Breaking with the animal production paradigm: a major issue for organic husbandry

Summary

Can organic animal husbandry become a prototype for future animal farming? If so, under what conditions? In this chapter, it is shown that organic farmers are currently finding it difficult to distinguish their practices from those imposed in animal production. This applies mainly to the transport and slaughtering of animals, the choice of breeds or genotypes, the specifications and, more broadly, the utilitarian and economic paradigm underlying organic animal husbandry as reflected in the ambiguous term, “organic animal production”. Apart from issues of conceptual definition, which are indeed crucial, the actual challenges of organic animal husbandry—between “animal welfare” and biotechnologies—are huge. Data are based on the results of numerous interviews with animal farmers and their employees in France, Belgium, Portugal and Quebec, as well as specific studies on 30 organic animal farmers. The archetypal example of an organic pig farmer attests to the lack of support that organic farmers receive and to the solitude in which they have to deal with ethical issues stemming from the collective organisation of work modelled on the “conventional” approach. The sustainability of animal husbandry and the potential added value of organic methods depend on the capacity of organic husbandry to break with the animal production paradigm, to give up its utilitarian approach and to take the meaning of work for farmers and for their animals into account.