Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat by Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott (review)

A number of contributions to the literature on industrial agriculture have examined the lives of farmed animals in great detail as well as some of the detrimental effects of factory farming within Western nations, especially in the United States. While this work has been incredibly important, Farmageddon expertly addresses a lacuna in the literature by presenting a global perspective, documenting the myriad ways that factory farming has manifested throughout the world. The authors make explicit the far-reaching impacts of industrial agriculture on humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment, and do so in a lively and accessible manner.

Farmageddon is a fine example of investigative journalism, written from the first-person perspective of Philip Lymbery, chief executive of the world-renowned animal advocacy group Compassion in World Farming. Political journalist and commentator Isabel Oakeshott coauthored the book, accompanying Lymbery and his camera crew on a series of worldwide travels that comprise Farmageddon’s core narrative. Lymbery and Oakeshott cover much ground, both geographically (documenting their journeys through the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Argentina, Peru, China, and the Netherlands) and in terms of content. The authors employ the term “farmageddon” to describe an apocalyptic scenario toward which the world is tending and, arguably, already beginning to experience. Farmageddon is characterized by ecological devastation, mass starvation, widespread disease, and immense animal suffering, all rooted in the proliferation of industrial animal agriculture. However dire the situation, Lymbery and Oakeshott also envision various solutions to Farmageddon and spend some time reflecting on these toward the end of the book.

The narrative begins in Pennsylvania, at the childhood home of celebrated marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson. Here, Lymbery ruminates on the origins of industrial agriculture and the way that factors such as chemical weaponry and economic distress influenced what has become the world’s dominant method of food production. He documents the ongoing devastation of California’s Central Valley, largely the result of megadairies, as well as the chemical- and irrigation-intensive production of fruit, nuts, and vegetables. Giving a voice to agitated residents of the Central Valley who suffer from various health problems, as well as megadairy workers and the farmers themselves (who often struggle to turn a profit), Lymbery stresses the far-reaching negative impacts of industrial agriculture on all parties involved.

Without de-emphasizing the severity of the exploitation and suffering of farmed animals, much of Farmageddon is also devoted to documentation of human exploitation and oppression through agriculture. Since 1995, more than 250,000 farmers in India have committed suicide, largely due to accruing extreme amounts of debt after being pressured by multinational food and biotech companies to invest in fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and genetically modified seeds that have often failed. In Rosario, Argentina, soybean factories whose products are shipped to the United Kingdom and elsewhere to be used as industrial animal feed have wreaked havoc throughout many suburban areas. Besides causing an extreme amount of noise pollution and disrupting the everyday lives of residents, the prevalence of these factories is also correlated with dramatic rises in many forms of cancer, as well as increases in asthma for those who live nearby. Lymbery and Oakeshott masterfully describe a number of environmental justice cases around the world without the need to employ the specialized terminology of this emerging area of activism and theory.

The interconnectivity of the consequences of industrial agriculture is a theme that permeates Farmageddon, and it becomes a vital idea utilized by the authors to communicate impacts that are given comparatively less exposure in similar popular works. The book’s chapter on free-living animals, for example, examines bees as victims of industrial agriculture due to the collapse of bee populations and the “renting out” of beehives for crop pollination. The loss of “mixed farms” and the rise of monocultures impinging on natural habitats has led to the extinction or drastic reduction of...