A bold yet realistic vision of how technology and social change are
creating a food system in which we no longer use animals to produce
meat, dairy, or eggs.
Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer's
Eating Animals brought widespread attention to the disturbing
realities of factory farming. The End of Animal Farming pushes this
conversation forward by outlining a strategic roadmap to a humane,
ethical, and efficient food system in which slaughterhouses are
obsolete--where the tastes of even the most die-hard meat eater are
satisfied by innovative food technologies like cultured meats and
plant-based protein. Social scientist and animal advocate Jacy Reese
analyzes the social forces leading us toward the downfall of animal
agriculture, the technology making this change possible for the
meat-hungry public, and the activism driving consumer demand for
plant-based and cultured foods.
Reese contextualizes the issue of factory farming--the inhumane system
of industrial farming that 95 percent of farmed animals endure--as part
of humanity's expanding moral circle. Humanity increasingly treats
nonhuman animals, from household pets to orca whales, with respect and
kindness, and Reese argues that farmed animals are the next step. Reese
applies an analytical lens of "effective altruism," the burgeoning
philosophy of using evidence-based research to maximize one's positive
impact in the world, in order to better understand which strategies can
help expand the moral circle now and in the future.
The End of Animal Farming is not a scolding treatise or a prescription
for an ascetic diet. Reese invites readers--vegan and non-vegan--to
consider one of the most important and transformational social movements
of the coming decades.
