When contemplating the raising of animals, there are certain essential responsibilities that cannot be overlooked. Of course we would all agree that human health is probably the pinnacle of these concerns. But how many of us have a grasp on the corollary issues surrounding animal health. For instance, in our efforts to keep our animals healthy, if we feed them antibiotics, what are the related human health risks? As Wendell Berry has pointed out, "The animal factory becomes a breeding ground for treatment-resistant pathogens, exactly as large field monocultures become breeding grounds for pesticide-resistance pests." (Citizenship Papers, p. 127) Therefore, we must ask ourselves if we are making any actual headway toward minimizing human health risks by generating super-strains of treatment resistant pathogens.

 

While not wanting to sound unduly alarmist, I am struck by the global rise in occurrence of treatment-resistant malaria and tuberculosis and one tragic case of Brazilian beauty queen, Mariana Bridi. According to the AP, when she contracted a seemingly ordinary urinary tract infection, "The bacteria spread quickly and inexorably through her body, proving to be extremely drug resistant. In a desperate bid to save her life, doctors amputated her hands and feet. But in days she was dead." (Cyprus Weekly: Lifestyle, p.91, 1/30 - 2/5, 2009) Who can say whether or not animal hosts and antibiotics played any role in creating this drug-resistant super-strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria? But the fact that such "low antibiotic susceptibility" super-stains, which easily mutate to develop resistance to new drugs, are possible ought to make us a little more circumspect about how they can arise.

 

While I lack the expertise to define any concrete causes or suggest any remedies, I am not above asking some very pointed questions. That is the onus of this article -- to ask the question, "What are our essential responsibilities regarding animal husbandry?" If human health is the pinnacle of these concerns, then oughtn't a much more rigorous approach to how pathogens develop and migrate be engaged? What role do animal antibiotics play in moderating human susceptibility to infection and disease? What role does the environment and animal nutrition play in animal susceptibility to disease? How do animal-carried diseases affect humans? How do nutritional additives of any kind, fed to animals, affect our own health risks?

 

"A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows." (USA Today, AP: Drugs found in drinking water, 9/12/2008) If prescription drugs are known to leech into the water after having passed through water purification plants of large cities, can we ethically ignore the possibility that drugs used to treat animals might also leech more directly into our own bodies as we consume their meat, milk, and eggs? What effects will these drugs have on humans? These are all questions responsible agrarians must ask.

 

As I see it, here are the central areas of responsibility: 1) Nutrition -- what are we feeding our animals (medicines, nutritive additives, GM feeds, etc.) that could be harmful to us? 2) Environment -- what risks (waste management, lack of biodiversity in animal diet, lack of exercise, etc.) does the intensification of animal populations in confined areas pose to animal health and ultimately to human health? 3) Resource and Energy conservation -- at a time when global concern over peak oil is on the rise, can our nation as a whole really afford the cross-country shipment of feed grains when local grains and pastures are still so available? With the loss of topsoil and the draining of local aquifers for the irrigation of thirsty feed-crops to feed our livestock, do mega-livestock-operations really represent our best use of diminishing resources or would smaller local operations be more in order?

 

In my short tenure as a devoted student of agrarian interests, it seems to me that every issue of agrarian responsibility can be reduced to one of these three areas -- nutrition, environment, and conservation.

 

The question that arises in my mind is this: "Is that which is vital for animals equally vital for humans?" The answer is an unmitigated "Yes." Nutritional, environmental, and conservation management are three disciplines, largely forsaken, that must be restored to the forefront of human concerns. In the same way that it is unhealthy to throw large concentrations of animals together into small agricultural environments, which lack the means to sustain them naturally, it is equally unhealthy and even more reprehensible to cast humans into their urban equivalents. In the same way that the nutrition of our animals ought to be of vital concern to us all, so, too, and even more so, human nutrition ought to occupy more of our thinking. In the same way that resource conservation can spell the health or death of a farm, how much more so does our lack of resource conservation spell out the eventual demise of mankind?

 

These issues are not isolated to the farm but are inherently global. The farm is only the microcosm in which tragedies and triumphs of nutrition, environment, and conservation will be played out most directly in the lives of others. Since all mankind must eat to survive, ultimately, if we don't get it right on the farm, there is no hope for the world.

 

Even the global industrialization of agriculture, monitored by some global government agency, could never replace what is actually needed -- the proliferation of farmers that love the land and are well paid for the vital work they love to do. Until the farmer is restored to that honorable position so understood by the framers of the Constitution, governments will lack the wisdom to make the wise agricultural decisions that will under gird long-term economic sustainability.

 

This brings me to the final responsibility of all agrarians (not just those engaged in some form of animal husbandry) -- to take an active role in shaping the political future of the country that will ultimately either rob them of their livelihood or honor them for it. It can be said without any fear of contradiction that every country needs its farmers. But what farmers need most is the recognition that their agrarian contribution is irreplaceable. The country that does not so honor its farmers, eventually turns them into little more than slaves and reduces its own ethos to little more than tyranny. When food is scarce enough, regional food production quotas and government oversight will not look so unreasonable. The way to avoid this unfortunate scenario is to rebuild our agrarian-based economy.