Living a Buddhist Life: Vegetarianism by Bodhipaksa

What do we think of when we stroll along the aisles of the supermarket looking at the almost clinical cellophane-wrapped parcels of lamb or beef? Few of us have had the opportunity to see what goes on in the production of meat. Our ideas about farming are often based on childhood picture-book illustrations of happy cows, fluffy yellow chicks, and pink pigs with curly tails running around a farmyard. Our ideas about farming - if we have any - can be highly romanticized and sanitized. Most of us have never set foot in a farmyard, and I probably wouldn’t have either, if it were not for the fact that I’d trained as a vet. I’d like to take you on a guided tour of the modem farm. We don’t have the time or space to look at every detail, or every animal; I will give just a few examples to convey a feeling for what life is like for a farm animal today.

Life for farm animals nowadays is not pleasant and you will almost certainly find parts of this account distressing. The accounts I give are of general modem farm practices - they don’t represent the worst (and sometimes illegal) things that go on in the factory farm. There are relatively compassionate farmers who keep their animals in far better conditions than I describe. In addition, the regulations governing animal welfare, as well as the degree of enforcement of those regulations, varies from country to country. In some ways animals in less industrialized countries have freer lives, but in other ways life - and death - for animals, just as for humans, can be far crueller in poorer parts of the world. What you are about to read is a fairly typical account of how farm animals live in the industrialized world.