Abstract:

Vegetarianism and veganism are becoming more and more common, also often for ethical reasons. As a lacto-vegetarian diet results in the slaughtering of non-productive milk cows, fattened male calves and bulls, the question arises: Are there ways to keep cattle without slaughtering, and with dairy products for lacto-vegetarians? On 5 farms without slaughtering, narrative and semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed with qualitative methods of grounded theory and sequential micro analysis. In a cross-case comparison of the 5 case studies (4 from Europe, one from India) the ethics, their context and the given system of husbandry were examined. Along the case studies 5 rules of the care-system and its ethics are identified: (1) an universal (moral) status of the different animals for which they are taken or kept on the farm; (2) an unconditional care for the animals, without a need for the individual animal to be productive; (3) a lifetime of care as a promise not to (re)commodify the animals, but to care for them in age and dying – similar to homes for elderly or handicapped; (4) a familising of the cattle akin to pets, where the cattle are seen as individualities and are treated as part of the enlarged family, and (5) prevention of slaughtering by example and campaigning. The analysed husbandry of the agri-care-system are specified as 3 farm stiles: (1) the pure sanctuary without any kind of animal products being sold; (2) the agricultural sanctuary where innovative dung-products and products fertilized with dung are sold (oxen may also be used for draft); and (3) vegetarian milk production with cattle breeding. Along with Sanctuaries there are cattle-farms which do not slaughter their cattle and which have the potential to supply lacto-vegetarians with milk products within an agri-care-system. The total amount of milk production is radically reduced and milk can be viewed as an expensive by-product of a cattle-husbandry without slaughtering while the cattle live their lives also in illness, age and with handicaps.