the animals themselves, the environment, and the wellbeing of other humans - not just some abstract notion of purity.
4. Inefficiency. Ten calories of plant food on average goes to make one calorie of animal food. Ten grams of plant protein becomes two grams of animal protein. From an efficiency standpoint, nothing about our current food industry makes sense. We don’t want the world to be inefficient, do we?
5. If we can grow meat from a cell that’s biologically similar at half the cost, why would we need to go to all the trouble of animal farming in the first place? Efficiency is the bottom line, the ‘ace in the hole’ as Reese puts it.
6. Reese describes his childhood growing up around farmland in rural Texas. His decision to go vegetarian was a small change that had a great positive impact. This relates to effective altruism more generally. It was not preordained somehow that he would become involved in animal advocacy. It followed from the idea of how to do the most good.
7. People often say pets help young children appreciate ‘life and death’. Are they implicitly saying that there is some similarity between the death of a loved animal and the death of a loved human? Where does that similarity end?
8. The principle of parsimony says that we should prefer the simplest explanation first, because that’s the best strategy to take when forming and updating our beliefs. We observe pet dogs appearing to enjoy pleasure; elephants and rats appear to show altruistic behaviours; pigs appear to demonstrate object perception and long-term memory, as well as coming when called by name after training; elephants even appear to show grief. Might the simplest explanation be that animals do indeed have some kind of sentience? What is the simplest theory that fits the observations?
9. Recognising animal sentience is relatively recent. Only in the 2010s was there scientific agreement on animal experiences of pain; in 2013 an article titled ‘Dogs Are People, Too’ appeared in the New York Times, confirming what many dog owners presumably had known privately for some time.
10. We may have progressed past the ‘desperate need for human superiority’. After the film ‘Blackfish’ was released, highlighting the suffering of their orca whales, SeaWorld’s revenues collapsed within a year.
11. Contradictions. We experiment with rats to learn about human emotional response, while justifying it by pretending they have no emotional response. Similarly for testing painkillers. We suppose dogs have no sophisticated awareness of the world, while relying on them for help when we lose our ability to see. Are rat brains so different from chicken brains? Are dog brains so different from pig brains?
12. Lobbying in the animal food industry is not fundamentally different from that for guns, or for tobacco. Post-war demand slumped, and profits were threatened. Memorable marketing campaigns ensued. Got slogans?
13. Sometimes the only way to be taken seriously is to slowly collect a long record of evidence. Then people are more willing to listen.
14. Virtual reality headsets are a thing now, and they can be used to help the cause of advocacy. [Sometimes I see certain orgs use a ‘good cop, bad cop’ approach to their advantage. Mercy For Animals (https://mercyforanimals.org/) would be in this category, with their viral video content switching between cute, relatable animal videos and horrific videos of farmed animal suffering.]
15. A recent study indicates that 47% of Americans support banning of slaughterhouses in principle. Although promising, the framing of the question matters a lot, so we should treat this insight with caution.
16. Veganism does not equal animal advocacy. This is perhaps one of the most important lessons to be learned from the past few decades.
17. Many executives are in fact concerned about factory farming and animal cruelty more generally, but see it as a ‘necessary evil’. One task for animal advocates therefore is to try and change that ‘necessary’ to an ‘unnecessary’ in people’s minds.
18. Appealing to economic efficiency is a short circuit to the same end goal. Getting executives to care about their bottom line is easier than getting those same executives to spend money on ethical initiatives.
19. There have been over 1000 years of interest in ‘mock meats’, specifically in East Asia.
20. Products like the Impossible Burger (https://impossiblefoods.com/) are so close to the taste of an average beef burger that the difference is probably within the general variance of cheap and expensive beef burger products on the market today. This matters.
21. There are cultural differences in some parts of the world between ‘plant hunger’ and ‘meat hunger’. At least one language even has a different word for each of the two concepts.
22. Look up ‘heme’ (or ‘haem’). It’s the Fe-containing, ‘bloody’, compound thing that makes beef taste beefy. So much so that in some tests, when it was added to chicken, people mistook it for beef. It’s also the key ingredient in the Impossible Burger.
23. Some people really love the taste of saturated fat. As (some) plant-based meats get very close to resembling traditional meats, they might need the same health warnings too. The upside: consumers will be able to make the choice for themselves without missing out too much, as there will be a wide range of plant-based meats to choose from, not all of them unhealthy or even bloody.
24. Suffering per calorie. Unfortunately, the smaller the animal, the more suffering there is per animal for the same amount of calories. [This is true even with a moderate weighting for levels of sentience.] For 500 calories’ worth of food, suffering can range from many days (fish) to a few days (chicken, eggs) to many hours (pork, beef).
25. This leads to a suggested priority: we should find substitutes for chicken meat, eggs, fish, and other products with these ingredients (such as mayo).
26. Perhaps the dairy industry feels threatened by the sales of plant-based milks growing to be as large as 10% of their own sales volumes. Their response? Make ‘milk’ a protected term, only referring to the ‘secretions’ of a cow. I guess they have never heard of goat milk, or soy milk? Reese suggests ‘goat juice’ as an alternative, a phrase that is sure to haunt me for the next few days.
27. If ‘butter’ becomes a protected term, because non-dairy butter confuses consumers, then I guess I need to stop referring to ‘peanut butter’ and ‘cocoa butter’. Peanut paste anyone?
28. If something you consumed was harmful for you, like a cigarette, would you want it to be labelled on store shelves? What about to ‘protect the children’? Now what if that product was a high-cholesterol animal product? Does it get an exception? Why?
29. Although ‘fake meat’ is a memorable shortcut to mean plant-based meat [I definitely use it casually in conversation from time to time], overuse of the term ‘fake meat’ could establish that plant-based products should always be viewed as inferior, or second-best.
30. Calling something like the Beyond Burger (http://beyondmeat.com/) simply ‘meat’ without qualification suggests to consumers that they can get the same flavour profile, mouth feel, and satisfaction from a plant-based product as from an animal-based product. This is ultimately more helpful for activism than the alternative. This is also why names matter.
31. ‘Clean meat’ and ‘cultured meat’ are the terms we’re left with for this concept, and both terms have their upsides and downsides. It really depends on what audience you’re dealing with.
32. Learn the Four Ns. Normal. Necessary. Nice. Natural. When surveyed, people tend to associate animal foods with these categories about 80-90% of the time.
33. People are pretty easily influenced by what others think - researchers have got people to completely change their opinion of songs just by manipulating what they told them about how many previous downloads that song had prior to them seeing it. Knowing what other people think about a practice, such as our habits when it comes to the food on our table, matters for animal advocacy.
34. Celebrity endorsement works. If Ariana Grande* can do it, then it must be something normal! (*Insert your favourite celebrity here.)
35. It’s hard to claim that animal foods are necessary for good health when so many professional vegan athletes exist (there are even vegan Olympians). As long as people continue to provide examples, the ‘necessary’ claim becomes steadily weaker over time.
36. There is more variety in (vegan) food available now than ever before in human history. Nowadays, vegan food is genuinely nice. The Victorian, puritan conception of these diets has been replaced by global food trends, viral recipe videos, and vegan ‘junk’ food. There really is a vegan dish for everyone.
37. There are plenty of examples of things which are ‘natural’ or have a long history, which are horrific and have no place in modern society. I’ll leave you to come up with examples of your own.
38. Chickens are 4x larger than they were in the 1960s. Fifteen-year life spans have been reduced to 42 days. ‘Natural’ can really mean anything critics want it to mean.
39. On the other hand, naturalness is often meant as a precautionary principle. If some food item has a long history of not being toxic for people, then it probably isn’t toxic for people now. However, our modern animal food processes are anything but natural, which is why people worry so much about cross-contamination and food poisoning in animal products like chicken and beef.
40. When talking to people, work out whether they use ‘natural’ as a proxy concept for ‘food safety’. If so, talk about the safety of plant-based foods.
41. The fifth justification for animal farming outside the four Ns is that some animal farming is ‘humane’, therefore animal farming generally can’t be completely wrong. There are problems with this line of reasoning.
42. Reese mentions three reasons why the ‘end animal farming’ message should not be replaced by the ‘end factory farming’ message. First, exploitation might be wrong independently of whether suffering occurs. Second, animals raised on so called high-welfare farms still suffer in important ways. This is bad enough even without mentioning the additional environmental harms of these farms over plant-based agriculture. Third, psychological refuge. People often use high-welfare farms to derail the conversation, to get in the ‘thin end of the wedge’. From this point, they can claim that they (of course) only consume high-welfare animal products (which is mostly impossible), and therefore that there is really nothing to worry about.
43. A 2017 survey found that 75% of US adults claim that they usually consume ‘humane animal products’, whereas the proportion of non-factory farms in the US is about 1%. This suggests that consumers are uninformed.
44. A thought experiment might help us make sense of these concepts. We imagine that humans, in some alternate history, became the ‘happy’ slaves of some different, more advanced species. They raise us and kill us painlessly once we have stopped growing, in order to eat us. Let’s say that we are killed at age 16. Is this bad? We might appeal to our sense of not having had a fair shot at life (a ‘fair innings’) or the chance to experience life to the full. We haven’t been made to suffer, but we also have lose out on many years of potential joy. This loss of potential joy might be relevant to the cause. [For a longer illustration of this kind of situation, albeit in a very different context, I’d recommend looking at the sci-fi novel/film by Kazuo Ishiguro ‘Never Let Me Go’.]
45. Scaling up truly humane farming operations to the current level of global demand is practically impossible. To feed everyone over the long term, we need an alternative to animal farming. What’s the best way to bring that world about? At least in part, it means campaigning for the end of animal farming.
46. As Reese puts it: “So even if humane animal farming is possible in theory, it seems exceedingly difficult to achieve at a financially accessible global scale.”
47. If you are a small or large farm operation, you are still constrained by economics. With margins already thin in the industry, there is no incentive to go beyond the minimum level of welfare protections if no one else is doing so. Even the fancier ‘upmarket’ brands still have to run a business and still have to keep costs low in order to be profitable.
48. [A moral uncertainty argument: let’s say that you are unsure whether or not ‘harm-free’ exploitation is bad. Due to the scale of the problem, with 100s of billions of animals killed every year, if we’re wrong about this, it ends up being really bad - just because of how many animals there are. Is it really worth the risk if we turn out to be wrong?]
49. The most important insight from advocacy research: the higher priority of institutional change over individual change.
50. Can institutional messaging be seen as too aggressive, or even totalitarian? Perhaps. This is important to bear in mind. Stories, then statistics.
51. Try to work with all communities before dismissing or thinking of criticising their contributions. For example: black veganism is a thing, in part because black communities have long highlighted the historical factors leading to differing preferences for animal foods. Unfortunately, not every vegan feels at home in the vegan movement as it currently exists.
52. There is such a thing as liberal messaging and conservative messaging. Conservatives often (but not always) value things like loyalty, authority, and sanctity, more than liberals do. Highlighting the concept of oppression might not be as useful as showing how avoiding animal suffering helps to ‘preserve American values’.
53. Consider these two statements: ‘America is a nation of animal lovers.’ ‘America is a leader in technology and innovation.’ If you found those relatable, then you might agree in principle with promoting new plant-based food alternatives without necessarily realising it.
54. Intersectionality is a real thing: build bridges with other movements.
55. Maintain a global scope. Lewis Bollard of Open Philanthropy Project reminds us that about 49% of farmed animals currently live in China. With rising prosperity often comes increased demand for animal products, perhaps as a signal of wealth.
56. The Big Four regions to focus on: China, US, EU, India. China and India for sheer size, the US and EU for influence.
57. Be careful not to perpetuate racial stereotypes. If a tiny fraction of the Chinese population have regularly consumed dog meat, associating it with the whole nation is just offensive.
58. There will always be a case for moral circle expansion, as there has been throughout history. It is naive to think that we are at some final end-stage of moral development. Effective altruism thrives when we are constantly keeping open minds. What about the far future? What about wild animal suffering? What about artificial beings?
59. Keeping animal advocacy related to the moral circle means being less open to criticisms relating to changing evidence on health risks or environmental risks, where new (often contradictory) evidence seems to be arising all the time. The immorality of animal suffering is not vulnerable in the same way - it will matter for anyone that takes the time to understand what suffering really means.
60. A roadmap to a plant-based future, after the end of animal farming. Replacement of animal products in supply chains, schools, and catering companies, for reasons of cost efficiency and sustainability. For example, switching cheap chicken nuggets in schools with healthier (perhaps even tastier) alternatives. Consumer tastes will take longer to shift. For top-end, luxury markets, wealthier consumers will have more scope to care about their health, ethical sourcing, and cutting-edge ingredients. They might also respond better to celebrity, high-status endorsements.
61. Be uncertain in your future predictions. Remember that above all, great value comes from being part of a great community!
I really enjoyed reading this, and I hope you’ve learned something from it too. But don’t take my word for it - you can buy the book for yourself as it’s coming out at the end of 2018 (see http://jacyreese.com/ for more details). I hope when you read it that you have the same enjoyable, memorable experience that I did.
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(Guide to my rating system)
5☆ - A classic. Influential on a 50-year scale and/or something which I have very strong personal feelings for.
4☆ - A great book. Influential on a 10-year scale and/or something which I really enjoyed reading.
3☆ - A good book. Influential on a 1-year scale and/or something which I liked reading.
2☆ - A not-so-good book. Possibly not worth the time to read and/or something which I disliked reading.
1☆ - A near-useless book. Probably not worth the time to read and/or something which I really disliked reading.
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August 22, 2018
It's a fascinating read on how everyday people are trying to change the world using innovation to make a difference. It's a new frontier of activism and it's hard to stop reading once you start. It brings hope for a better future!
September 3, 2018
As a YouTuber and promoter of science, and having been a vegan for more than 4 years, I have very much appreciated Jacy's book.
He shows that he took the painful job of going through the relevant scientific literature in order to deliver a book to the public which, I think, has been longed for.
I have been part of vegan groups, many of which I eventually had to distance myself from because, unfortunately, members very rapidly start associating with pseudoscientific movements, and supporting environmental approaches that lack any kind of rigorous evidence to back them up.
Jacy didn't do any of that in this magnificent book. He decided not to demonize people who consume animal products, and learned and exposed some of the most relevant aspects of their individual and social psychology. Instead of blaming people, and taking the easy moralistic route of condemnation and simply saying that it's easy to transition to a plant-based diet, he proposed evidence-based solutions to counter the calamity that is animal farming.
This book is definitely a must-read!
He shows that he took the painful job of going through the relevant scientific literature in order to deliver a book to the public which, I think, has been longed for.
I have been part of vegan groups, many of which I eventually had to distance myself from because, unfortunately, members very rapidly start associating with pseudoscientific movements, and supporting environmental approaches that lack any kind of rigorous evidence to back them up.
Jacy didn't do any of that in this magnificent book. He decided not to demonize people who consume animal products, and learned and exposed some of the most relevant aspects of their individual and social psychology. Instead of blaming people, and taking the easy moralistic route of condemnation and simply saying that it's easy to transition to a plant-based diet, he proposed evidence-based solutions to counter the calamity that is animal farming.
This book is definitely a must-read!
September 9, 2018
This book was fascinating from both an animal advocacy perspective and a food technology perspective. Rigorous and evidence-based, yet entertaining and easy to read. I particularly appreciated the thoughtful analysis of effective and ineffective advocacy strategies. Paints a compelling picture of a future food system without animal cruelty, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in this possibility.
September 3, 2018
This is not your average vegan book. Despite the moral urgency of the issue of animal farming, Reese is thoughtful and reflective, not preachy. A fascinating book on the history and science of the animal welfare movement, with clear ideas for advocates and ordinary people to help end animal exploitation.
November 30, 2018
First off, I'd like to say that I won this book through a Goodreads Giveaway contest! I am really glad that I was one of the lucky winners too, because honestly, although I would've definitely read this book if it was free, I know I wouldn't spend 30$ to read it...especially when I could get the same information online.
HOWEVER....I did win it, which is AWESOME, because Jacy Reese put all the information together in such a neat and organized way, which you wouldn't have, had you found it online yourself. I was hesitant to enter this giveaway because I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this, or whether or not I would even be able to read the book to the end. But that was no problem at all. Not only did I read the book to the end, but I enjoyed it thoroughly too!
The information provided is insane! I LOVE learning new things, especially from reading, and this book taught me SOOOO MUCH! It really makes you think and contemplate new ways of doing things that have previously been done for tons of years the same way. But most of all, it has made me more conscious about the world around me, even just little things too. As far as I'm concerned, any book that has an impact on me that isn't solely emotional - but also impacts my day to day life in a positive way, is a book worth reading!
I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in animal farming, new innovations, food and science, animal free products and food, and just the ways in which the world is changing! You will not be disappointed by any means!! READ THIS BOOK!
HOWEVER....I did win it, which is AWESOME, because Jacy Reese put all the information together in such a neat and organized way, which you wouldn't have, had you found it online yourself. I was hesitant to enter this giveaway because I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy this, or whether or not I would even be able to read the book to the end. But that was no problem at all. Not only did I read the book to the end, but I enjoyed it thoroughly too!
The information provided is insane! I LOVE learning new things, especially from reading, and this book taught me SOOOO MUCH! It really makes you think and contemplate new ways of doing things that have previously been done for tons of years the same way. But most of all, it has made me more conscious about the world around me, even just little things too. As far as I'm concerned, any book that has an impact on me that isn't solely emotional - but also impacts my day to day life in a positive way, is a book worth reading!
I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in animal farming, new innovations, food and science, animal free products and food, and just the ways in which the world is changing! You will not be disappointed by any means!! READ THIS BOOK!
September 2, 2018
I can't recommend this book enough for anyone who views themselves as open-minded, or anyone interested in our modern food system, environment and social justice, or new technologies.
Throughout the book, the author presents a logical and well-structured case for replacing conventional animal farming with non-animal alternatives. It is a compelling and thoughtful look into a rapidly changing and often overlooked area of society, diving headfirst into a new world of animal ethics, food technology, and our own human psychology.
Unlike many reads, this is one that is sure to challenge and enlighten, and will likely be looked back on as one of the earliest histories of this nascent movement—should the events predicted by the author come to fruition.
Throughout the book, the author presents a logical and well-structured case for replacing conventional animal farming with non-animal alternatives. It is a compelling and thoughtful look into a rapidly changing and often overlooked area of society, diving headfirst into a new world of animal ethics, food technology, and our own human psychology.
Unlike many reads, this is one that is sure to challenge and enlighten, and will likely be looked back on as one of the earliest histories of this nascent movement—should the events predicted by the author come to fruition.
November 7, 2018
‘Animal farming will end by 2100’
Jacy Reese is the Research Director and co-founder of Sentience Institute, a nonprofit think tank researching the most effective strategies for expanding humanity’s moral circle. He previously served as Board Chair and as a researcher at Animal Charity Evaluators. His writing has appeared in Vox, Salon, and Quartz, and he has presented his research to academic and nonprofit audiences in over 20 countries.
In his Introduction Jacy not only address the topic at hand but also allows us to sense the humanity of this important world citizen: ‘This is not a book about the problems of animal farming. Scores of compelling books, documentaries, news articles, and scientific papers have detailed the damage animal farming does to public health, agricultural workers, rural communities, the national economy, the global food supply, our air and water, and, of course, farmed animals. This is a book about exactly how we can solve those problems. So much has been written exposing and condemning the animal agriculture industry that technology theorist Tom Chatfield listed “eating meat and factory farming” first in his predictions of what our descendants in centuries to come will deplore about today’s society. Journalist Ezra Klein, author Steven Pinker, business magnate Richard Branson, science educator Bill Nye, and Indian politician Maneka Gandhi have all made similar forecasts, based primarily on concern for farmed animals. In 2017, the BBC even produced the mockumentary “Carnage” based in the vegan world of 2067. It took a critical and humorous look at Britain’s unpleasant history of eating animals. It might seem surprising that the plight of these neglected creatures—by numbers, around 93 percent of farmed animals are chickens and fish—is so compelling an issue, given the fact that humans are still plagued by disease, oppression, war, racial and economic inequality, and other pressing social issues. However, even if we ignore the harms animal farming causes to humans, a bit of reflection exposes a compelling moral urgency. Consider these three facts: First, there are over one hundred billion farmed animals alive at this moment—more than ten times the number of humans. Second, over 90 percent (over 99 percent in the US) of these animals live on industrial, large-scale “factory farms” enduring atrocious cruelty such as intense confinement in tiny cages, brutal mutilation and slaughter methods, and rampant disease and suffering from artificial breeding for excessive production of meat, dairy, and eggs. Third, today we have scientific consensus that these are sentient beings with the capacity to feel great joy and suffering. If we put these facts together, then we see animal farming as more than an abstract system of machinery and livestock. Animal farming is the moral catastrophe of one sentient being with a heartbreaking life story, plus another sentient being . . . plus another . . . plus another . . . plus another . . . more than one hundred billion times. Historian Yuval Noah Harari, author of the books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, went so far as to suggest that animal farming is “the worst crime in history.” You might feel cautious about this opposition to all animal farming: If there’s a small percentage of the animal agriculture industry that’s not factory farming, shouldn’t we support that segment instead of abolishing the whole thing? What’s wrong with buying eggs from happy hens? I will share my views on this topic at length in chapter 6, arguing that we should oppose all animal farming, but note that most of this book’s arguments don’t rely on that viewpoint. Food advocates of all viewpoints are still united against the vast majority of modern animal farming, and you could read the rest of this book as The End of Factory Farming with little issue. The future is brighter than you think.
In this warm, caring conversational manner Jacy writes the chapters to inspect the following areas – The Expanding Moral Circle, Emptying the Cages, The Rise of Vegan Tech, How Plant-Based Will Take Over, The World’s First Cultured Hamburger, The Psychology of Animal-Free Food, Evidence-Based Social Change, Broadening Horizons, and The Expanding Moral Circle, Revisited.
In a book with so much to digest, reliance on the author’s synopsis is helpful – ‘Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals brought widespread attention to the disturbing realities of factory farming. The End of Animal Farming pushes this conversation forward by outlining a strategic roadmap to a humane, ethical, and efficient food system in which slaughterhouses are obsolete--where the tastes of even the most die-hard meat eater are satisfied by innovative food technologies like cultured meats and plant-based protein. Social scientist and animal advocate Jacy Reese analyzes the social forces leading us toward the downfall of animal agriculture, the technology making this change possible for the meat-hungry public, and the activism driving consumer demand for plant-based and cultured foods. Reese contextualizes the issue of factory farming--the inhumane system of industrial farming that 95 percent of farmed animals endure--as part of humanity's expanding moral circle. Humanity increasingly treats nonhuman animals, from household pets to orca whales, with respect and kindness, and Reese argues that farmed animals are the next step. Reese applies an analytical lens of "effective altruism," the burgeoning philosophy of using evidence-based research to maximize one's positive impact in the world, in order to better understand which strategies can help expand the moral circle now and in the future. The End of Animal Farming is not a scolding treatise or a prescription for an ascetic diet. Reese invites readers--vegan and non-vegan--to consider one of the most important and transformational social movements of the coming decades.’
This is a fascinating and important book, one that deserves our immediate attention and thought alteration. Highly Recommended.
Jacy Reese is the Research Director and co-founder of Sentience Institute, a nonprofit think tank researching the most effective strategies for expanding humanity’s moral circle. He previously served as Board Chair and as a researcher at Animal Charity Evaluators. His writing has appeared in Vox, Salon, and Quartz, and he has presented his research to academic and nonprofit audiences in over 20 countries.
In his Introduction Jacy not only address the topic at hand but also allows us to sense the humanity of this important world citizen: ‘This is not a book about the problems of animal farming. Scores of compelling books, documentaries, news articles, and scientific papers have detailed the damage animal farming does to public health, agricultural workers, rural communities, the national economy, the global food supply, our air and water, and, of course, farmed animals. This is a book about exactly how we can solve those problems. So much has been written exposing and condemning the animal agriculture industry that technology theorist Tom Chatfield listed “eating meat and factory farming” first in his predictions of what our descendants in centuries to come will deplore about today’s society. Journalist Ezra Klein, author Steven Pinker, business magnate Richard Branson, science educator Bill Nye, and Indian politician Maneka Gandhi have all made similar forecasts, based primarily on concern for farmed animals. In 2017, the BBC even produced the mockumentary “Carnage” based in the vegan world of 2067. It took a critical and humorous look at Britain’s unpleasant history of eating animals. It might seem surprising that the plight of these neglected creatures—by numbers, around 93 percent of farmed animals are chickens and fish—is so compelling an issue, given the fact that humans are still plagued by disease, oppression, war, racial and economic inequality, and other pressing social issues. However, even if we ignore the harms animal farming causes to humans, a bit of reflection exposes a compelling moral urgency. Consider these three facts: First, there are over one hundred billion farmed animals alive at this moment—more than ten times the number of humans. Second, over 90 percent (over 99 percent in the US) of these animals live on industrial, large-scale “factory farms” enduring atrocious cruelty such as intense confinement in tiny cages, brutal mutilation and slaughter methods, and rampant disease and suffering from artificial breeding for excessive production of meat, dairy, and eggs. Third, today we have scientific consensus that these are sentient beings with the capacity to feel great joy and suffering. If we put these facts together, then we see animal farming as more than an abstract system of machinery and livestock. Animal farming is the moral catastrophe of one sentient being with a heartbreaking life story, plus another sentient being . . . plus another . . . plus another . . . plus another . . . more than one hundred billion times. Historian Yuval Noah Harari, author of the books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, went so far as to suggest that animal farming is “the worst crime in history.” You might feel cautious about this opposition to all animal farming: If there’s a small percentage of the animal agriculture industry that’s not factory farming, shouldn’t we support that segment instead of abolishing the whole thing? What’s wrong with buying eggs from happy hens? I will share my views on this topic at length in chapter 6, arguing that we should oppose all animal farming, but note that most of this book’s arguments don’t rely on that viewpoint. Food advocates of all viewpoints are still united against the vast majority of modern animal farming, and you could read the rest of this book as The End of Factory Farming with little issue. The future is brighter than you think.
In this warm, caring conversational manner Jacy writes the chapters to inspect the following areas – The Expanding Moral Circle, Emptying the Cages, The Rise of Vegan Tech, How Plant-Based Will Take Over, The World’s First Cultured Hamburger, The Psychology of Animal-Free Food, Evidence-Based Social Change, Broadening Horizons, and The Expanding Moral Circle, Revisited.
In a book with so much to digest, reliance on the author’s synopsis is helpful – ‘Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals brought widespread attention to the disturbing realities of factory farming. The End of Animal Farming pushes this conversation forward by outlining a strategic roadmap to a humane, ethical, and efficient food system in which slaughterhouses are obsolete--where the tastes of even the most die-hard meat eater are satisfied by innovative food technologies like cultured meats and plant-based protein. Social scientist and animal advocate Jacy Reese analyzes the social forces leading us toward the downfall of animal agriculture, the technology making this change possible for the meat-hungry public, and the activism driving consumer demand for plant-based and cultured foods. Reese contextualizes the issue of factory farming--the inhumane system of industrial farming that 95 percent of farmed animals endure--as part of humanity's expanding moral circle. Humanity increasingly treats nonhuman animals, from household pets to orca whales, with respect and kindness, and Reese argues that farmed animals are the next step. Reese applies an analytical lens of "effective altruism," the burgeoning philosophy of using evidence-based research to maximize one's positive impact in the world, in order to better understand which strategies can help expand the moral circle now and in the future. The End of Animal Farming is not a scolding treatise or a prescription for an ascetic diet. Reese invites readers--vegan and non-vegan--to consider one of the most important and transformational social movements of the coming decades.’
This is a fascinating and important book, one that deserves our immediate attention and thought alteration. Highly Recommended.
September 6, 2018
The End of Animal Farming is a great read. I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it to anyone who is intellectual curious, regardless of your level of interest in animal welfare or the world’s modern food system.
Having read /books and watched documentaries on the scale of animal suffering resulted from factory farming, I appreciated that the author stated right in the beginning of the book: “This is a book about exactly how we can solve those problems”. And author Reese delivered what he promised throughout the entire book. The book began with a logical, compelling argument baked by well-research cases, ranging from history, philosophy to science to argue for the end of animal farming and a new age of alternative non-animal food source. In the next couple chapters, I can’t help but feeling optimistic while reading about the exciting things that are happening in the field of vegan-tech and cellular agriculture. I recall at one point in the book, the author stated that “...by working on technology, we usually are just affecting the speed of progress, but by working on social change, we can affect the direction of progress. Affecting the direction ensures that, in the long run, the welfare of humans and animals is as good as it can be.” With that intention, the last couple chapters changed direction and focused on evidence-based social science and its application to policy and animal advocacy for effective and long lasting social changes. A another big part of why I enjoyed this book so much was how compassionate and humble the author was; and it really showed up in the language and writing throughout the book.
After reading The End of Animal Farming, I felt much more hopeful about the future of our food system and optimistic that we could end animal farming for good. At the same time, I gained valuable knowledge that I can use to communicate with friends and family about this important issue.
Having read /books and watched documentaries on the scale of animal suffering resulted from factory farming, I appreciated that the author stated right in the beginning of the book: “This is a book about exactly how we can solve those problems”. And author Reese delivered what he promised throughout the entire book. The book began with a logical, compelling argument baked by well-research cases, ranging from history, philosophy to science to argue for the end of animal farming and a new age of alternative non-animal food source. In the next couple chapters, I can’t help but feeling optimistic while reading about the exciting things that are happening in the field of vegan-tech and cellular agriculture. I recall at one point in the book, the author stated that “...by working on technology, we usually are just affecting the speed of progress, but by working on social change, we can affect the direction of progress. Affecting the direction ensures that, in the long run, the welfare of humans and animals is as good as it can be.” With that intention, the last couple chapters changed direction and focused on evidence-based social science and its application to policy and animal advocacy for effective and long lasting social changes. A another big part of why I enjoyed this book so much was how compassionate and humble the author was; and it really showed up in the language and writing throughout the book.
After reading The End of Animal Farming, I felt much more hopeful about the future of our food system and optimistic that we could end animal farming for good. At the same time, I gained valuable knowledge that I can use to communicate with friends and family about this important issue.
December 21, 2018
This is a quick read with the main focus on the perpetual push toward ending the practice of animal factoring farming. Although the author touches on many important points, I felt this book fell a bit short for me. I have always been an advocate for the protection of animals and have been continually bettering my diet over my lifetime but this book lacked any real insight regarding the government's role with the nature of the manipulation of our food, our health risks, big pharma and to the saving our planet. Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals was personally a better pick for me.
February 15, 2022
This book is not another veganism 101 guidebook, thankfully. There are plenty of books like that floating around. The End of Animal Farming offers a more in-depth look at vegan philosophy and the potential long-term goals of various vegan movements. I enjoyed the overview of plant-based food development, both modern-day developments and veggie fare throughout United States history. Putting different faith-based dietary restrictions into context was also an important addition. I would recommend this to anyone interested in biotechnology, food justice, and animal welfare.
Read
December 9, 2018I have read books and watched documentaries on eating to the exclusion of animals, documented studies, etc.
This book is one person's views. It wasn't for me, so I feel rating it would be a disservice to those interested in this topic. I do think that the current system will implode and already, most people are priced out of this "market" especially 4 legged creatures.
This book is one person's views. It wasn't for me, so I feel rating it would be a disservice to those interested in this topic. I do think that the current system will implode and already, most people are priced out of this "market" especially 4 legged creatures.
December 18, 2018
I want everyone to read this. It focuses on the technology that will end animal farming, rather than the terrible conditions of animal farming, and it’s fascinating.
November 23, 2019
We are moving towards a time when our treatment of animals in factory farms will be seen by our descendants as hopelessly outdated and barbaric. People eat animal products despite how they are produced, not because of it. The fundamental inefficiency of animal farming as a way of feeding the world will cause its end, regardless of animal rights, environmental and human health issues. This book provides cautious optimism and support for how we can move towards that goal more quickly.
I’m so excited by all the companies who are researching and producing plant based foods that are healthful for us and the planet.
I wish the author would have tied this movement into the very pressing issue of climate change. And from a writing standpoint, the book does not hold up to the literary value of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. But these are picky complaints and I fervently hope you will read this book and support its goal.
I’m so excited by all the companies who are researching and producing plant based foods that are healthful for us and the planet.
I wish the author would have tied this movement into the very pressing issue of climate change. And from a writing standpoint, the book does not hold up to the literary value of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. But these are picky complaints and I fervently hope you will read this book and support its goal.
June 26, 2019
If stopping the cruelty of animal farming is your only global justice concern, this book will likely provide optimism and useful advocacy research. If, however, you are concerned about animal farming as one problem among many within the current global food system, this book is disappointing because its discussion of a "revolutionary" food system does not quite reach these other intersections (e.g. migrant worker exploitation, food deserts, monocrops/insecticides and the ensuing insect/pollinator decimation, soil health, and indigenous land rights, to name a few). Reese essentially seems to envision a future where "business as usual" food production becomes "business as usual, but without animals."
Of course, no one can fix everything, and society needs people with different interests and skills working on different problems in different ways. I'm not criticizing Reese for focusing on animal rights. The issue here is that the animal-free food system Reese describes would have to be dismantled to address the other injustices. "Animal-free" food products and companies could easily fall into other patterns of injustice (labor abuses, environmental damage, etc.) because they still exist in the framework of globalized industrialism controlled primarily by capitalist mega-corporations. Making these companies plant-based doesn't even scratch the surface of these other issues.
For example, foods considered "vegan" are just as likely to be harvested or processed by exploited workers, be shipped across the planet (emitting greenhouse gases and alienating local people from culturally important foods), and/or cause deforestation, pollution, and habitat loss. Some or all of these issues are currently present in many vegan staples like bananas, avocados, quinoa, coffee, etc. Reese does address this problematic result of labeling things (like "vegan," "cruelty-free," "natural," etc.), pointing out how it provides psychological relief and prevents further critical thinking. Unfortunately, his goal of creating an "animal-free" system without addressing these other problems seems to fall into that same trap, just on a larger scale. I presume that Reese might even see globalization as a good thing because it allows a bigger impact, a tenet of "effective altruism."
I was baffled by the lack of discussion of climate change in this book, except as a "separate issue" to be studied for its effectiveness as a social movement. When the author considers humanity's future, he seems to think interstellar colonization is more probable than humanity's extinction, which at this point appears at least equally likely. I would be very interested in a discussion of how climate change will affect the global food system and how plant-based eating could mitigate global food instability and make local communities more resilient, but there is no mention of these concepts in the book. This is surprising, as plant-based eating is listed as one of the top solutions for climate change, an issue that is arguably growing in the public consciousness even faster than animal rights. I went vegetarian because of the climate crisis, as I expect is the case for many plant-based eaters present and future, so joining up with the climate justice movement could be a crucial move for animal rights advocates, especially those focused on impact. For someone so eager to spread Western morality and human ideas of utilitarianism all over the earth (and galaxy!), I expected there to be at least a passing glance at the biggest current threat to humanity's future. Instead of this, Reese actually goes so far as to warn against this just because environmentalists often want to kill invasive species.
Since I knew that Chapter 8, "Broadening Horizons," was coming, I tried to give Reese the benefit of the doubt until then, hoping he would eventually address these issues of intersectionality. I was let down, since that chapter mostly focused on how to appeal to conservatives with a dash of "don't be racist!" advice thrown in. The chapter failed to address how all modern justice issues (sexism, species-ism, white supremacy, etc.) are deeply connected because of their basis on paradigms of superiority/domination and commodification of things that shouldn't be commodified (food, clean air, bodies, sexuality, etc.). In the last chapter, Reese's ideas about the future veer off toward the sentience of bugs and robots. I believe it would be more beneficial to discuss more pressing, but perhaps equally "radical", ideas like demonetization of food, localization of food systems and priority on indigenous sovereignty and teaching. This book was a good start to an overwhelming and crucial conversation, but there is much more consideration that needs to happen for an animal-free food system to also be a just one.
Of course, no one can fix everything, and society needs people with different interests and skills working on different problems in different ways. I'm not criticizing Reese for focusing on animal rights. The issue here is that the animal-free food system Reese describes would have to be dismantled to address the other injustices. "Animal-free" food products and companies could easily fall into other patterns of injustice (labor abuses, environmental damage, etc.) because they still exist in the framework of globalized industrialism controlled primarily by capitalist mega-corporations. Making these companies plant-based doesn't even scratch the surface of these other issues.
For example, foods considered "vegan" are just as likely to be harvested or processed by exploited workers, be shipped across the planet (emitting greenhouse gases and alienating local people from culturally important foods), and/or cause deforestation, pollution, and habitat loss. Some or all of these issues are currently present in many vegan staples like bananas, avocados, quinoa, coffee, etc. Reese does address this problematic result of labeling things (like "vegan," "cruelty-free," "natural," etc.), pointing out how it provides psychological relief and prevents further critical thinking. Unfortunately, his goal of creating an "animal-free" system without addressing these other problems seems to fall into that same trap, just on a larger scale. I presume that Reese might even see globalization as a good thing because it allows a bigger impact, a tenet of "effective altruism."
I was baffled by the lack of discussion of climate change in this book, except as a "separate issue" to be studied for its effectiveness as a social movement. When the author considers humanity's future, he seems to think interstellar colonization is more probable than humanity's extinction, which at this point appears at least equally likely. I would be very interested in a discussion of how climate change will affect the global food system and how plant-based eating could mitigate global food instability and make local communities more resilient, but there is no mention of these concepts in the book. This is surprising, as plant-based eating is listed as one of the top solutions for climate change, an issue that is arguably growing in the public consciousness even faster than animal rights. I went vegetarian because of the climate crisis, as I expect is the case for many plant-based eaters present and future, so joining up with the climate justice movement could be a crucial move for animal rights advocates, especially those focused on impact. For someone so eager to spread Western morality and human ideas of utilitarianism all over the earth (and galaxy!), I expected there to be at least a passing glance at the biggest current threat to humanity's future. Instead of this, Reese actually goes so far as to warn against this just because environmentalists often want to kill invasive species.
Since I knew that Chapter 8, "Broadening Horizons," was coming, I tried to give Reese the benefit of the doubt until then, hoping he would eventually address these issues of intersectionality. I was let down, since that chapter mostly focused on how to appeal to conservatives with a dash of "don't be racist!" advice thrown in. The chapter failed to address how all modern justice issues (sexism, species-ism, white supremacy, etc.) are deeply connected because of their basis on paradigms of superiority/domination and commodification of things that shouldn't be commodified (food, clean air, bodies, sexuality, etc.). In the last chapter, Reese's ideas about the future veer off toward the sentience of bugs and robots. I believe it would be more beneficial to discuss more pressing, but perhaps equally "radical", ideas like demonetization of food, localization of food systems and priority on indigenous sovereignty and teaching. This book was a good start to an overwhelming and crucial conversation, but there is much more consideration that needs to happen for an animal-free food system to also be a just one.
December 8, 2018
This book was great and so helpful. I've been vegetarian since 2010, and I've gone through periods of feeling frustrated and hopeless about how to make real progress in the field of animal welfare. I'm burned out on reading about the problems with our food system and eating meat, and it's not as easy to find high-quality content on what can be done realistically to address these systemic issues. Even if you eat meat, I think we can all agree that factory farming is truly horrific psycho shit, but it's such a firmly entrenched part of our broken food system that many of us feel powerless in the face of it. This book presents a plan for ending not just factory farming but all animal farming in a clear, pragmatic, strategic manner that focuses on institutional change with long-term effectiveness. This is the sort of practical approach that I have felt myself leaning towards more and more the older I get, not only with regards to animal welfare, but many other political and social causes. Thoughtful planning and effective altruism, not scare tactics and attention-grabbing strategies, can often make a much greater impact and lead to lasting change. The author almost sort of lost me towards the end of the book when he started talking about digital sentience (i.e. robots with feelings) and space exploration, as it seemed sort of thematically and tonally dissonant from the rest of the book, but overall, I thought this was such a persuasive and well-written guide to how we can actually make positive changes in our food system, for the sake of animals, the environment, our health, and our collective morality. Highly recommended to everyone (excellent choice for audio if you're into that).
January 19, 2021
This text may offer different payoffs to different readers. It's especially appropriate for casual vegetarians or vegans who haven't thought of themselves as advocates or activists before, providing a substantive and rational framework for thinking about the social change required to upend animal farming. (In the same vein, it may also be interesting for animal lovers who aren't committed to a plant-based diet; Reese explicitly denounces the exclusion of omnivores from animal welfare advocacy, after all.) It doesn't offer deep insight into the terrors of mainstream animal farming, though it doesn't purport to do so; it's not a 101 in that way, and other books—featured in End of Animal Farming's bibliography—have already succeeded at that job. I read it to understand the current alternative/clean animal product landscape, and it conveyed that understanding perfectly.
October 6, 2019
This is such an important book. I was looking for a book about the topic of animal farming that wouldn't just be a collection of horrifying descriptions of abuse and torture. Sure, there's some. But Reese focuses the majority of this book on solutions. I left this book feeling positive about the movement of plant based protein and the industry changes being made. Yes, there's a long way to go. However, we're heading in the right direction.
June 9, 2020
The author, Jacy Reese, co-founded the Sentience Institute, a nonprofit research think tank focused on "expanding humanity's moral circle." As he argues in the book, animals are currently outside of humanity's moral circle. Our lack of empathy for animals, especially farmed animals, leads to profound suffering. Reese touches upon our understanding of animals throughout history, then proceeds to discuss the rise of vegan tech (naming key players like Hampton Creek and Impossible Foods), the psychological reasons why people are hesitant to let go of eating animals, how to create a more inclusive movement, where the animal welfare movement should seek to expand (China and India), and how our moral circle might expand in the future (to AI and bugs).
This book is highly solution-focused. Reese shares what he believes are the successes and failures of the animal movement's messaging, analyzes the effectiveness of different animal-free companies and technologies, and offers suggestions for activists that go far beyond personal diet change. He recognizes that in order to be effective on a large scale, advocates must engage corporations that sell factory-farmed meat and emphasize the lower cost of animal-free options. Consumers must demand an end to the most horrific animal farming practices. Reese doesn't believe in shaming individual consumers for their choices, instead focusing on systemic change that will have much greater impact.
As someone who already knows that animals suffer immensely on factory farms, and who is already vegetarian, I found Reese's book to be a breath of fresh air. He is focused on improving messaging/tactics, including more of the general public, and working with companies and politicians to create change. This kind of thinking is what the animal movement needs.
This book is highly solution-focused. Reese shares what he believes are the successes and failures of the animal movement's messaging, analyzes the effectiveness of different animal-free companies and technologies, and offers suggestions for activists that go far beyond personal diet change. He recognizes that in order to be effective on a large scale, advocates must engage corporations that sell factory-farmed meat and emphasize the lower cost of animal-free options. Consumers must demand an end to the most horrific animal farming practices. Reese doesn't believe in shaming individual consumers for their choices, instead focusing on systemic change that will have much greater impact.
As someone who already knows that animals suffer immensely on factory farms, and who is already vegetarian, I found Reese's book to be a breath of fresh air. He is focused on improving messaging/tactics, including more of the general public, and working with companies and politicians to create change. This kind of thinking is what the animal movement needs.
July 16, 2023
Great audiobook with a very pragmatic take.
The calculation of minutes/days on the farm per 500 calories of different animal products, the discussion of the very human "collapse of compassion" issue with large scale problems, the negative consequence of focusing on consumer change ("oh I couldn't join your protest because I'm not vegetarian"), the discussion of the 1% of non-factory farmed animal meat giving us an "out" to imagine that each of us is somehow are eating that 1% exclusively, and the 4 N's of meat (natural, necessary, normal, and nice).
There's also quite a bit of positivity in this book (look how far we've come and where we appear to be moving). Working toward changing the economic forces at play in this system is making it easier and easier for more ethical eating to be both possible and normal.
If you're at all interested in the welfare of non-human animals, I would read this.
You don't need to be vegan or vegetarian to care about this problem. Living with a bit of cognitive dissonance is okay. 💖
The calculation of minutes/days on the farm per 500 calories of different animal products, the discussion of the very human "collapse of compassion" issue with large scale problems, the negative consequence of focusing on consumer change ("oh I couldn't join your protest because I'm not vegetarian"), the discussion of the 1% of non-factory farmed animal meat giving us an "out" to imagine that each of us is somehow are eating that 1% exclusively, and the 4 N's of meat (natural, necessary, normal, and nice).
There's also quite a bit of positivity in this book (look how far we've come and where we appear to be moving). Working toward changing the economic forces at play in this system is making it easier and easier for more ethical eating to be both possible and normal.
If you're at all interested in the welfare of non-human animals, I would read this.
You don't need to be vegan or vegetarian to care about this problem. Living with a bit of cognitive dissonance is okay. 💖
January 1, 2023
A concise and clear argument against the evil of animal husbandry, but absolutely riddled by logical fallacies (unnecessary inclusion in the first place) that undermine the argument. Also suffers from an annoyingly sanctimonious tone, even for those already on board with the discourse. 3.5.
March 29, 2022
When you're constantly bombarded with meat at every table and indifference about the plight of animals from most people, being vegan can be hard and the struggle often seems hopeless.
But this book gives me hope for a cruelty-free future and is a great introduction to the people, companies and technology working to make that world a reality.
But this book gives me hope for a cruelty-free future and is a great introduction to the people, companies and technology working to make that world a reality.
January 26, 2023
A lot of good information, but it reads like a text book, dry and passionless.
March 6, 2019
This book goes into my 'favorite' shelf on Goodreads. Jacy Reese writes so clearly it almost hurts. I am jealous of his skill. I don't think I'll be able to write this way for a long time. Much respect in that regard. The arguments that are particularly interesting & - more importantly - new are his discussion on animal rights advocacy that appeals to short-term attention (such as PETA's media focus on animal cruelty & silly animal costumes that get exposure for being scandalous) vs. much needed long-term credibility. Reese also distinguishes between institutionalized messaging (economic advances) vs. individual messaging (i.e., justifying eating meat because of personal choice).
Methods such as moral outrage have been proven to be inefficient, it is better to show direct ways that vegetarian/ vegan diets affect the planet. That is done by implementing short & concise messages, such as "End animal farming" or "America needs to eat less meat" & by seeking "collective solutions" like petitions against large companies (via Change.org for example) or op-eds that change the consensus among citizens. Animal rights should've been discussed as a collective issue with tangible solutions rather than that of personal choice in the 70s and in Singer's book that sparked the movement. Reese mentions that making these issues too abstract will lead to what social psychologists call "collapse of compassion" which is low compassion to big problems. An exemplary argument is: a vegetarian diet can save anywhere from 371-582 animals annually, but that is only an infinitesimal percentage of the billions of animals in factory farms (over 99% alive). One should expect to feel overwhelmed & discouraged because of the numbers.
Angry advocates are similarly ineffective. Focus not on the negative aspects when defending vegetarianism/ veganism but rather on the positive (health, happiness, goodness, empathy, etc.). Alternatives to angry protests should be "temporarily blocking slaughterhouse trucks" in order to give water to the animals, & participating in peaceful, professional, & respectable protests.
Vegans are often misrepresented for being aggressive anarchists, that can & should change in the coming decades. I believe Reese does an exceptional job at outlining how.
He concludes his book with pointing out something that advocates should remind themselves of: "If you recognize the moral catastrophe of animal farming, you are a moral pioneer. As you walk with other advocates, you stand on the footsteps of people from every generation, around the world, who have fought for other Copernican leaps in the expansion of humanity's moral circle such as the inclusion of women, people of color, and people who live in distant locations" (163).
Great book, Jacy Reese.
Methods such as moral outrage have been proven to be inefficient, it is better to show direct ways that vegetarian/ vegan diets affect the planet. That is done by implementing short & concise messages, such as "End animal farming" or "America needs to eat less meat" & by seeking "collective solutions" like petitions against large companies (via Change.org for example) or op-eds that change the consensus among citizens. Animal rights should've been discussed as a collective issue with tangible solutions rather than that of personal choice in the 70s and in Singer's book that sparked the movement. Reese mentions that making these issues too abstract will lead to what social psychologists call "collapse of compassion" which is low compassion to big problems. An exemplary argument is: a vegetarian diet can save anywhere from 371-582 animals annually, but that is only an infinitesimal percentage of the billions of animals in factory farms (over 99% alive). One should expect to feel overwhelmed & discouraged because of the numbers.
Angry advocates are similarly ineffective. Focus not on the negative aspects when defending vegetarianism/ veganism but rather on the positive (health, happiness, goodness, empathy, etc.). Alternatives to angry protests should be "temporarily blocking slaughterhouse trucks" in order to give water to the animals, & participating in peaceful, professional, & respectable protests.
Vegans are often misrepresented for being aggressive anarchists, that can & should change in the coming decades. I believe Reese does an exceptional job at outlining how.
He concludes his book with pointing out something that advocates should remind themselves of: "If you recognize the moral catastrophe of animal farming, you are a moral pioneer. As you walk with other advocates, you stand on the footsteps of people from every generation, around the world, who have fought for other Copernican leaps in the expansion of humanity's moral circle such as the inclusion of women, people of color, and people who live in distant locations" (163).
Great book, Jacy Reese.
October 2, 2021
This is a fantastic and worthwhile read for vegans and carnivores alike! When I first picked up this book, I was skeptical that it would be just another "people are bad, animals are good" read. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case and that the author provided evidence and justification for the end of factory farming without condemning those who still eat meat.
I went vegetarian in 2016, after falling down the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) rabbit hole for a class assignment. Seeing videos and pictures of where my hamburgers and bacon came from, I was shocked and vowed to never support the factory farming industry again. While PETA's campaign efforts opened my eyes to the violent world of mass meat production, I quickly realized that their campaigns weren't always ethical. The author in this book affirms my belief that there are better ways to promote a meat-free lifestyle than the ways in which PETA does so.
A ton of information is packed into this thin book. The author addresses factory and organic farming, "cage-free" egg production, and meat alternatives such as the "Impossible Burger". The reader is given an inside glimpse into ethical farms, animal sanctuaries, and even vegan companies. The last two chapters dealt with some very abstract and futuristic ideas, which were hard to grasp and really should not have been thrown at the reader at the very end. Overall, however, the author supplies concrete examples and results of his surveys to show the popular opinion.
Informative, precise, and interesting, this is a great book for those who want to know more about the factory farming industry.
I went vegetarian in 2016, after falling down the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) rabbit hole for a class assignment. Seeing videos and pictures of where my hamburgers and bacon came from, I was shocked and vowed to never support the factory farming industry again. While PETA's campaign efforts opened my eyes to the violent world of mass meat production, I quickly realized that their campaigns weren't always ethical. The author in this book affirms my belief that there are better ways to promote a meat-free lifestyle than the ways in which PETA does so.
A ton of information is packed into this thin book. The author addresses factory and organic farming, "cage-free" egg production, and meat alternatives such as the "Impossible Burger". The reader is given an inside glimpse into ethical farms, animal sanctuaries, and even vegan companies. The last two chapters dealt with some very abstract and futuristic ideas, which were hard to grasp and really should not have been thrown at the reader at the very end. Overall, however, the author supplies concrete examples and results of his surveys to show the popular opinion.
Informative, precise, and interesting, this is a great book for those who want to know more about the factory farming industry.
November 26, 2018
Jacy Reese's book is a must-read for everyone with any interest in the most important questions and trends in our food system. Reese presents lucid and compelling discussions on topics from biotechnology to human psychology to our moral views of animals and practically everything in between. He gives a grounded yet hopeful outlook of how we will come to create a more compassionate and sustainable food system through technological advances and institutional change.
For readers that don't know much about this topic, Reese's book will give you a comprehensive and accessible overview of the most pressing issues on the topic of animals in agriculture and the most important food innovations happening now.
Experienced activists, change-makers, and effective altruists will also find this book helpful in its focus of *how* we can make ourselves more effective in our work to speed up the transformation of our food system. There aren't many books that can be helpful to a general audience and for more specialized readers, but this is one of them.
Reese's book reads very quickly; you'll probably make it through the 160-ish pages in a few sittings. However the ideas and arguments presented in the book will make a permanent shift in how you see progress in our food system and in how we treat animals.
For readers that don't know much about this topic, Reese's book will give you a comprehensive and accessible overview of the most pressing issues on the topic of animals in agriculture and the most important food innovations happening now.
Experienced activists, change-makers, and effective altruists will also find this book helpful in its focus of *how* we can make ourselves more effective in our work to speed up the transformation of our food system. There aren't many books that can be helpful to a general audience and for more specialized readers, but this is one of them.
Reese's book reads very quickly; you'll probably make it through the 160-ish pages in a few sittings. However the ideas and arguments presented in the book will make a permanent shift in how you see progress in our food system and in how we treat animals.
October 6, 2018
Fantastic book that made me fantasise about quitting my job and starting a cultured meat business.
Reese is always polite in his book, but he does not mince words when it comes time to analyze the activists of the past (and, to lesser extent, present). Too often the focus has been on the individual and lifestyle choices: "Go Vegan". But this is a mistake, says Reese. Instead, activists should focus on institutional change. Vegan days in schools. Animal welfare laws. That sort of thinking.
Large portion of the book is dedicated on companies, that have created plant-based foods that could replace meat, such as Impossible Burger. Other way to end animal farming could be cultured meat, that is created from animal cells. Reese is confident that cultured (or "clean") meat will eventually replace animal farming.
Very nice: I'd say must-read for animal rights activists, but much recommended to everyone interested in societal questions.
Reese is always polite in his book, but he does not mince words when it comes time to analyze the activists of the past (and, to lesser extent, present). Too often the focus has been on the individual and lifestyle choices: "Go Vegan". But this is a mistake, says Reese. Instead, activists should focus on institutional change. Vegan days in schools. Animal welfare laws. That sort of thinking.
Large portion of the book is dedicated on companies, that have created plant-based foods that could replace meat, such as Impossible Burger. Other way to end animal farming could be cultured meat, that is created from animal cells. Reese is confident that cultured (or "clean") meat will eventually replace animal farming.
Very nice: I'd say must-read for animal rights activists, but much recommended to everyone interested in societal questions.
April 18, 2024
I was looking forward to reading this book after seeing how popularised it was within the EA animal advocacy community. I expected to learn about new impactful solutions to intensive animal farming, but the book seemed more fitting to someone who is just getting acquainted with animal advocacy. I don't think the advertising fit the book's content.
August 23, 2018
Full of inspiring ideas about the future of food system. Factory farming is outdated and no longer a logical solution to meeting the rising global food demands. This book sheds light on the transformation that is taking place.
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