For more than ten thousand years, humans — that is, ever since they began the process of domesticating certain animal species — have established an intense relationship with them, one characterised, if not by love, then by great respect, knowledge and gratitude. Today this ancestral relationship appears to have fractured, perhaps irrevocably, as a result of the industrialisation of farming, which has reduced animals (but not only animals) to the status of machines. What could be salvaged from farming today? Is it still possible to live with animals? These are the questions from which the research of Jocelyne Porcher departs — a French sociologist at the Institut national de la recherche agronomique (Inra) and author of the essay Vivere con gli animali. Un'utopia per il XXI secolo.

Where there is industry, no farming is possible

What does the author mean by farming? Clearing up any misunderstanding from the outset, she specifies that "industrial farming does not exist — where there is industry, no farming is possible." Porcher therefore holds that in farming the affective dimension is just as important as the economic one. In farming, animals retain an individuality; they are nonetheless destined to be killed, but in the meantime, in return, they are housed, fed and cared for.

Animals or machines?

From its very beginnings, animal husbandry has regarded animals not as living beings capable of suffering and happiness, but as machines — sources of profit. According to the author, it is essential, not only for animal welfare but to preserve our own humanity, to continue living and cooperating with animals, preserving that relationship of co-work and empathy that has characterised our society for millennia. The advent of capitalism produced a degradation of human relationships, and the same happened with animals. "While yields increased on one side, the joy of being with livestock dissolved into columns of figures and calculations about their productivity."

Animal and human suffering

Animal husbandry has thus transformed the bond between humans and animals into a utilitarian relationship "founded on contempt and the denial of both human beings and animals." In industrial animal production, Porcher argues, there exists a kind of contagion of suffering between animals and workers. The immense pain that permeates those highly mechanised facilities, where thousands of animals are slaughtered every day, is thus reflected in those who work there. "Suffering results, on the one hand, from the physical fatigue of the work, but also, and above all, from its violent content." This violence inevitably clashes with the emotional involvement that develops between workers and animals. If one wishes to avoid suffering in these facilities, Porcher suggests, it is better "not to love the animals. The only ones who can afford to be sentimental are the independent farmers."

The bond has been broken

"There would have been a before and an after," Porcher writes with bitterness. "Before: domestication, proto-farming and then peasant farming. After: science taking charge — that is, animal production — marking the end of the history of our archaic relationship with animals." The progressive disappearance of farms as Porcher understands them, running in parallel with the advance of intensive livestock operations, brings about, alongside environmental degradation, the loss of the relationship that has always existed between farmers and animals: "in the name of profit, farming, farmers and farm animals are disappearing." As a consequence, consumers no longer really know what farming is — "many do not know that for a cow to produce milk she must have a calf."

Animals in human society

Animals, despite what animal husbandry has tried to instil in us, are not merely objects of labour, but "take part in social life. Working with animals is equivalent to living with animals. Human societies have been built, for better and for worse, together with animals. They are part of us, part of our identity as human beings." There is a relationship of exchange between farmers and their animals, according to the book's author. "Animals give their presence, their trust, their affection. They communicate with their farmers and accept the rules of work. Farmers too give affection to their animals, show them respect and admiration, and do their best to offer them a good life. It is not a matter of denying death, but of remembering that death and life are inseparable. And what matters to farmers, before death, is life."

The future of farm animals

Farm animals are therefore on the verge of extinction, the author warns, amid general indifference. "The loss goes unnoticed because we do not know what we are losing. Farming cannot be reduced to its productive logic. It is a piece of our culture, a piece of our history. The history of humans and of animals. It is a common good."

A vision of farming that is not (solely) utilitarian

Porcher seeks to ennoble farming by pushing its utilitarian dimension into the background. The analysis of the relationship between humans and animals is usually grounded in the concept of interest; the French sociologist holds instead that "thinking about domestication in utilitarian terms reduces our relationship with animals to a purely self-interested one, whereas on the contrary we have relationships with animals in which utilitarian attitudes and a disinterested approach are intertwined."

The difference between farming and animal production

The book's author is firmly convinced that there is a clear separation between farming (which has lasted 10,000 years) and animal production (which has existed for only a hundred and fifty years), and that the latter is not the logical continuation of the former. "Highlighting the fundamental differences that exist between these two types of activity means not using the word farming when what is meant is industry, and vice versa." Words, then, matter. How should intensive livestock operations be defined? "A set of activities founded on the division of labour and specialisation, whose object is the large-scale exploitation of domestic animals with a view to their transformation into consumer goods, achieving the best and fastest technical and financial yield possible."

The dependence on productivity

Animal production is centred on productivity; animals must produce and meet certain standards, otherwise they are slaughtered. "As Isabelle Sorente points out, numbers have become a drug for us — we depend on them to live. The production of numbers ends up substituting itself for our thinking. For Sorente, only the feeling of compassion will allow us to recover our reason."

How animals die

The author recounts her own experience inside several slaughterhouses, which she visited in the past to carry out research on animal welfare. In slaughterhouses, Porcher argues, the greatest suffering is caused by the tight schedules dictated by the need to produce and kill en masse as quickly as possible. Moreover, she paradoxically contends that for animals reared in good conditions the industrial slaughterhouse generates greater suffering. "Pigs that came from industrial production systems arrived at the slaughterhouse without radically changing their universe. This is not the case for animals that come from organic systems."

How to counter the environmental impact of livestock farming

Porcher naturally acknowledges the damaging environmental impact of intensive livestock farming, which contributes massively to polluting and deforesting the planet. However, she considers the solutions proposed to contain this problem to be partial, and argues that they generally offer no alternative other than vegetarianism. In the report Filière animale et climat, the authors suggest increasing the production and consumption of soya and poultry, while also conflating "livestock farming" with "animal production". This confusion, according to the author, "reveals the ignorance of many people as to what farming really is."

The future of livestock farming

"Livestock farming is disappearing as a working relationship with domestic animals." Jocelyne Porcher does not conceal her pessimism, believing that returning to live with animals in a more solidary and humane way is, precisely, a utopia. "How can we think of attributing value to the lives of animals, when our own value as human beings is denied? We ourselves become beasts of a slaughterhouse without faith or law, in the image of animal productions: animal matter, human materials sold at auction." Nevertheless, the author invites us to dream — to dream of a world governed by a "politics of civilisation," in which we will need to rethink another working life with animals, because living with them is still possible and because without them we would no longer be human, reminding us, however, that "to continue living with animals, we must change the foundations of the world."

On Saturday 16 September Cheese will host a conference on the theme of animal welfare, taking into consideration aspects such as feed, space, mutilations and grazing. Among the speakers at the conference Allevare gli animali o vivere con gli animali is Jocelyne Porcher, sociologist at the Institut national de la recherche agronomique (Inra) and author of the book Vivere con gli animali – Un'utopia per il XXI secolo, recently published by Slow Food Editore.