Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

RAHMANN G & GODINHO D (Ed.) (2012): Tackling the Future Challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry.
Proceedings of the 2 nd OAHC, Hamburg/Trenthorst, Germany, Sep 12-14, 2012
the three given interests of research: the biography of the farmers (not further referred to in this paper),
the ethics of action and the management of an agri-care “system that works”.
The care-system
Four main categories of a shared care-system were identified 4 . They resemble the situational, contextual
and relational framework of an ethics of care (Donovan and Adams 2007, Kheel 2008). These
categories are:
- Universal: Cattle from both sexes, all ages and of different health status are taken up and held at
the farms. They are cared for as in a Sanctuary. Besides that, other farm animals and occasionally
wild animals are accommodated on the farms and cared for in a widening circle of activity and
moral consideration (cf. Meyer-Abich 1990, Verhoog et al. 2003).
- The whole life - a lifetime of care: Once taken or born on the farm, the animals have the promise
of a lifetime of being cared for until they die due to their age and through natural causes, or they
may be euthanised (on 3 farms).
- Free: Care is rendered independent of the productivity of the animal. Although products like milk,
draught power and dung are welcomed and/or looked for on most farms (see table 1), productivity
is not a precondition for longevity and care.
- Comprehensive and intensive: On most farms special attention is paid to the animals as individual
beings besides their species specific needs. Caring for healthy, sick and especially the
handicapped and dying cattle often resembles the intensive care for humans and family members -
within caring facilities like homes for elderly or retarded people.
Care in the context of theise four empirical ethical categories is emphasised as an individual, noninstrumental
value of a “subject of a life” (Regan 2004) in comparison with the IFOAM Principles
of Care which emphasizes the precautionary aspect.
The categories “Free” and “Whole life” have no equivalent within the common framework of organic
farming. “Universal” features are encompassed, with a different understanding, by the inclusiveness
of the IFOAM principle of Health (from soil to human) and Ecology (all animals). The
principle of Health, which includes the integrity of living systems does not specifically include the
integrity of the individual life.
The agri-care-system: Farming stiles
The categories of a “care-system” represent a common basis, shaped into a specific agri-caresystem
by its interdependency with the adopted “agri-system” (Table 1).
Having the emphasize on their function as a sanctuary, the “whole life” of the animal is the main
product of farm 1-3. The agricultural sanctuaries by in large amounts of fodder. Besides the pure
sanctuary all farms have horticulture and/or arable farming. The two milking farms have a calving
interval averaging about 3 years, they milk their cows after calving for 1-10 years, with an average
of about 3 years. Farm 5 has an average yearly milk production of 3.500 litre milk per cow from 10-
11 cows out of 45 cattle being milked in 2007 and 2008 (c.f. Prime 2009). Since 5 years at farm 4
there have been (recurrent) spontaneous lactations in spring by 5 different cows that have been
dried off and without being in calf again. Three of them have been milked.
Two farms (3 and 5) have the necessary workforce to work with the oxen, while farm 2 and 4 shed
to do the same. The castration of the bulls at all farms and sterilization (tubectomy) of the cows at
farm 3 is viewed as an unavoidable ethical compromise by most farmers.
4 The features partly also draw on the 5 Principles of Sai Ideal Healthcare (Sathya Sai World Organisation 2009) which
are: Universal-, Free-, Loving-, Comprehensive- and Preventive.
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