When foods become animals: Ruminations on Ethics and Responsibility in Care-full practices of consumption

Abstract

Providing information to consumers in the form of food labels about modern systems of animal farming is believed to be crucial for increasing their awareness of animal suffering and for promoting technological change towards more welfare-friendly forms of husbandry (CIWF, 2007). In this paper we want to explore whether and how food labels carrying information about the lives of animals are used by consumers while shopping for meat and other animal foods. In order to achieve this, we draw upon a series of focus group discussions that were held in Italy as part of a large EU funded project (Welfare Quality®). In the focus group discussions we addressed how, when or if, claims made about the lives of animals on food labels intervened in what the participants bought and ate. We contend that such labels bring the lives of animals to the forefront and act as new ‘subjectifiers’ (Latour, 2005: 212) that offer a new tool for becoming an ‘ethically competent consumer’, who cares about the lives of animals while shopping for food. However, this offer is not always easily accommodated within existing competences and previous commitments, as it requires a reassessment of existing, and often intimate, practices of shopping, cooking and eating. We argue that new labels carrying welfare claims, with their intention of increasing market transparency, produce two contrasting outcomes: they open new spaces of action, which offer an opportunity for investing in new competences and for engaging with animal welfare issues, in short, they allow an ‘ethically competent consumer’ to emerge, but they also produce another outcome, or a collateral casualty (Bauman, 2007), namely the ethically non-competent consumer. ‘In daily matters, be competent’ (From How to live ethically, the Tao Te Ching)

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on work carried out within the EU funded project Welfare Quality® project, we wish to thank our colleagues Antonella Ara and Diego Pinducciu at Pisa University who helped organising the Focus Group discussion in Italy. A special thanks to Larry Busch and John Law for their comments on an early version of this paper and to Mike Goodman and Cheryl McEwan for their insightful suggestions and their patience while acting as guest editors of this special issue.

Notes

Notes

1 See Miele, Kjarnes and Roex, (2005) Welfare Quality® Report No. 1 for an overview.

2 Eurobarometer 2005 and Eurobarometer 2007; see Law (2009) for a discussion on the use of surveys for addressing public opinion.

3 In the UK the Food Standards Agency is an independent Government department set up by an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect the public's health and consumer interests in relation to food. See http://www.food.gov.uk/aboutus/how_we_work/originfsa for a mission statement and details on this organisation. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was set up in January 2002, following a series of food crises in the late 1990s, as an independent source of scientific advice and communication on risks associated with the food chain. EFSA was created as part of a comprehensive programme to improve EU food safety, ensure a high level of consumer protection and restore and maintain confidence in the EU food supply (from http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_AboutEfsa.htm).

4 For a discussion on issues of trust in the food industry in Europe see Kjarnes et al., 2007

5 Freedom Food is the label developed by the RSPCA in the UK.

6 Liza Featherstone (2006) ‘Is Wal-Mart Big Green or Big Mean?’ The Nation, Sept. 1st available at http://www.alternet.org/story/41008/ and http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2006/nf20060329_6971.htm

7 A mechanism called isomorphism in political science as Elizabeth Ransom explains.

8 For an example see Mayfield et al., 2007 and the EU Action Plan on Animal Welfare 2006–2010, http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/welfare/com_action_plan230106_en.pdf

9 These particular focus group discussions were chosen from among the ones conducted within the Welfare Quality project in seven EU countries (The UK, Italy, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Hungary) in 2005. Welfare Quality (2004–2009) is a large EU integrated project funded under the VI Framework where over 50 University and research labs in Europe and in Latin America cooperate in order to develop an EU standard on Animal Welfare. As stated in the project description the standard will define an on farm assessment and a monitoring system of animal welfare that will be validated by current animal science findings, but it should address the main concerns of the EU citizens in their role as consumers and it should represent a workable tool for the EU stakeholders (see www.welfarequality.net). Focus group discussions were used at the beginning of the research to inform the following phases of the investigation (consumer telephone survey, citizen juries) as well as for providing information about the main concerns of the EU public to the animal scientists who were developing the assessment system and the on farm measures of animal welfare. For a full description of the methodology of the focus group with consumers and the results in each national case and the cross countries comparison see Evans and Miele, eds (2007) ‘Focus Group Report, part 1: National Cases’ Welfare Quality Report Series N.4, Cardiff: Cardiff University, and from the same authors, ‘Focus Group Report, part 2: Comparative Report’ Welfare Quality Report Series No. 5, Cardiff: Cardiff University, 2009.

10 For a review of the literature on ethical consumption see The Ethical Consumer edited by Harrison, Newholm and Shaw (2005).

11 Several previous studies addressed the question of the nature of consumers concerns about farm animal welfare, but most often they surveyed consumers who clearly stated that they were concerned about the welfare of farm animals. See Miele and Parisi (2001) and Harper and Henson (2001) among others.

12 See Miele and Parisi (2001), Harper and Henson (2001) and Miele and Roex (eds.) (2005) ‘Consumers’ attitudes towards farm animal welfare’, Welfare Quality Report Series No.1, Cardiff University.

13 Even though we excluded farmers and farmers’ spouses/partners.

14 For a full description of the products presented to the Italian consumers see the ‘Italian Focus Group Report’, in Evans and Miele (2007).

15 There was a third theme, which addressed the more specific problem of what is animal welfare and which criteria and measures they would consider relevant to assess and monitor it. This last part of the focus group discussion was a task specifically designed to give feed back to the animal scientists working on developing the principles/ criteria and measures for assessing and measuring the welfare of farm animals on farm.

16 (FG IT MLPNC, Interv. n. 7, M., 60).

17 Carpaccio consists of thin slices of raw beef dressed with lemon and various seasonings.

18 (FG IT MLPNC, Interv. n. 6, M., 66).

19 (FG IT MLPNC, Interv. n. 4, F., 43)

20 (FG IT RW, interv. F., 43).

21 (FG IT S, interv. n. 2, M., 65).

22 (FG IT MLPNC, interv. n. 1, F, 35).

23 Coop Italia and Esselunga

24 FG IT MLPNC, n. 7, M., 60.

25 FG IT MLPNC, n. 3, F., 41.

26 FG IT RW, n. 6, F., 37.

27 FG IT MLPNC, n. 4, F., 43.

28 FG IT RW, n. 1, F., 37.

29 FG IT S, n. 7, F., 56.

30 FG IT S, n. 2, M., 65.

31 FG IT RW, n. 5, F., 42.

32 FG IT MLPNC, n. 7, M., 60.

33 FG IT MLPNC, n. 3, M., 41.