Abstract
Excerpted From: Courtney G. Lee, Racist Animal Agriculture, 25 CUNY Law Review 199 (Summer, 2022) (286 Footnotes) (Full Document)
“From farm to fork, America's food system has been rooted in the exploitation of women, Native Americans and people of color.” Large-scale, industrialized animal agriculture--concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) and slaughterhouses--is inherently oppressive to both nonhumans and humans. The COVID-19 pandemic brought greater media attention to the human side of this exploitation when slaughterhouses experienced some of the worst virus outbreaks in the country, but it has been a hallmark of the industry for decades. This Article seeks to expose that human exploitation further, specifically examining how industrial animal agriculture was built upon, profits from, and perpetuates racism.
This Article concentrates on how people of color have suffered, and continue to suffer, within the animal agribusiness system. It does not intend to detract from other forms of oppression that also are endemic in this industry, such as nonhuman animal abuse. White individuals also experience harm as a result of industrialized animal agriculture, and indeed all of humanity is negatively affected by practices that accelerate global warming and the spread of zoonotic diseases. Human harms also pervade the plant agriculture industry. But while these certainly are legitimate concerns, their full discussion extends beyond the focus of this Article. Further, this Article does not equate human and nonhuman exploitation, although arguably the two are connected--perhaps even inextricably so.
The harms animal agribusiness perpetuates against people of color are myriad, and it is not possible to explore them exhaustively in a single research project of this nature. After establishing a brief background of the industrial animal agriculture system in Part I, this Article instead attempts to spotlight selected harms, first examining in Part II those that farmers and ranchers of color have endured since the early twentieth century. Part III studies harm to workers, from those who run individual facilities to employees. Part IV considers harm to people who live in nearby communities. Part V examines harms to people who purchase and consume the final products. Finally, Part VI presents some ideas that may allow society to begin to address and correct these problems, although this Article does not purport to solve them or “save” those harmed; rather, it seeks to contribute another voice to the opposition.
[. . .]
These ideas barely scratch the surface of what is necessary to begin addressing the human harms perpetuated by industrial animal agriculture. With the exception of coronavirus outbreak coverage, what media attention agribusiness receives often focuses primarily on its nonhuman animal victims. But understanding, acknowledging, and sharing that this system was founded upon and continues to propagate racism are vital first steps of the many necessary to prompt changes that can finally benefit the farmers and ranchers, workers, communities, and consumers of color that have borne the brunt of harms from the broken food system for far too long.
Professor of Law, Legal Practice at McGeorge School of Law from 2008 to 2021; 2019 Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Animal Law; member of the American Bar Association Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section Animal Law Committee and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
