Stockholm Resilience Centre Sustainability Science for Biosphere Stewardship

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Master’s Thesis, 60 ECTS

Social-ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development

Master’s programme 2018/20, 120 ECTS

Killing Them Softly: Moral Practices

in Swedish Cattle Farming

Hanna Wernersson

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Killing Them Softly: Moral Practices in Swedish Cattle Farming

HANNA WERNERSSON

Stockholm Resilience Center

Master’s Thesis, 60 ECTS

Social-ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development Master’s programme 2018/20, 120 ECTS

Submitted August 19, 2020.

Word count: 19986

ABSTRACT

To eat or not to eat meat? That has become a central question in the sustainability conversation. There is growing scientific consensus that the global meat consumption is socially and ecologically unsustainable. Planetary and human health concerns aside, there is also a moral dimension to meat, that is, the rights and responsibilities we have towards the animals that make the meat. While there is, indeed, mounting ethical discomfort with meat consumption, scientific and public moral inquiries tend to omit on-farm perspectives. This thesis zooms in on the moral sustainability of cattle farming and does so from the perspective of lived experience. Two Swedish cattle farms are selected as case studies and the question is how rearing animals for food is morally possible. Combining discursive and non-discursive methods of research, I uncover the narratives behind the farms’ different farming practices. For the analysis, I build an eclectic conceptual framework that draws on practice theory, the concept of morality, and human-animal studies. I show how human values, the physical environment of the farm, and understandings of animality interplay to create a specific farming practice. In these practices, certain human-animal relationships are possible while others are impossible. The nature of the human-animal relationships has implications for what is perceived as moral when animals are reared for human food. By showing how ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in our relationships with nonhumans form, the study broadens the meat discussion beyond concerns for human and planetary health. The aim is to equip the reader with tools to reflect over what human-animal relationship the meat we eat represents and, ultimately, what relationship we want it to represent.

Keywords: morality, practice theory, meat, cattle farming, human-animal relationship,

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PROLOGUE: “Does the researcher eat meat?”

When I contacted the large-scale slaughterhouse that is part of this study, the first question I got after having introduced myself and my project was: “do you eat meat?”. Caught off guard but nonetheless replying truthfully, I said “very restrictively”. The past decade I have mostly refrained from eating animals but if heart and mind align over an offering, I sometimes do. During all my initial contacts with the participants in this study, my relationship to meat came up and I gave this reply.

Scholars have long dealt with the morality of rearing animals for food, so what can I possibly contribute to the discussion? Yet another aspiring scholar, adding her two cents on the issue? As a researcher, you enter a certain research context with the goal to systematically answer a question. But you also enter this specific research context because you are you, because you have a certain background and line of interest that brought you to this place and that guides you in your observations.

I am an environmentalist concerned with the way we, human animals, relate to nonhuman animals. The red-thread throughout my past and present activities is food and farming. I was brought up on a farm in Sweden, have been a trainee on a dairy farm in New Zealand, worked with international food trade in Canada, written about local food networks in Scandinavia, and whenever I get a chance, I role up my sleeves for some farm work.

This time I am entering farmyards as a researcher, there with an agenda to understand the human-animal relationships present on these farms. Because it turns out that the do we/do we not eat meat question has seldom been addressed from the perspective of lived experience, that is, from the perspective of farmers and farm animals.

I believe my farming background will help me to constructively engage with the everyday farm lives that I am inquiring into. At the same time, I am currently living in a city pursing a Master’s degree in environmental science. None of my farming experiences have furthermore been in a setting where I have been dependent on the activity for my livelihood. To my research participants, I am likely perceived as an outsider—a city person.

I may not eat many steaks but I do have stakes in the matter. This research is also driven by personal curiosity. I believe that nonhuman animals have a place in our food systems but I do not believe the current scope and scale of our animal farming is sustainable. I am curious about the possibility that we can live alongside animals in a way that is mutually beneficial and that this relationship can sometimes end with the animal being slaughtered for food. I believe a relationship of use can also be a good one. But I do not know what such a relationship might look like and have therefore decided to pursue this question.

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INTRODUCTION

Fancy a steak? Meat has become part of the discourse on the unsustainability of the Western way of life. In particular, it is cows that are (part of) the problem: the scope and scale of contemporary cattle farming is a main driver behind the transgression of several planetary boundaries (Bowles et al. 2019; Clark and Tilman 2017; Mekonnen and Hoekstra 2012) and high levels of beef consumption is a source of diet-related illnesses (Willett et al. 2019). There is a growing scientific consensus that, in order to safeguard human and planetary health, we ought to shift to plant-based diets in which meat is a minor ingredient (de Boer et al. 2014; Röös et al. 2015).

The meat question is about much more than meat. To address problems in terms of isolable and measurable causes—e.g. cows’ green-house gas emissions—is familiar scientific grounds, but the risk is that we devaluate what is not easily measured (Eisenstein 2018). For example, to say that we should eat less meat to reduce emissions is to imply that if emissions were not a problem, we would be fine. If we can only figure out what to feed the cows in order to cut their emissions—such as Burger King’s newest hamburger made from cows fed with lemongrass (Lucas 2020)—there is no need to reflect over the scope and scale with which we are rearing animals1_{for food.}

This is to omit the moral dimension of sustainability. Without disregarding the importance of the work to model and measure the quantitative impacts of cattle farming, to discuss meat consumption from the perspective of planetary or human health is to leave out the question on morality. That is, the rights and responsibilities we form and have, or ought to have, toward others. In this case, toward the animals that make the meat. There is a case for exploring the qualitative reasons for reducing meat consumption because while the quantitative reasons keep piling up, global meat consumption is increasing and is expected to double by 2050 (FAO, 2006).

Planetary and human health concerns aside there is, indeed, mounting moral discomfort with animal farming. In the Western world, there is a growing number of animal rights groups, enactments of animal protection laws, and louder sounding consumer calls for ‘humane’ farming practices (Miele 2016; Gutjahr 2013). Correspondingly, it is argued that if the sustainability agenda is to be successful science ought to more consistently engage with questions of morality (e.g. Allevi et al. 2014; Rawles 2010 in Webster et. al 2010). Research must go beyond the identification and mitigation of negative consequences of our current way of living and connect that knowledge with moral questions on our relationships in and with the world (Blyton and Franklin 2011; Gladwin et. al 1995).

Yet, farmers and cows are often missing in the discourse on meat. Going through the 1960-2010 editions of Bonniers Kokbok, the Swedish kitchen staple, Danius (2014) shows how the animals left the kitchen as industrialization entered the food system. If the 1960 cook book reader was looking at pictures of actual cows, the 2010 cook book reader studies drawings of

1_{Humans are animals too! This research is concerned with human and nonhuman animals but, for ease of reading}

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different meat cuts—the cow as a whole living being is nowhere to be seen. The vast majority of consumers have furthermore been found to possess little, if any, knowledge of the most common animal farming and slaughtering practices (Miele 2016). Similarly, scientific and public inquiries tend to neglect the viewpoints and experiences of farmers or include them as interests rather than morally worthwhile in themselves (Driessen 2012; Wilkie 2010). This means that the lived experience of raising animals for food—what it actually boils down to on a day-to-day basis—is overlooked and there is a risk that this truncates and skews our understanding of and debates on animal husbandry.

The topic of this thesis is the moral sustainability of cattle farming. As a complement to system analyses assessing the biophysical and public health consequences of different farming practices, I inquire into the moral consequences of cattle farming. To take a moral perspective on cattle farming is to regard practices of farming as reflective of certain society-nature relationships and to ask questions on what is actual, possible, and desirable in these relationships. Essentially, this thesis attempts to bring the farmers and the cows ‘back in’ and encourage reflection on what kind of human-animal relationship we want the steak on our plates to represent.

My starting assumption is that meat is likely to remain part of the human diet for years to come. While tackling the moral aspect of animal farming, it is not an inquiry into the basic ethical issue whether we should rear, slaughter, and eat animals. Put differently, I do not approach it as a

yes or no question. The yes/no question tends be asked off-farm and remain in the abstract

(Driessen 2012). Instead, this thesis explores what is considered morally acceptable when we

are rearing animals for food—a how to and how not to question. The how to/how not to

question is asked on-farm and starts from the point of lived experience. It is to approach morality as something that is imbued in acting and not merely something of the mind and it necessitates inclusion of the ‘experts’—the farmers and farm animals that make the meat. Taking an ethnographic approach, I step onto farmyards and inquire into the relationships that make up different farming practices. The question is,

How is raising animals for food morally possible in modern cattle farming?

The scope of inquiry includes the whole process of rearing animals for food, from breeding to rearing to finishing and is situated in the context of the Global North2_.

Aim of thesis

I will employ the theoretical lens of practice theory which holds that the world is made up of relationships that become visible through everyday doings—practices. My interest in the moral

2_{This geographical delimitation is the result of considerations of various nature. (1) Personally, I wanted to explore}

a research context that is close to ‘home’ and my own everyday moral conduct. (2) Being mindful of my

positionality, I wanted to do a research project in which I felt capable to be sensible of the social and political

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sustainability of cattle farming means that my research focus is on how practices are (made) moral, in other words, what a moral cattle farming practice may look like. The reader could here object that the term moral practices is tautological. If morals are understood as ideas about rights and wrongs in our relationships, and farming practices are understood as particular sets of relationships, is not a practice automatically moral? The reader is not wrong. But there is a point to the tautology: I am using the term moral practices to put attention to how we come to perceive of right and wrong in our relations with nonhuman others and how this governs our actions.

Through the use of audio-visual material, a narrated write-up, and other creative methods of research, I aim to uncover the narratives behind different farm practices. I want to create a space for the farmers’ voices and give a voice to the farmed animals. The goal is not to speak for farmers and farm animals but to tell stories of them.

In sum, I have two aims with this thesis: to (1) put attention to how we come to perceive of right and wrong in our relations with nonhuman others and (2) to invite the reader to think through what it means to rear animals for food in the 21st_century.

Case Study Context

The studied farms are i) a small-scale family run diversified farm and ii) a large-scale farm that has specialized in the rearing stage of cattle farming. The respective farms’ slaughterhouses are also included in the study: a small-scale slaughterhouse serving a local network of farmers and a large-scale slaughterhouse with both national and international distribution.

The selected two cases reflect the contemporary (re)structuralization of cattle farming in Sweden and elsewhere in the Global North. Farms are decreasing in numbers and growing in size: herds are becoming bigger while more and more labour is automated. Today, less than 2 percent of the population in Western countries are farmers and fewer still are animal farmers (Wilkie 2017; Jordbruksverket 2017a). The same holds true on the killing front: fewer slaughterhouses are slaughtering more animals faster as technological developments increase the line speed. In Sweden, three slaughterhouses are slaughtering more than three quarters of all cattle destined for human food (Jordbruksverket 2020). At the same time, however, there is an increase in alternative practices. Combining traditional methods and knowledge with modern equipment and market channels, these practices resist industrial3_{modes of production}

(Hultgren 2018; Garnett et al. 2017). This countertrend exists at the stage of slaughter as well, the past decade has witnessed the opening of several new small-scale slaughterhouses that are often connected to specific farms or slaughters for a limited number of local farmers (Hultgren 2018).

While reflecting the way Swedish cattle farming is currently structured, the sample is not meant to be representative for Swedish cattle farming as a whole. The aim is to record how rearing

3_{With industrial I mean modes of production in which focus is on volume and efficiency, two values that are}

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LITERATURE REVIEW: Cattle Farming

Albeit the cows and the farmers are the protagonists in cattle farming, studies of cattle farming tend to study farmers and cows separately or omit them all together. In this section, I synthesize the different approaches that have been taken to study the human-animal relationships of the farmyard. Collecting valuable insights from these approaches, I then make the case for studying farmers and cows together, as co-creators of farm practices.

Studies of cows or of farmers

Sahlin (2018) notes that the cows are seldom included in studies on sustainability and cattle farming and, if they are, it is through the lens of animal welfare.4_{Animal welfare is the most}

common framework with which the animals’ conditions in farm settings are addressed5_{. The}

concept combines scientifically-derived thresholds and economic goals to specify technically-correct methods for handling farm animals in productive settings; it is an instrumental framing and does not address other dimensions of the human-animal relationship (Buller and Morris 2003).

Animal welfare legislation typically centres around three pillars: ‘suffering’, ‘health’, and ‘natural behaviour’. In practice, it materializes in the form of targeted interventions developed for a hypothetical standard animal (e.g. the practice of anesthetization before disbudding6

cows). The first two pillars mainly stipulate conditions for welfare (free from suffering, possession of health) rather than the constitution of welfare (what a good life for a given animal might be) (Buller 2013).

The third pillar—the ability to express ‘natural’ behaviour—gets closer to the actual constitution of welfare. But, as Porcher (2011) and others have noted, ideas of ‘natural’ often fail to recognize farm animals for their specificity—animals held by humans in productive settings. Most conceptualisations of species specific ‘normal’ behaviour are derived from ethological studies of animals in the wild (Segerdahl 2007). It is plausible, likely even, that ‘natural’ means something different in the wild compared to on a farm. What is ‘natural’ in a farm environment should take both animals and the people that care for them into consideration. To hold otherwise is, Segerdahl muses, to imply that the farmer does best in staying as far as possible away from the farm (2007:178).

4_{Sahlin (2018) further notes that sustainability research that does include the cows often do so in terms of possible}

trade-offs between environmental sustainability gains and improved animal welfare (e.g. Llonch et al. 2017). Problem: this move brings us back to a scope of inquiry limited to concerns for the human living conditions.

5_{Animal welfare is related yet distinct from animal rights. Animal rights frameworks address the question whether}

animals possess rights that (ought to) liberate them from human spheres of interests (a good example of this approach is Korsgaard 2018). The scope of this thesis is what is considered moral when animals are reared for food, that is, when animals are positioned in a human sphere of interest, and literature on animal rights will therefore not be included.

6_{Disbudding is performed within the first two months of the calf’s life and is performed by a veterinarian. Local}

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In a similar vein, rural sociological studies7_{have traditionally studied farmers separate from}

their animals and farm. Darnhofer (2020) explicates a humanistic tradition in which farmers are often studied as autonomous decision-makers who—through reasoning—construct understandings and meanings about their farm and act accordingly. Alternatively, focus is on the social context and the farmers’ decisions are the result of prevailing cultural norms. For both approaches, emphasis is on the cognitive, and the role of emotions and embodied experience is downplayed or disregarded. These constructionist approaches furthermore tend to search for explanations in categories: gender, socio-economic positioning, conventional, organic etc. are taken as entry roads to understand the nature of what is being studied (Darnhofer 2020). The same logic is present in animal welfare constructions of ‘natural behaviour’: wild and domesticated animals are grouped together based on specie belonging and the needs and desires of a farm animal are inferred from the needs and desires of its wild ‘referent’.

To sum up, in both animal welfare research and traditional rural sociological studies, animal farming is conceptualized as a set of interactions between a ‘farmer’ and ‘animals’: animals are and do certain things, farmers are and do certain things, and they interact in a chain of (farmer) actions and (animal) reactions. Without disregarding the contribution of these approaches in enriching our understanding of the farming landscape, they hardly allow for animal or farmer identities to mean different things in different contexts (Darnhofer 2020). For example, the analysis may stop at “conventional farmers’ top priority is productivity” and “all cows are caring mothers”. The risk is a homogenized portrait of animal husbandry that in turn opens up for simplified statements such as “intensive bad, extensive good” (Wilkie 2010:8).

Studies of farmers and cows

Following what has been termed an ‘animal turn’ in the field of sociology, research focus has shifted from interactions between farmers and their animals to farmers’ relationship to their animals. In this waxing multi-species scholarship, animals are studied as subjects rather than objects and considered to be part of human societies, rather than existing on its margins (Wilkie 2015).

Studying British small-scale farmers and hobbyists, Wilkie (2010) and Holloway (2001, 2002) found that economic and emotional considerations often co-exist. The animal protection movement tends to focus on raising awareness that animals are sentient (having the ability to feel) and subjective (possessing individual personality) beings, implicitly assuming that commercial farmers treat their animals as mere objects (Wilkie 2010). The idea of sentience and subjectivity is, however, not incompatible with ‘making use of’8_{. To care about and know}

the animals is both a source of occupational pride and a necessity for everyday farm life. Animal handling is largely a combination of generic knowledge about ‘animals’ in the form of science and common knowledge and personal experience of individual animals (Holloway 2001; Gullo, Lassiter, and Wolch 1998). By getting to know the animals—who prefers to be in the front of

7_{Rural sociology is the study of the social organization and processes that are characteristic for rural areas}

including, but not limited to, farming activities. See for instance Van der Ploeg’s study (2013) of how agricultural labour processes convert objects of labour into products.

8_{Similarly, when discussing domestication Ingold (2002) points out that the use of force presumes a sentient being}

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the line and who cannot be left alone—one can adapt and tweak activities to have the operation run more smoothly.

The most ‘extreme’ example is breeding. In the practice of breeding, both psychological and physiological traits are selected–simultaneously recognizing and reconfiguring animal subjectivity, making work easier and, possibly, more productive. As an example, dairy farms with automated milking systems select cows for breeding that are prone to ‘learn’ to go to the robot milker to get milked (psychological trait) and that have udders whose shape fits the robot (physiological trait) (Holloway 2007).

Farmers also find it is easier to perform painful standard procedures (e.g. disbudding) if they feel close to their animals. To express sentiments of care legitimizes the pain; it is a ‘necessary evil’ in providing for the animals’ wellbeing. Similarly, if the farmers can vouch for the animal having had a good life, the slaughter is legitimized and easier to deal with (Holloway 2001). The underlying idea here is that of a symbiotic relationship. Domestication is often depicted as a historical social contract in which animals get feed and fodder in exchange for landscape services and flesh (see for instance Budiansky 1992)9_.

In large-scale industrial settings, the role of emotional bonds is more ambiguous. Based on her ethnographic studies of industrial pig farms, Porcher (2011) claims that workers and animals are bonded together through suffering. The scale and speed of these farm models force workers to treat animals insensitively, resulting in emotional and psychological distress for humans and animals alike. Buller (2013), on the other hand, holds that emotions are essentially an impossibility in industrial settings. Animals are kept in large herds that blur individuals into a ‘mass’ while mechanization and automatization minimize points of contact between humans and animals. Emotional bonds presume encounters and by being physically kept apart from individual animals, the workers are ‘nurtured’ into not caring.

A lack of emotional bonds is, however, likely not an essential feature of large-scale farms. Even though her study did not include large-scale and industrial farms, Wilkie (2010:185) cautions against the idea that notions of care are absent therein. Given that this is the way the vast majority of animals destined for food are brought up today, this would mean that there is a whole labour force out there incapable of feelings. Commodification10_{, she reminds us, is more}

of a process than a state. Cattle farmers walk a fine perceptual line in order to be able to regard their animals as simultaneously commodities generating economic income and as sentient beings making affective claims. The conclusion is therefore not that the large-scale cattle farmer does not know her animals at all, rather that she knows fewer of them. In instances where cows get injured, sick, or in any other way requires additional attention, individual cows can ‘break free’ from the herd and become valued individuals (Wilkie 2010).

9_{Palmer (1997) offers a contra-reply: “[e]ven if Budiansky is right, and historically in some sense animals ‘chose’}

or gave ‘tacit consent’ to domestication, this is no longer a possible ‘choice’ for current generations of animals. The nature of the ‘animal contract’ is such that once in, it is impossible to get out” (1997:21).

10_{Commodification is the process whereby a ‘thing’—e.g. a person, an animal, an object—is turned into a}

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It is becoming clear that contemporary farmyards are home to multiple, sometimes contradictory, processes that involves farmers, animals, and the materiality—the physical landscape—of the farm. Slaughter bring this complexity to the fore; despite the presumption that farm animals exist to be killed for food, slaughter is a phase that needs to be managed one way or another.

Studies of slaughter

Domestication can be read as a shift in the human-animal relation from a focus on death to a focus on life: from hunting and killing to bringing up and then killing (Budiansky 1992). The chronology matters and allows for a division of animal farming into the separate stages of breeding, rearing, and finishing. The different stages are often occurring on different sites which sets a pragmatic boundary between life and death. As an example, many cattle farmers find it hard when animals die at the ‘wrong’ time due to illness or sickness, regardless of the fact that all animals on their farm are inevitably destined for death (Wilkie 2010). Despite relying on slaughter as a source of income, farmers can be critical of slaughterhouses. Farmers remain physically and cognitively on the life side of cattle farming and can carve out a “moral haven”, that relieve them from having to deal with the most problematic part of the process: the killing (Birke et al. 2007:158). Someone else has to, literally, do the dirty work.

In his ethnographic study of a large-scale American slaughterhouse, Pachirat (2011) found that the logic of separation is equally important inside the slaughterhouse and operates along multiple dimensions. There is a physical separation: the facility is designed to fragment the process of slaughter into distinct stages, a disassembly line if you like. The fragmentation abstracts the killing so that, at any stage, it is hard to perceive of the live animal that makes the dead meat.

There is also a social fragmentation: through reinforcing racial, citizenship, and education hierarchies it is the most disadvantaged ‘others’ who, Pachirat (ibid) argues, are coerced into doing the dirty work. Additionally, slaughterhouses are male-dominated sites that are characterized by a de-emotionalized macho culture (see also Cudworth 2017). Noteworthy, Wilkie (2010) argues that this work culture of emotional distance is becoming hard(er) to uphold as more women are strapping on the rubber boots in Western slaughterhouses.11

The separation also has a cognitive dimension: the ‘problem’ of killing is isolated to the very beginning of the process, to the knocker box where the animals are stunned. This is where the killing happens—even though it is the sticking that occurs after the stun that actually kills the animals by bleeding them to death. Consequently, the knocker is the ‘only one’ that kills in the slaughterhouse and personnel working further down the disassembly line believe they are merely processing ‘food products,’ and not slaughtering animals (Pachirat 2011).

Finally, this carving out of moral havens in the slaughterhouse is enabled by a discursive separation: as soon as the animal has been stunned, it becomes a ‘carcass’ and subsequently ‘briskets’, ‘t-bones’, ‘ribs’, and other parts to be processed. Morgan and Cole (2011) argue that

11_{See also Porcher (2008), on how female farm workers generally exhibit more care and concern for the animals}

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animals must be repositioned discursively from subjects (steers) to objects (steaks) to reconcile the transition of animals as sentient beings to be cared for, to animals as commodities to be consumed.

This holds as much inside the slaughterhouse as outside it. In 1998, two Tamworth pigs escaped on their way to slaughter in the UK. They were on the run for a week before being caught. By that time, the pigs had achieved a status of national fame and were bought for a price 20 times their slaughter price. The lucky fugitives spent the rest of their lives in an animal sanctuary. The pigs were saved because they resisted their fate as food; they outsmarted the farmer and deserved to “end their lives […] in peaceful old age” (Daily Mail in Morgan and Cole 2011:126). The pigs were portrayed as beings possessing traits that we value in humans—“smart” and “determined”—and thus rendered “unkillable” (Taylor 2017).

To study cattle farming practices

As shown by this review, the study of animal farming has remained largely human-centric. The farmyard has been explored through the emotions and experiences of the farmers, how they ‘deal with’ the different aspects of raising animals for food. Research steps have been taken from interactions between the farmer and her animals to the farmers’ relationship to her animals. The farm and the farm animals are still, however, largely rendered passive. Yet, as implied, the materiality of the farm matters for what relationships are possible (e.g. Porcher 2011; Buller 2013) and animal personalities can be known and allowed to influence the way things are done (e.g. Wilkie 2010; Holloway 2001, 2002, 2007). Correspondingly, physical and discursive practices are guided by and guide the way animals are valued, as living beings or meat-in-waiting (e.g. Pachirat 2011; Morgan and Cole 2011).

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Combining the concept of morality, the premises of practice theory, and the insight from the literature review that there is a need for a relational approach, I develop a conceptual tool to study how farm practices are co-created by farmers and farm animals. The section will proceed step-by-step: defining and operationalizing (1) Morality, (2) Farm Practices, and (3) Moral Farm

Practices. Finally, these sections will be brought together and introduce the reader to a

conceptual tool: (4) A ‘triangle to think with’.

Morals?

I make a distinction between morals and ethics. Ethics evaluates the impact of human conduct according to universal principles whereas morals are situated, embedded attitudes and beliefs that pertain to conduct in a particular place (Lynn 1998a). Put differently, ethics are general principles and morals are place-based principles. This means that morals do not exist outside of relationships; they are the defensible—articulated or intuitively held—reasons for behaviour and statements that define the rights and wrongs in these relationships (Holloway 2002:2057). A research interest in morals is therefore largely descriptive: my task is to identify and describe the moral values of the farmyard.

Carter and Charles (2011) rightfully note that a descriptive approach risks becoming de-politicizing and relativistic. If the source of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is inherent in and of relationships, can moral exercises ever be anything more than tautologies? Is it not to say that things are if they are good and they are not if they are not good, and that this is without the fault or credit of anyone? In the case of morality, Lynn (1998b) reminds us that the choice is not between moral principles that are valid for everyone, always, and everywhere (universalism), and principles that are always relative to the particulars of culture and personal preference (relativism). These are ideal types that can only take us so far because “[o]ur world is not only more complex than we know, but more complex than ideal typologies can ever represent” (ibid:231).

Take the case of instrumental (good-for-something else) and intrinsic (good-in-itself) value— two moral values that are often presented as mutually exclusive. Drawing on feminist theory, Haraway (2008:73) points out that if we say that instrumental value is automatically objectifying and oppressive, we make freedom the opposite to the necessary. If freedom is the opposite of the necessary, it can only achieved when the necessary work has been ‘shuffled’ onto someone else. Instead of this ideal type approach—a relationship is either instrumental

or intrinsic—we should allow for a relationship of use to, potentially, be a good one. My point

here is that, in the same way that a relationship does not have to be either intrinsic or instrumental, a moral analysis does not have to be either universalistic or relativistic.

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the cases will encourage me and my readers to engage actively with, and think critically about, the worlds that we are invited to take part in. Haraway urges us to never leave the farm practitioners in “moral comfort, convinced of their righteousness” (2008:75). While recognizing that morals are situated in place-based relationships, morals are not taken to be protected from critical analysis.

Farm Practices?

Within sustainability science, the social-ecological systems perspective (SES) have advanced the recognition that nature and society are inherently interconnected and should be studied as such (Folke et al. 2011). There are, however, limitations imposed by conventional research tools: in theory, the interrelation between nature and society is inextricable but, in scientific practice, it is common to study the ‘social’ separate from the ‘ecological’ (Raymond et al. 2013; Cooke et al. 2016). Insights generated from the two separated perspectives are complementary but hard to integrate and the risk is that the simplistic social-natural dualism is reinforced, rather than challenged (Darnhofer 2016).

To take a moral perspective on cattle farming is to regard different modes of farming as reflective of certain society-nature relationships and I operationalize morals by employing the lens of practice theory. Practice theory holds that the world is constituted by relationships that become visible through everyday routines and doings—in a word, through practices. Practice theory is used across a wide range of disciplines including sustainability science (e.g. West et al. 2019; Herman 2016; Mellergård and Boonstra 2020). It is nested within a process-relational ontology built on the premise that relations, rather than entities, are foundational to explain the nature of existence12_{. Rather than studying cattle farming as the result of cause and effect}

between separate social (e.g. economic performance of farm) and ecological entities (e.g. the zoonotic diseases), farming is here understood as an unfolding process that is simultaneously formed by and forming the relationships of the farmyard (Herman 2015). As an example, the outbreak of a zoonotic disease (ecological entity) is not ‘merely’ causing economic loss to the farm (social entity) but is also the result of a certain economic system in which scale-enlargement and intensification are promoted—intensive systems are more susceptible to disease outbreak. The higher risk of disease outbreak is, in turn, encouraging further scale-enlargement in order to ‘buffer’ against economic losses which further increases the risk of disease.

A practice is made up of several components—values, behaviour, materials and their use, relations, and know-how—that are routinized into a choreography of sorts, a certain understanding of what it means to perform a certain activity (Reckwitz 2002). In the case of cattle farming, farmers become/are/do/know things, animals become/are/do/know things, and from the interplay between these two subjectivities and their material and social surroundings, a certain farming practice emerges (Law and Miele 2011). Farming is a collaborative process between farmers, nonhuman beings, and the materiality of the farm. It is not only the farmer that has a say in how things are done (Darnhofer 2020). Sensory experiences—a smell, a feeling, a sound—stemming from interactions with animals,

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machinery, or infrastructure can open up for ways of doing that lay outside of the farmer’s imagination. As an example, a dairy farmer in Iowa told me how he is not separating his calves from their mothers within 24 hours as is customary. This rather unique feature of his farm practice came about some years ago when a herd of calves escaped from their designated calf pen to reunite with their mothers. As an experiment, he decided to follow their lead and kept calves and mothers together. When the cows were milked, the herd of calves kindly waited outside of the milk parlour. After three months, he noticed that the calves separated on their accord, “losing interest in their mums, they broke off into calf-packs and roamed around in juvenile delinquency”.

Farming is not, however, a collaborative effort of equal say. Some practice-based approaches operate on the premises of a ‘flat’ ontology in which everything is said to have an equal opportunity to impact by virtue of mere existence, independent of social positioning and intentionality (see for instance Actor Network Theory in Wilkie 2015). The risk here is an “ethical passivity” that reproduces rather than challenges dualities and inequities between the human and nonhuman world (Arcari 2008:78). If agency is undifferentiated, it is also everywhere and questions of moral responsibility becomes impossible (Boonstra 2016; Malm 2018). Such an approach conceals hierarchies and, indeed, Arcari (2018) shows how practice-informed studies tend to characterise power as a generalised and unlocated phenomena that is just ‘there’. While it is recognized that practitioners form part of practices on different conditions, how these different conditions are constituted is left unscrutinised. In the case of animals, they are ‘brought back’ by being included as practitioners and often recognized to be subordinated to human practitioners (e.g. being used for human purposes), but how they are subordinated (e.g. if they are being eaten or milked) and what this subordination means for their lives (e.g. living for 15 months or four years), are often overlooked (Arcari 2018).

While the social cannot be explained without the natural, there remain a key difference between the two, especially when discussing moral responsibility13_{. Human and animal}

identities are interdependent but, as evident in the case of animal farming, there is a species hierarchy at play; it is humans who do things to animals. To be a “farm animal” is something that is done to an animal rather than a neutral status that certain species occupy.14_Drawing

on Charles and Carter’s sociological conception of agency (2011), I therefore understand agency as relational. Agency is not a capacity that a being possesses, rather the capacity to act is constituted by and contingent on one’s social positioning. This positioning entails a certain set of capacities, constraints, and interests. Animals occupy a position within our societies and through their social interactions with us, they are agents. There are, however, important limitations to their agency— in the Global North, which is the context of this research, animals possess a subordinate position.

13_{Also, for analytical purposes, cuts or slices of moments in time need to be made somewhere—even in}

process-relational ontologies. For a good example, see West et al.’s (2019) practice theory informed study of the relationship between knowledge and action. Knowledge and action are taken to be coproduced yet, for way of clarity, the authors are keeping them analytically distinguished.

14_{Contra to e.g. Darnhofer (2020), I am also making a qualitative difference between animals and the farm—both}

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Finally, while regarding the cows as co-practitioners, I do not want to infer what goes on in the animal world. I cannot possibly know, nor ask, about animals’ intentions. Indeed, doing so would ultimately reinforce the dualism I seek to challenge15_{. While we do not share language}

with animals we do, however, share bodily existence. Our bodily meetings are, to borrow the words of Haraway (2008), “contact zones” in which activities, understandings, and relationships emerge. The question of farm animal agency, then, is ultimately a question of how animals are constituted as co-practitioners in the contact zones of the farm; how they are shaped and directed by and allowed to shape and direct the farm practices.

Moral Farm Practices?

Morals are simultaneously about creating and taking care of practices. Moral obligations do not exist out there, but emerge on the farmyard through interactions between farmers, farm animals, and farm material. The needs and responsibilities that exist between farmers and nonhuman farm beings materialize through everyday doings on the farm (Herman 2015). A practice is moral when these relationships of needs and responsibilities are set up in a way that ‘works’ (Reckwitz 2002). Morality therefore functions as a logic that stabilizes practices by synchronizing the actors and components that make up a practice (Arts et al. 2014). How practices are made moral differs between different settings, as exemplified by contrasting farming styles.

Although morality serves to stabilize the practice, it does not set it in stone. Farming is an ongoing process and ambiguities and apparent contradictions are indications of the multiple and dynamic relationships that make the practice (Darnhofer 2020). Values can change, new technologies emerge, and our understanding of animals develop. When changes to any of the components that make up a practice happen, the practice might fall out of synch and morals must be set anew. This can be done by adjusting the way things are done or by reformulating values and understandings to fit the circumstances. Irrespectively, morality is necessary because it is not tenable for a practice to be continuously out of sync (Arts et al. 2014).

An illustrative example of the ‘synching logic’ of morals is Higgin et al.’s (2011) study of slaughter stunning practices. 16_{Employing a practice-based approach, they show how the}

practice of stunning is the result of a certain configuration of practice components. Stunning is today considered a necessity when slaughtering animals. This was not always the case, rather it is a necessity that has emerged in tandem with changing perceptions of animal sentience. The stunning equipment is furthermore designed based on ideas about animal bodies and behaviour—why captive bolt guns are used for stunning cattle and electric stun baths are used for chicken. To sum up, the equipment used in the slaughterhouse (stunning cows with a captive bolt gun) embodies certain values about what needs to be done (do not cause the cows

15_{As suggested by Arcari (2008), the impossibility of understanding the intentions and motives of animals is not}

necessarily constrictive, it might actually be constructive. Given that we are currently in the sixth species extinction, nonhumans might fare better if we do not try to understand all that goes on in their mind worlds. Seen this way, to try to infer would be to make yet another claim on our (unlimited) accessibility to the lives of animals (Arcari 2008:73)

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pain) when killing animals for food. These values are in turn informed by certain understandings of what an animal is: cows are sentient beings that are rendered unconscious through a strike to the forehead. Taken together, these components and their relationship is what renders the practice of stunning good, or moral.

A ‘triangle to think with’: Values, Materiality, and Animality

Values, materiality, and understandings of animals emerge as basic concepts into which the multitudinous components of farm practices can be organized to aid the analysis. Value is the importance farm practitioners assign to something (themselves, others, activities, ideas) (Lynn 1998b). Animality is our constructed meanings of animals and key concepts include agency, subjectivity, and sentience (Buller 2013). The materiality of the practice includes the physical landscape of the farm, equipment, applied knowledge, and labour divisions; the way the farm is designed and the equipment and machinery that are used, reflects and necessitates certain skills and working relationships (Law and Miele 2011).

Having combined the concept of morality, the premises of practice theory, and insights from human-animal studies, I obtain a conceptual framework—a ‘triangle to think with’17_{. The triad}

of values, materiality, and understandings of animality are used as a heuristic to chart the relationships of the farmyard and answer the question how raising animals for food is morally possible in modern cattle farming.

The ‘thinking triangle’ gives me three sub-questions: 1) What values are guiding the farm practices? (VALUES)

2) What equipment, skills, and working relations are employed in the farm practices? (MATERIALITY)

3) How is the nature of the farm animals constructed in terms of agency, sentience, and subjectivity? (UNDERSTANDINGS OF ANIMALITY)

17_{I argue that practice theory is necessarily eclectic, it has to be ‘filled’: concepts and theories that are relevant to}

the specific practice in question must be employed in order to bound, study, and understand the practice. See for instance Law and Miele’s (2011) engagement with literature on veterinarian science in their practice based study of the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak in the U.K. or Higgins et al.’s (2011) engagement with regulatory frameworks for slaughter and human-animal literature in their study of slaughter practices.

A

M

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The logic between the three sub-questions constitutes the morality (or, the “how” in the research question): for instance, a farmer’s understanding of animals (3) will necessitate certain material arrangements (2) in order to be compatible with values (1).

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METHODS

Farm practices include both human and animal practitioners in addition to both tangible (e.g. articulated values, infrastructure) and intangible (e.g. unconsciously held values, habituated behaviours) aspects. I therefore use a combination of discursive and non-discursive methods. This section guides the reader through my methodological choices for (1) Data Collection, (2)

Analysis, and (3) Presentation. Finally, I offer a (4) Critical Reflection of methods and data sources.

Data collection

The study combined participatory observation and semi-structured interviews.

I spent three days on each farm observing and partaking in the daily activities and one additional day at each respective farm’s slaughterhouse. The field work followed a data collection plan, a theoretically informed guide to provide me with structure and flexibility. The visits to the two farms had to be similar enough in terms of observations made and questions asked so that they could be compared to one another in search for similarities and differences. At the same time, it was important to allow for adjustments in the field(s) to collect the data necessary for answering the research question. The farms and slaughterhouses operate on different scales, under different conditions, and have different work day rhythms.

To be able to account for these differences, the data collection plan drew upon on Hannah Pitt’s (2015) methodology of “knowing by being shown” in which the researcher generates knowledge of the research environment by being guided around by expert guides—the practitioners of that environment. While having points of observation that applied across the cases, I let the farmers, farm animals, and slaughter(wo)men guide and show me their ‘flow of life’. This led to a combination of moderate and active participant observations18_(Spradley

1980): at times, my research participants put me to work while in other instances, I stayed in the background for safety reasons. Having the practitioners by the steering wheel allowed me to experience the farm practices more like they do and I was constantly encouraged to discover aspects of the practices I had not thought to look for.

The participant observations focused on what is being done, how, by whom, and the interaction between farmers, animals, and farm (MATERIALITY and ANIMALITY). Following morality being conceptualized as a strive towards synchronization of practice components, attention was paid to the performance of routine practice but also to ruptures (Reckwitz 2002). What is moral or not moral is to be found in the performance of daily farm activities in which certain happenings

18_{In each of the participant observation roles, the researcher is located in the research context but engages with}

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are perceived as ‘routine’, ‘good’, and ‘functioning’ (e.g. animals sent to slaughter) whilst others are ‘eventful’, ‘bad’, and ‘interruptions’ (e.g. animals dying on farm).

The participant observation paired conventional methods with more creative ones. As noted by Dowling et al. (2017), to put emphasis on relations and take agency of nonhumans into account necessitate a re-imagination of data collection methods. I dedicated one day on the farm to participant observation with the animals. During this day I moved with them, followed them around to get a sense of what, where, and when they do things. Note taking and photography were combined with audio-visual methods for data recording: movie-making, drawings, and recording of the farms’ soundscapes.

The data collection at the slaughterhouses differed from the farm field work as rules of hygiene and work-place safety limited the degree of my participation. This was especially true for the large-scale slaughterhouse where I was guided around the slaughterhouse and instructed to be mindful of machinery and conveyor belts and to not obstruct the work-flow and potentially cause safety hazards. The visit to the small-scale slaughterhouse was naturally more intimate given the small space and there were moments when I was asked to give a helping hand such as hanging the liver onto the ‘intestines hook’ and loading meat boxes into the truck for deliveries.

The large-scale slaughterhouse furthermore has a no-photography policy to protect staff from becoming targets of public criticism and many employees have expressed discomfort with visitors taking pictures. To not cause unnecessary distress and for achieving consistency across the field visits, I decided to not make any audio-visual recording at any of the slaughterhouses and instead I relied on field notes and drawings.

The interviews were in narrated format and focused on why things are being done the way they are, how they came to be done this way, and what the role of animals is perceived to be (VALUES and ANIMALITY). Values and beliefs are embedded in the everyday performances they guide and therefore likely embedded in everyday talk. As suggested by Satterfield (2001), “storied talk” might be the (only) way to tease them out.

Interviewee (pseudonyms used) Position

Anna Owner Smallville

Emil Owner Smallville

Bo Owner Bigville

Joyce Employee Bigville

Smallkill Director Director at the Smallkill slaughterhouse Bigkill Director Director at the Bigkill Slaughterhouse

Table over conducted interviews.

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staff, family members, and neighbours arose. These ‘walking interviews’ were valuable to get a sense of the broader social and ecological context in which the farm practices take place. I conducted similar interviews with the directors of respective slaughterhouse (the interview with the large-scale slaughterhouse director was not recorded upon request). I also got fewer opportunities for informal conversations with other personnel following the comparatively shorter time spent at this slaughterhouse (two hours compared to a full work-day at the small) and the fast work pace which do not allow for much interaction.

Prior consent was received for all data collection19_.

Analysis

Interviews were transcribed and visual (photos and drawings) and audio-visual (videos and sound recordings) data put into words using ‘thick descriptions’—activities as well as context were described in detail—, it is ironic yet necessary to use words to describe non-discursive material. Following Saldañas suggestion, I paid attention to not censure or edit the descriptions. Instead, I aimed for “messiness” (2013:52). My field notes also formed part of the coded material.

In a first cycle of coding, I identified the actors, activities, and tangible/intangible components that make up the practices. A second cycle of coding followed, in which these components were organized into the three basic concepts of the Thinking Triangle (VALUES; MATERIALITY; ANIMALITY). In a third cycle, I analysed the relations between the basic concepts to identify what triangle configuration exists in each practice, that is, how the practice is made moral. An organizing first round of coding in combination with subsequent strategic rounds, is a hybrid coding strategy that suits research that includes different data forms and where different components and processes are to be discerned from the data (Saldaña 2013:188-193).

Presentation

The goal is to not speak for my participants but to tell stories of them. The use of creative methods for data collection has been a strategic choice to allow me to experiment with how farm practices can be (re)presented on paper in a way that triggers the imaginary. The cases are introduced using a combination of narration and audio-visual material. The results are presented in the format of the ‘thinking triangle’ followed by a discussion section in which I combine narration from the farms with interpretation anchored in previous scholarly work. Narration that formed part of the analysis but was omitted for reasons of space limitations is appended in full (APPENDIX I: Practice Narratives). A longer narrated section from the slaughterhouses is appended (APPENDIX II: A ‘Moral’ Kill), inviting the reader to experience the everyday work on Swedish slaughterhouse floors and to think about the research question in an alternate format.

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Critical reflection of methods and data sources

Although the scope of inquiry is the whole process or rearing animals for food—from breeding to rearing, and finishing—the data collection was limited to the month of December 2020. This limitation was addressed to some extent in the interviews where the farmers were asked to cover the parts of the year that fall outside the time for my visit. It should be noted, however, that other data sources, such as audio-visuals and participatory observation, could not be generated to triangulate what was being said. This is more problematic in the case of Smallville whose practice varies with the seasons; not as much for Bigville whose activities remain largely the same throughout the year.

The data collection plan served a threefold purpose: to ensure (1) reliability, by encouraging systematic data collection across the two cases; (2) validity, by being flexible enough to constructively address the research questions; and 3) transparency, by serving as a framework that forced me to reflect on when and why I deviated from it.

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MEET THE CASES

This thesis studies two farms which I have renamed for reasons of anonymity (farmers, family members, farm animals, slaughterhouse personnel have also been anonymised). Smallville is a diversified family-run farm in Northern Sweden that raises cattle, chickens, and sheep. In addition, they have a vegetable garden. Bigville is a large-scale farm in Southern Sweden that raises chickens and bulls. The two farms work with two different slaughterhouses, which I call

Smallkill and Bigkill. Following is a portrait of the farms and slaughterhouses combining

linguistic and audio-visual data from participant observations and interviews.

Smallville

I first got in contact with Karl, one of the founders of Smallkill, through a common friend. Karl agreed to have Smallkill being part of the study on one condition: that I come for a pre-visit to experience the landscape before the snow, track the cow trails in the forest, and to meet the farmers that are part of the Smallkill network to see who might be interested in the study. During my pre-visit in late October, I was introduced to Smallville.

Smallville is run by Emil, Anna, and their children Max and My. They bought Smallville in 2012, it was love at first sight. Emil is born in the village, Anna in the neighboring village. They produce all that they eat except for cheese and milk. Of which they buy a lot.

In the beginning, they got to borrow some cows from Emil’s dad—the Director at Smallkill— just to try it out, to see what it is like to be a farmer. Back then, in 2012, the farm was only supposed to be a hobby but soon enough they bought their own cows. Now they have 25 cows of which 11 are steers (all bull calves are castrated) and one is a bull. In addition, they have pigs, sheep, chickens, and a vegetable garden in the summer. All the animals are kept outside on pastures with access to windshields during the winter months. They do not know exactly how much pasture they have but 20ha was mentioned. They slaughtered their first steer in 2015 and got 200 kilos of meat that they had no issues finding customers for.

They have never regretted turning their lives into farming lives. They seem to constantly have new projects in the loop, always keen on exploring and testing. The question right now is whether they can have the pigs to clear out the overgrown pasture they recently acquired. After all, they are pretty good at rooting, those pigs …

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The goal is to live off the farm but for now, they are dependent on external incomes. Emil has a forestry company and Anna works extra at the slaughterhouse, butchering and packaging. But hopefully they will soon be able to farm full-time. The key to become independent is to learn how to do things yourself, like building windshields and fixing machinery. They do not have any lease contract but own their own equipment, alternatively they contract someone in the neighbourhood to do work for them such as cutting hay in the summers.

Anna and Emil question the commonly held idea that a low meat price20_necessitates

scale-enlargement. The low price is what the slaughterhouses pay, it is not an objective reality. They do their own slaughter through Smallkill, sell their meat in meat boxes online, and get SEK185 per kilo. The challenge—and the key to success—is to inform consumers about their production process and the values they stand by.

Smallville operates on natural time, a logical consequence of an outdoor practice. The timing of activities is dependent on seasons: calves are born in April, hoofs trimmed in May, cows are on summer pasture from mid-May through October, and the bull mates with the cows between Midsummer and August. Steers are sent to slaughter in the fall—when they are ‘ready’ and there are consumers awaiting. There is a spontaneity to life in Smallville: there are re-occurring activities during the day (morning and night feed and check-up rounds), but these are not minutely scheduled.

20_{In July 2020, Swedish farmers were paid an average of SEK40-45 per kilo meat, with the highest price paid for}

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Soundscape

The cows’ living landscape is integrated in the natural surroundings which brings surprise and dynamism to the soundscape:

SMALLVILLE.mp3

Smallkill

The Smallville cows are slaughtered at Smallkill, a small local abattoir that measures just over 20 square meters and has a max capacity to slaughter six animals per week. It resides in the locales of what was previously a manufacturing industry of some sort, neatly tucked into a forest clearing on the outskirts of the village. They slaughter on Tuesdays—if there are animals to be slaughtered. On their website it is said that their opening hours vary, they get started when they are ready and finish when they are done.

Smallkill was founded in 2012 by some farmers that were tired of sending their animals on long travels to the nearest large-scale slaughterhouse. The slaughterhouse is run like a share-based corporation and has around 30 owners, including the founding farmers. Smallkill does not buy any animals, instead farmers buy the slaughter as a service and manage sales and distribution themselves.

Most of the equipment in the slaughter hall is mobile and depending on the activity—killing, butchering, packaging —the room is re-designed. The founders of Smallkill built the slaughterhouse themselves with parts and design bought in Austria (they went there on a research trip, found this one and brought it home with them). They have twisted and tweaked the construction throughout the years. None of the machinery is fully automatic; rather the machinery functions as an extension of human hands. The skinning is done by hand, saws are

Audio-visual data SMALLVILLE Farm materiality

- integrated human and animal living spaces the first thing I see is animals - big old barn in middle of farm used as sick stable

- snowy pastures

- wind shields

- fences and wires

- water troughs, electrically heated - hay feeders

- the light changes throughout the day all the pictures I take in the mornings are dark, same with

the afternoon ones. Only pictures taken during the day are bright and colourful

Animality

- cows walking around hay feeder not happy with the feed, looks for more or better - cow joining the eating group eating when they want to

- cow walks away from feeder eating when they want to

- cow slowly walking across field, stopping sometimes, looking around, continuing, disappearing out

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handheld, and the overhead rail system can be lowered or raised to adjust the height for sticking, splitting, and trimming. Smallkill owns all of their equipment and make most of the repairing themselves, sometimes with the help from people in the village.

Besides the slaughterhouse Director, there is one other full time employee, Bea, and a few hourly paid extras, including Anna, that help with butchering and packaging. And then there is Karl, who is not employed but seems to be working at the slaughterhouse every day. Gender-wise, there has always been a close-to equal division between women and men among the staff. Karl holds that the profession of slaughter is for those who care, about animals and people. Karl told me that he some years ago was called up by a girl, not yet in her twenties, who wanted to come and learn how to slaughter. In a high-pitched voice she enthusiastically explained how much she loves animals. Karl, surprisingly good at mimicking, said that he hesitantly agreed to the request. “Perfect!” the girl had exclaimed, “I really do love animals. You see, I raise my own rabbits, kill them, and eat them too”.

Bigville

I got introduced to Bigville through the national producer association for cattle farmers (Sveriges Nötköttsproducenter). They circulated my research proposal among their members and got hold of Bo. Bo connected me to his contact person at Bigkill who in turn passed on my request to the slaughterhouse board and eventually to the Bigkill Slaughterhouse Director who agreed to include the slaughterhouse in the study.

Bo is the owner of Bigville. He was born on the farm and took it over from his father in 2015 upon returning to Sweden after years in the Middle East working for a Swedish agricultural input company. Bo has a university degree in agronomy, is active in various associations, and has received several industry awards for his work with developing his farm and the industry at large.

Bigville is home to 500 bulls and 150 000 chickens21_{. All animals are held indoors in brand new}

(the chicken stables were built in 2015 and the bull stable was finalized in 2019) modern facilities with many of the latest features available on the market such as climate control systems and automated feeding systems that can tailor the feed for different pens of animals. The chickens are the cornerstone of the company. The automated system allows them to raise 150 000 chickens on a 30-day cycle with only one employee, generating a steady income that supports the less lucrative bull side of the business. The chickens also finance Bo’s various projects to enhance the farm’s resilience: they recently built a reservoir that collects rain-water

21_{The average herd size for a Swedish cattle farm is around 40 cows while a “large” cattle farm is defined as a}

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and runoff from the fields, serving the dual purpose of providing water for the crops and counteracting eutrophication that is a concern in this part of Sweden.

At one point, Bo was contemplating to do only chicken farming but then he would have been working pretty much alone. He decided to keep the bulls, telling me that, after all, it is the people that make farming fun. He is social, Bo. And, I soon learnt, a much-appreciated boss. Bigville does not breed their own bull calves but buys two weeks old calves from dairy farms in the region. Bulls grow faster than steers, why castration is not part of the practice. In addition to the bulls, there are about 80 suckler cows on an adjunct farm: the “Girls Farm”. They are in charge of taking care of the 80 hectares of pasture that Bo owns. The bulls are raised on a 15 month cycle and split their life between the calf stable and the bull stable. The first six months they live in groups of seven in straw bed boxes in the calf stable. The rest of their lives, they spend in the bull stable on slatted rubber floor in pens of 15-20 animals. Close to everything— feeding, watering, and cleaning—is automated in the bull stable.

Stockholm Resilience Centre Sustainability Science for Biosphere Stewardship

Master’s Thesis, 60 ECTS

Social-ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development

Master’s programme 2018/20, 120 ECTS

Killing Them Softly: Moral Practices

in Swedish Cattle Farming

Hanna Wernersson

Killing Them Softly: Moral Practices in Swedish Cattle Farming

HANNA WERNERSSON

Stockholm Resilience Center

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE: “Does the researcher eat meat?”

INTRODUCTION

Aim of thesis

Case Study Context

LITERATURE REVIEW: Cattle Farming

Studies of cows or of farmers

Studies of farmers and cows

Studies of slaughter

To study cattle farming practices

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Morals?

Farm Practices?

Moral Farm Practices?

A ‘triangle to think with’: Values, Materiality, and Animality

A

M

METHODS

Data collection

Analysis

Presentation

Critical reflection of methods and data sources

MEET THE CASES

Smallville

Smallkill

Bigville