Intensive farming methods and agribusiness are regarded with the same suspicion when it comes to food production as giant supermarket chains when it comes to retail. Corporate farms, it is said, produce on an ‘inhuman scale’, causing blots on the landscape and environmental pollution from pesticides getting into the water supply and nitrogen fertilisers poisoning wildlife. Most recently in the UK, campaigns against a proposed 8,100 cow ‘mega dairy’ in Lincolnshire have focused on animal welfare - cattle on intensive farms are said to be badly treated, unhealthy and riddled with disease. The group Campaign Against Factory Farming Operations says these ‘specialist unit(s) would be “specialist” in nothing but inflicting an unprecedented amount of agony on thousands of animals at a time’. Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP and owner of the Ecologist magazine, has said intensive farming is ‘squalid’ and ‘takes farming to a new low’. At the same time, however, a growing global population needs to eat. Increasing wealth in developing nations has offered more people than ever the benefits of a better diet. More and more people across the globe are demanding a Western-style diet, high in meat protein and carbohydrates, but how is this food to be produced ethically?

Traditional farming methods, as well as alternatives such as organic, have a severely limited capacity to increase output. To rely on them will likely result in increased food prices for everyone. But, critics argue, that would at least be sustainable. They suggest we pay more for food anyway in order to stop the stranglehold supermarkets have on farmers and other suppliers, keeping their costs artificially low in order to maximise profits and putting traditional farmers out of business. Local initiatives like ‘The People’s Supermarket’ encourage consumers to shop in a way that supports ethical practices at every stage of the food business.

In short, the critics insist the system of food production, distribution and sales has become too big. Super-sized companies have lost sight of what is important because they put their goal of making ever larger profits above farmers’ livelihoods, animal welfare and the production of healthy food. So are big farms squalid, or simply an efficient way to feed the planet? Can animal welfare be improved by making farms bigger and more efficient, or must we say no to large-scale technology and return to older systems instead? Can big food businesses like intensive farms and supermarkets ever be ethical?

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