Buddhism Response To Animal Agriculture

A Buddhist Response to Animal Agriculture Animal agriculture is a process that takes place in factory farming. These processes rely on large industrial operations that have been considered an ethical and environmental concern in regards to the animals involved and the environment. The process of factory farming involves the raising of large quantities of farm animals for food. In fact, over 99% of farm animals in the United States are raised in a factory farm in order to accumulate profit and mass production regardless of the environment (peta.org). I am strongly opposed to intensive animal farming in terms of the present environmental concerns such as the emission of greenhouse gases, waste production and land use. The teachings and

All of these concepts stem from compassions for living things and the environment that we live in. Compassion is one of the central roots of Buddhism, which is applied towards all beings regardless of species discrimination. Animal farming is concerned solely about the business aspect and is not viewing these animals as sentient beings. This is why compassion can become easily ignored due to the easiness of conversing about it versus actually practicing it. Compassion easily becomes neglected in today’s society due to cravings of greed. The teachings of Buddhism describe how actions motivated by greed bring suffering and this precept relates back to the treatment of the animals and environmental concerns. Wisdom in Buddhism is concerned about right view and right intention. Having the right view on animal farming is seeing the truth of interdependent arising and seeing in accordance to what is actually happening. The environmental concerns I have raised have been conversed by individuals who are having the right view and seeing what is actually coming about from animal agriculture. Having the right intention involves acting upon the right view and acting upon good will and harmlessness. The right intention ties into the treatment of the animals and cultivating compassion instead of greed. Animal agriculture is in

It can be argued that eliminating the current operations of animal agriculture would raise prices of meat and make it difficult for meat to stay as cheap and affordable as it has been. At first this objection seems logical and true considering the size of the industry and the dependence we have on the meat production. However, I can argue against this by stating that this objection could only stay valid if certain conditions hold true. One of these conditions relates to not ignoring other ways of reducing costs within the industry. If other ways of reducing costs are ignored then savings secured in animal agriculture become an excuse to overlook other processes in the industry. Another condition that must be true is if the cost savings in the increased animal agriculture are actually being passed onto the consumers buying the meat. Also, it must hold true that cost savings from other efficient operations in the industry are passed onto the consumers of meat. The market of animal agriculture has only been artificially cheap and has only evidentially reduced the cost of meat to the meat industry selling the meat to consumers. In the past decade there has been no strong evidence that consumers are saving on meat due to cost savings from the industry being passed on to them. The only evidence that has been available for this objection is the evidence of