The presence of meat and other animal products across the world is difficult to ignore. From supermarkets to cosmetic stands to handbags, the use of animals in the everyday life of many is pervasive, and it is placing a painful strain on the beautiful planet we are lucky enough to call home. And yet while the aisles upon aisles of meat and dairy products in nearly every shop across the nation indicate a huge industry reliant on animals, the realities of what animal agriculture is may not be as obvious.
Ultimately, animal agriculture is the mass production of meat and animal products for the purpose of consumption – whether that be through food, or other industries such as fashion and cosmetics. The goal for this method of farming is to produce products as quickly as possible for large-scale consumption, and each year in the UK, over 1 billion animals are killed for the purpose of food. In addition to this, research from Animal Aid (animalaid.org.uk), reveals that ‘this figure doesn’t include fish, who are killed in such vast numbers that they are counted in tonnes’.