Paper short abstract:

Given the locations of industrial animal farms in LMICs, we could evaluate their effects on water quality, public health, and more. However, few public databases exist. I'll show progress towards a global map of industrial animal farms, created by applying computer vision tools to satellite images.

Paper long abstract:

Industrial animal farms have led to many negative outcomes in the US and Europe, from toxic algal blooms to health problems among local residents. Some of these problems have disproportionately affected low-income and minority communities. The same is likely true in the many LMICs in which industrial animal production is proliferating, but our current understanding of the situation is fragmented and incomplete.

If the locations of industrial animal farms were known, it would be possible to document and track their local impacts. For example, satellite monitoring could show when manure lagoons had been breached in extreme precipitation events, and studies of economic outcomes before and after the arrival of industrial farms would be enabled. Local impacts could then be aggregated to demonstrate the effects of industrial animal production on a global scale.

Most governments either do not record farm locations or do not make the data available to researchers. However, I have recently established that it is possible to detect "hotspots" of industrial pig and poultry production using computer vision techniques and publicly-available satellite data. I now hope to work towards an accurate, global map of industrial animal farms. I will describe progress towards this goal, solicit feedback from attendees about how to make this work as useful as possible, and explore potential collaborations with those working "on the front lines".

Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to demonstrate the linkages between global capital, industrial animal agriculture and diets. By articulating the implications of increased financialisation, I argue that increased meat production does not automatically lead to improvements in nutrition and livelihoods.

Paper long abstract:

The flow of global capital administered by corporate regimes and international financial institutions has created asymmetries of power and increased corporate concentration, shifting the way animal-sourced foods are produced and consumed, giving rise to “meatification of diets”. The paper aims to demonstrate the linkages between global capital, industrial animal agriculture and diets. It first articulates the economic and financial structure of livestock system, which include increased intensification of production, high level of horizontal and vertical integration, corporate concentration and horizontal ownership. Next, the chapter analysis a unique dataset of investment portfolio of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to evidence how public financing is contributing to intensification and corporate concentration. The paper argues that industrial livestock production systems are justified and propagated by both private and public sector stakeholders around two “do good” narratives, first of solving malnutrition and second of improving rural livelihoods. However, the gains from increased productivity per unit through industrial production practices are insufficient in addressing the stated “do good” objectives as externalised costs of labour exploitation, disease risk and food insecurity created from the industrialised production process, in turn disproportionately impacts the very populations facing malnutrition and livelihood insecurity.

Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses processes of industrialisation in the South African beef industry, and their social and environmental consequences. It explores the drivers of these processes, and shows how they produce new forms of exclusion and locks-ins to unsustainable development pathways.

Paper long abstract:

The paper analyses processes of industrialisation in the South African beef industry, and their social and environmental consequences. Beef production is a central component of the South African agrarian economy, and a key feature of diets and cuisine. However, competition from cheaper, intensively-produced poultry, rising input prices, environmental change, and biosecurity challenges have created intense economic pressures, accelerating concentration and intensification. The industry is increasingly dominated by powerful, vertically-integrated feedlots, lynchpins of a grain livestock complex involving large-scale commercial grain farming and industrial feed milling. The industry is increasingly pivoting towards export-markets as a means to continue its growth. As the paper discusses, these processes have complex outcomes for sustainability and inclusion. Industrialisation processes and heightened biosecurity measures raise barriers to entry for small-scale livestock farmers and are in tension with systems of social reproduction in communal areas. Meanwhile, though intensive production methods produce lower point-source emissions, growth ambitions potentially complicate sectoral emissions targets, and risk creating multiple ‘lock-ins’ and path dependencies for intensive meat production that creates other important externalities.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to offer the panel an assessment of the drivers and barriers that are shaping the integration of dairy farmers into the value chain in a region of the Colombian Andes.

Paper long abstract:

Dairy production is one of the most important activities for Colombia’s agrarian economy. However, the reduction of milk consumption in Colombia and the influx of dairy products, mostly imported from the United States and the European Union, have led to an increase in milk powder inventories. This has implied the reduction of payments and the complete halt of milk collection from many dairy farmers by processors who claim that the quality of their milk does not meet the required standards. The agrifood value chains framework (Gereffi et al., 2010) has been adopted in this research, which traditionally focused on how firms and farmers from the Global South export products to the Global North. However, there is little understanding about how farmers from countries like Colombia are integrated into national agrichains in a context where they compete with local more established/bigger farmers and with imports from the Global North. This study has identified that the conditions imposed by the dairy industry, combined with high production costs, have been detrimental to most farmers, pushing many small-scale farmers to seek alternatives to dairy production or to find informal markets for their milk through middlemen to ensure their livelihoods. Conversely, a minority of dairy farmers with specialised knowledge and sufficient capital to lease productive lands are concentrating milk production and driving integration in the dairy value chain. The study employs a case study of a region in the Colombian Andes, combining interviews, focus group discussions, field observations, farmer surveys and document analysis.

Paper short abstract:

Dairy production in Argentina is intensifying under economic pressure, but with it come labour, health and environmental challenges. Focusing on any one of these challenges in isolation oversimplifies the enmeshed problems. The trends are similar globally, and require a systemic approach.

Paper long abstract:

Like many other types of agriculture and livestock farming globally, dairy production in Argentina is concentrating and intensifying under economic pressure to grow. Farms (and farmers) are facing compounding, intersecting challenges within this context, including: attracting, keeping and adapting skilled labour and good working conditions; environmental stressors and climate change, on top of pressures to reduce environmental impacts, and; maintaining and improving animal health, especially in the face of growing antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance. Further, engaging with stressed farmers can be fraught with power dynamics to consider. These multiple challenges are often understood and addressed in isolation, e.g. measuring antibiotic use and getting farmers to reduce to stem resistance, new regulations to better manage polluting effluent. However, this fails to understand the systemic nature and how these issues are connected. Taking a systems thinking and one health approach, applied with sensitivity, affords understanding the complexity and interconnected nature of these global challenges. This is relevant for wider development challenges such as public health, sustainability, and inequality, as well interdisciplinary research and how we approach complex global development challenges.

Paper short abstract:

In a time of polycrisis, wild meat has been positioned as both a source of crisis and potential solution, depending on the context. This paper draws from research in Zambia to untangle the multifarious nature of wild meat and discuss implications for biodiversity, equity, and public health.

Paper long abstract:

Wild meat derived from wild species has come to occupy an important position in the polycrisis era. On the one hand, wild meat has been blamed for exacerbating biodiversity and public health crises – especially in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, wild meat has been proposed as a more equitable, sustainable solution to industrial animal agriculture, as it often has a lower carbon footprint, can help address nutrient deficiencies where protein is otherwise scarce, and may align with broader food sovereignty and food systems decolonisation movements. Given its multifarious nature, governments have taken different stances on wild meat at different times, ranging from banning wild meat altogether, such as China after COVID-19 or Nigeria after Mpox, to promoting legal wild meat economies in the post-pandemic era, such as many southern African countries. In this paper, we draw from over two years of research in Zambia, where efforts have been mounting to formalise, better regulate, open-up, and grow the wild meat sector. Our analysis highlights emergent challenges and opportunities across the wild meat sector – which includes traditional private wild ranches, novel community-based wild ranches, and imported wild meat products – and affords consideration for the varied implications of wild meat for agrarian change and rural development in times of polycrisis. Specifically, we discuss trends in socio-economic and environmental impacts of relevance across southern Africa and other similar contexts, and speak to other possible trends related to animal welfare, food sovereignty, and One Health.

Paper short abstract:

Should Lake Victoria sardine be used as human food or a feed ingredient for industrial tilapia production? Tension exists between its micro-nutritional importance in worse-off diets and opportunities for smallholder income generation by development of fishing and processing for aquafeed mills.

Paper long abstract:

While Lake Victoria is well-known for its ecological collapse, its lakeshore poverty and food insecurity has also been a significant concern. Introduced species (Nile perch and Nile tilapia) plus a range of anthropogenic factors impacted on the lake ecosystem resulting in significant biodiversity loss; however, a vibrant Nile perch fishing-based economy boomed, financed by international export markets and amplifying local economies. Despite the subsequent economic collapse of the Nile perch trade, Kenyan lakeshore residents continue to rely on these fisheries, particularly omena (Rastrineobola argentea, Lake Victoria sardine). Residents’ diets – once rich in diverse small and large fish species – now rely on omena as a cheap and nutritious food. Furthermore, omena has provided some fishers with an alternative fishery to Nile perch and lower-income women with ample smallholder processing jobs. In parallel, demand for omena as an ingredient by livestock feed processors has grown, supporting smallholder livelihoods through a value-chain that encompasses fishing, processing, and trade.

Recently, industrial aquaculture has burgeoned such that >10,000 tonnes of caged tilapia are produced in Homa Bay county alone, offering significant employment opportunities. As aquaculture expands, their need for locally-produced feed augments demand for aquafeed ingredients, potentially undermining its importance in supporting the micronutrient sufficiency of local diets. However, aquaculture is increasingly supporting local livelihoods, which are dependent on cash for food purchasing. Thus, this work situates this small, wild, extensively produced fish within social tension: is omena higher-value as a micronutrient source or income-generating, ‘industrially’ produced farmed fish sold to the better-off?

Paper short abstract:

This work explores how increasingly industrialised poultry markets intersect with consumption norms linked to caste, religion, class, and gender to shape unequal poultry consumption in India. It argues that addressing these interconnections is crucial to curbing malnutrition in the Global South.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines poultry consumption patterns across gender and age groups in urban India, analysing the influence of socio-economic constraints, household composition, and poultry market and production factors. Despite India’s economic growth, malnutrition remains a pressing issue, exacerbated by limited access to nutrient-rich foods such as poultry, alongside affordability, social inequalities, and food safety concerns. Previous research has highlighted poultry’s affordability and nutritional benefits in India, yet consumption remains uneven due to economic and social stratification. Expanding on these disparities, this paper draws on original data from 600 urban households in urban India to explore intra-household consumption dynamics at the intersection with the poultry market.

The findings reveal that, despite increased poultry availability, gender and age significantly influence access to poultry, with socio-economic factors such as caste, religion, and income further compounding consumption inequalities. Structural barriers related to poultry provisioning, including accessibility and pricing, also reinforce unequal gendered access to poultry products.

By integrating frameworks of food provisioning and social reproduction, the work provides a nuanced understanding of how gender, socio-economic status, and the poultry sector intersect to shape urban dietary patterns. It underscores the critical role of social dynamics in determining access to animal-sourced foods and highlights the broader implications for addressing malnutrition. The paper concludes that addressing entrenched gendered consumption inequalities within households is essential to tackle malnutrition. Policymakers and stakeholders must confront these structural barriers and inequities to ensure fair access to nutritious foods for all.