From Ian Davis
Speaking as a British beef farmer I agree wholeheartedly with Peter Singer (7 October, p 22). I have always refused to defend both pork and poultry production in the UK on the grounds that to do so was to condone utterly inhumane production systems. Our beef is “single suckled”, the system whereby the cows calve in spring and then suckle their calves at grass all summer before the calves are weaned away from their mothers in the autumn and sold on to be reared for slaughter. This is as natural a system as can commercially be made to work, and suits the animals well.
What Singer fails to address is that the “factory” farming systems have been brought about by the cut-throat pressures of the modern food retail chain and the demand for ever cheaper food.
“Finished” cattle ready for slaughter are still not trading at even 80 per cent of the prices they were making in the mid-1980s but costs have almost universally risen. If the consumer wants ethical and holistic food they must pay for it, and the retailer must pass on the extra margin. This is where farmers’ markets are working so well.
Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK
