The meat industry and future landscapes of food production

Abstract

Capitalist animal-based protein production has spawned a number of problems. Among others, the meat industry has largely contributed to a disrupted planetary metabolism. It has become a hotspot of social struggle in various countries around the super-exploitation of migrant workers, and also around the suffering and mass killing of animals. The profitability of oilseeds and its increase through growing demands of animal fodder have intensified agribusiness’ search for more land, leading to devastating impacts on indigenous and local communities, e.g. in Argentina and Brazil. Lately, scholars have furthermore discussed factory farms and the political economies of disease.

Against this backdrop, it is beyond any doubt that alternative futures of food production are necessary. In fact, the number of people aware of the benefits of plant-based diets has increased, e.g. in Germany, and so has the production and supply of vegan protein sources. However, this paper argues that these changes cannot easily be considered a step towards sustainable food production. Drawing on Marxist, social-relational conceptions of capitalist production, uneven development, and hegemony building, it argues that meat capitals’ strategies for future food landscapes pose major challenges to a wider adoption of more rational forms of food production.

Global profit-driven meat production (and a geographically highly uneven meat consumption) will continue to grow rapidly in the coming decades. It is in this context that food corporations develop their growth strategies. For instance, many of today’s alternative protein sources are meat industry products, developed to differentiate portfolios—not to gradually exit the meat business. As Justin Whitmore, executive vice president for corporate strategy at Tyson Food, put it: “We continue to invest significantly in our traditional meat business but also believe in exploring additional opportunities for growth that give consumers more choices.” Thus, the expansion of plant-based products and the interest in maintaining ‘meat hegemony’ may go hand in hand. An example from the German meat industry shows that growth strategies despite a stagnation of meat consumption in this country include increases in meat exports as well as investments in production facilities abroad.

Research on alternative food landscapes therefore needs to consider how capital strategies may contribute to a growth in unsustainable production—in spite of extended discussions about alternative futures of food—and to geographical shifts of social and ecological impacts rather than their solution.