By their own admission, Bon Appétit at Wesleyan maintains no internal standards for animal treatment in their sourcing of meat and dairy products. This policy, given the realities of the American food system, virtually guarantees that all such products come from factory farms. Factory farms are massive industrial plants in which often tens of thousands of animals are held in intense confinement and subjected to tremendous daily suffering. This policy is a direct contradiction of Bon Appétit’s self-promoted “commitment” to sustainability and social responsibility, as factory farms epitomize the mode of unsustainable industrial agriculture they claim to reject.
A brief summary of hazards:
Factory farms, and industrial agriculture more generally, are more responsible for the ongoing devastation of the ecosphere than any other human activity. It is estimated that 70% of US grown grain is fed to animals for consumption, requiring huge amounts of fresh water and fossil fuels. Global animal production contributes more to climate change than transport—almost one fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. And more locally, factory farms are directly responsible for the toxification of thousands of watersheds, aquifers and other sources of drinking water across the United States.
Billions of chickens and millions of pigs, cows and turkeys live miserably and die violently on factory farms every year. Their experience is unimaginably distressing, subject to intensive confinement, overcrowding and a horrifying, often excruciatingly painful end. Many of these animals never see the sun or breath fresh air, cannot engage in normal social behavior and are sick (despite being heavily medicated) for the majority of their lives. To not extend moral considerability to these non-human individuals has become an increasingly indefensible ethical position, one recently abandoned by such philosophical heavy hitters as Nussbaum, Korsgaard and the jurist Cass Sunstein.
Finally, few jobs are more dangerous or demoralizing than working in factory farms or slaughterhouses. Workers are vulnerable to injury from machinery, illness from constant exposure to fecal bacteria and animal borne diseases. Due to the nature of this work and because it is so low paying, the people performing these duties are mostly undocumented immigrants easily exploited because of their precarious legal status.
Clearly factory farming is unsustainable, grossly unethical and we should want nothing to do with it. That an allegedly “green,” “forward thinking” dining service like Bon Appétit buys entirely factory farmed meat and dairy and maintains no standards for animal treatment in these regards is egregious and unacceptable. We call on Bon Appétit to make good on their oft-promoted pledges of “responsibility” and immediately initiate a change in policy. Obviously the best solution is less meat, yet this should not be mistaken for a call for coerced vegetarianism. Rather, Bon Appétit should cease purchasing factory farmed animal products and adopt Food Alliance or Certified Humane standards, as hundreds of comparable academic institutions around the country have already done. These certifications are hardly unproblematic however they represent a critical rejection of what is without question one of the greatest atrocities of our time.
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