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The Relationship Between Workers and Animals in the Pork Industry: A Shared Suffering

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Abstract

Animal production, especially pork production, is facing growing international criticism. The greatest concerns relate to the environment, the animals’ living conditions, and the occupational diseases. But human and animal conditions are rarely considered together. Yet the living conditions at work and the emotional bond that inevitably forms bring the farm workers and the animals to live very close, which leads to shared suffering. Suffering does spread from animals to human beings and can cause workers physical, mental, and also moral suffering, which is all the more harmful due to the fact that it is concealed. The conceptual tools used to conceal suffering (“animal welfare,” stress, pain) suggest that the industrial system can be improved, whereas for farmers it is by definition incompatible with animal husbandry.

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Notes

  1. “The psychodynamics of work”is defined as the analysis of psychic processes mobilized by the gathering of a subject and the work organization constraints. These kinds of behavior, called defence strategies, are articulated with the effects of the suffering generated by the real work but also by the deprivation of work. Because of this suffering related to work, and to protect themselves, some subjects build defences to fight at the same time against the fear and the risk of psychopathological disorders in Rebeyrat (2007).

  2. Quotations are extracted from interviews I made with cow or pig farmers in industrial or non-industrial production systems.

  3. Source: Institut National de Médecine Agricole—France.

  4. The industrial pork sector accounts for over 99.5% of all sows used for breeding purposes.

  5. 1,348.87 tons, including antibiotics for cats and dogs.

  6. In France. Sources: IFIP, Institut de l’élevage.

  7. User guide for Improvac (Pfizer).

  8. Immuno-castration is required by GAIA, an animal protection association in Belgium.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper.

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Correspondence to Jocelyne Porcher.

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Porcher, J. The Relationship Between Workers and Animals in the Pork Industry: A Shared Suffering. J Agric Environ Ethics 24, 3–17 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-010-9232-z

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