The latest issue of Anthrozoos has an article which supports the viability of small scale livestock operations for more broad population food needs. The research discovered that milk yields are increased when the dairy cow is less fearful or anxious. Some of the ways smaller scale milk producers calm their herds are by connecting, cooing, and calling each by name.
It was found that those cows who were named made more milk. This was especially if named when young before milk production starts (apparently a time when cows are rather ignored). Naming is only one of the strategies used by the farmers studied to help their animals be happy and calm. Many farmers who experienced higher yields talk or sing to each animal each day and had general respect for their charges.
Cows are not unique in their tendency to produce more when happy. Discovery News describes similar studies that show how anxiety and fear inhibit chickens, sheep, pigs, and trout from growing and breeding- those things we find particularly useful about them. But finding them useful is apparently not enough, we have to, surprise, treat them well.
Contrary to the efficiency purported by those in industrial animal production such methods likely require more unhappy and anxious animals to equal the output of smaller operations with fewer calm and more productive animals that connect with the people they work with. It is also likely that those human workers had a similar trend of happiness and calm when they are able to connect respectfully with the creatures whose lives, and deaths, are in their hands. Although quirky sounding the findings in this study give a good argument to why the meeting food supply needs does not justify the huge production methods that require the mistreatment of animals and workers alike.
From these findings to the increased instances of food contamination, the industrial scale production methods have less and less ground to stand on to convince us that feeding our population means big, centralized, and anonymous food operations. Clearly, when it comes to food small is not only beautiful, it is more productive.
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