Month: September 2018

Source: Page Count 20

Technologies being used to produce nonhuman animals who are used for meat and dairy products are viewed by some people as meaningful. Two technologies receiving scrutiny in agriculture are beta agonists that are fed to food animals to improve weight gain and cloning animals to secure offspring with specific traits. The technologies enhance the productive capacities of animals so that fewer resources are needed to produce meat and dairy products. Yet consumers are not sure they want food products with beta agonist residues and that are produced from clones. In overseeing the safety of food products and animals, legislators and regulators in the United States (US) and European Union (EU) have developed contrasting provisions regarding the usage of these technologies. An evaluation of heuristics involving information and experiences with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and animal production technologies offers support in explaining the US’s and EU’s divergent provisions.

This paper explores some of the different relationships that horses and humans experience in the case study country of Wales. In doing so, it pays attention to differential patterns of equine care/lack of care and explores these from a sociological perspective considering evidence of the potential impact of cultural practices and socio-economic status in particular. The paper concludes that access to common lands and “fly grazing” may be associated with specific values and norms which may result in equine neglect, while indicators of socio-economic deprivation and patterns of equine neglect do not seem to be related. The paper highlights the variation in equine care across this relatively small national population and suggests some areas where further explanatory work could usefully be undertaken in order for us to better understand the care-relationships between horses and their keepers.