books

Book review – Farmageddon: the true cost of cheap meat

BY EMMANUEL SURENDRA
August 01, 2014

‘Farmageddon: the true cost of cheap meat’ by Philip Lymbery and Isabel Oakeshott is available at all major bookstores. – August 1, 2014.Who cares, really, if chickens are sandwiched together in a tight space, dancing around in their own manure and pecking at each other? Or if the cows that provide us with that lean cut of tenderloin are obese, propped up by machines because its legs are broken, and pumped with drugs to produce more milk? Or if those vegetables shine as if they were polished by off-the-rack car wax?

As long as they lay their eggs and give us their meat, as long as tomorrow we can have our fried chicken and burgers, as long as they are cheap, it's fine.

Of course, this convenient idea is uncomfortable for a few: those activists campaigning for free-range meat, hipsters with a cause who give a damn for the way animals are treated.

People like Philip Lymbery and Isabel Oakeshott who believe the whole world revolves around food.

They tell in "Farmageddon" of the horrors of battery farms, of diseased cows and chickens being served to us and which we gladly consume on a daily basis. These are economical, cheap, at a discount. But there are also costs: death, unemployment, depleted natural resources and disease from viruses immune to antibiotics.

It's a global phenomenon. While the US is partly to blame, the whole world is in cahoots. Lymbery, the book's chief voice, traverses the globe and tells of how factory farms are ruining lives. He goes down to the simplest things, like the effects they have on bees and butterflies which are important to vegetation. Writing is breezy and easy. Footnotes aplenty.

Lymbery’s writing is as hyperbolic as Anthony Bourdain’s minus the cusses and as informative as Michael Pollan’s or Murray Carpenter’s. He says early on that he loves his meat, setting himself apart from the usual vegan loudmouth. He loves nature, bird-watching especially, and he is a licensed bird-ringer for the British Trust for Ornithology.

Besides being the CEO of animal lobbyist Compassion in World Farming, he is one of the more prominent voices on the effects of industrial farming.

Lymbery believes that the world will be a more sustainable place if we cut down on eating meat. It would be better if we were to opt for mixed-farming, rear what we need outdoors, feed fish to people as opposed to pig, and feed pigs and poultry on food waste.

That sounds nice, like out of a children’s storybook. But that’s Lymbery’s world. What he misses here, of course, is the financial impact of living in such a world now. It seems we are in too deep to change. But perhaps some of his suggestions, like reducing our insatiable appetite for meat, may be a good start.

Strangely, he doesn’t investigate the halal industry. He does mention the oddity of having American cows in an Arabian desert. But nothing hefty. Of course, doing that would make a primer out of “Farmageddon”.

So, despite knowing the ill effects of cheap meat and veggies after reading the book, we will continue to buy them. Hey, it’s a good book and one worthy of the bookshelves. But breaking the habit?

“Farmageddon: the true cost of cheap meat” by Philip Lymbery and Isabel Oakeshott is priced at RM75.50 and is available at all major bookstores. – August 1, 2014.