Ellen K. Silbergeld

This should be required reading for anyone interested in issues around the production of animal products. The author steers a middle path between the agroecology movement that advocates traditional smallholder farming (including organic farming) and industrial farming. She has done extensive research on the subject and clearly knows her stuff.

Her main points are 1) traditional smallholder farming is not productive or efficient enough to meet the world's food needs, and often produces products that are priced out of range for more than upper middle class and higher consumers, and 2) some form of industrial farming will need to be relied on if we are to feed the world and provide food at prices that all consumers can afford.

Then, the bulk of the book shows the serious problems with the current way that industrial farming is being done, essentially showing that in terms of food safety we are almost back to where we were in the early 19th century when The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was published, a book that thoroughly exposed the food safety dangers inherent in the Chicago meat-packing industry of that time and the serious worker safety issues that were virtually ignored. She basically says that in terms of worker safety things are actually not changed at all since then.

The author also thoroughly exposes the problem of feeding antibiotics to farm animals and the crisis in bacterial antibiotic resistance the practice has spawned. She essentially shows that adding antibiotics to animal feed neither increases growth rates, nor does it prevent animal illness (since the concentrations are at sub-therapeutic levels). Why it is still being done is more that we have always done it than anything else, but it needs to stop before we make the antibiotic resistance problems even worse.

I fear that this book will be dismissed by both sides in the debate over the direction agriculture should take, which is a pity, because her approach is backed up by solid science, something that the two sides of the debate do not do so well. I hope that some of her recommendations are taken seriously by the powers that be.… (meer)

Researcher Ellen Silbergeld has written a balanced, evidence-based book about the industrialization of meat production. She details the history, practices, and problems of the meat industry. In a clear writing style, Silbergeld explains how workers, animals, and consumers are endangered by current methods of meat production. This is a book for everyone. Vegetarians and vegans are not exempt from the impact of meat production. Silbergeld provides an in-depth, yet readable, study of the wide-ranging environmental and health effects of factory farming. The book is not another argument for veganism. Silbergeld recognizes the realities of food production and consumption in the 21st century. Her recommendations are not an attempt to change people but to change the food production system. And she identifies clear actions that can be taken to accomplish that change. This is a book for thoughtful readers who seek to understand how we may ensure a safe and equitable food system, something Silbergeld makes clear our current food industry does not provide.… (meer)