Behind the Barn Door
FARUQI’S CRITICAL AND EDUCATIONAL EXAMINATION OF THE international food system could curb even the most vigorous appetite. Project Animal Farm grew out of a weeklong visit to an organic farm in Canada so the just-laid-off Wall Street investment banker could consider her future. Imagining an idyllic stay in the pastoral settings of the Little House on the Prairie books she’d enjoyed as a child, Faruqi instead entered a cowshed to find 65 feces-smudged cows chained in small stalls, subdued with electric rods. Although her appetite vanished, she developed a thirst to find animal welfare solutions that would also benefit the environment, farmers and consumers.
As her research led her to food farms in eight countries from 2011 to 2012—including visits to egg warehouses in Canada, dairy feedlots in the United States, lush Mennonite pastures in Belize and flocks of chickens in Indonesia—she spoke with contract growers, CEOs, farmers and slaughterhouse work- ers. While she shares warm portraits of the people who make their living by putting food on the table, the stories behind the barn doors and cages are often dark and violent. “Most farm animals today live and
die without ever feeling a ray of sunshine on their backs or a blade of grass under their feet,” she writes. And consumers are complicit: “Farms are the modern 1984. Official party lines are disseminated to the public and readily accepted by it. At every meal, people swallow small and large doses of lies.” In her book and her blog (soniafaruqi.com) the Toronto resident offers advice on becoming more educated (ignore the packaging and look for labels that mention organic, free run and free range) and simple recommendations (consider meatless Mondays to cut back on consumption, and shop at farm- ers markets). She also has a solution on the ground: Large-scale pastoral farms that have economies of scale—fulfilling the preferences of producer (low cost) and consumer (low price)—are sustainable and more concerned with the animals’ welfare. “Large-scale pastoral farms stand alone as being a win-win scenario for all involved,” says the economics and public policy major. “We’re never going to return to a time of small-pastoral farms, but we can create a time of large-pastoral farms.”
More than 70 billion animals are reared for food each year around the world, according to Faruqi. She says she’ll continue to write and speak on their behalf in her quest for changes among the people who grow farm animals and those who eat them.
Project Animal Farm: An Accidental Jour- ney into the Secret World of Farming and the Truth About Our Food PEGASUS 336 PP. $19
