Resolving the Challenge

Perhaps the most convenient solution to the ethical dilemma of farming and animals is simply not to farm at all. There appears to be sufficient precedent in Buddhism to suggest that this is an entirely appropriate course of action.

To do so would not be without consequence.

It would cede the land we manage to others who would probably continue to perpetuate the type of suffering we seek to avoid. It would relieve our direct culpability, but do little to ameliorate suffering in general.

It is also clear that confronting ‘what is’ and doing this ‘where we are’ is likely to provide an honest response to our situation and a clear focus for practice.

Finally, if a resolution to the challenge of animal treatment could be found, then we could continue to contribute to our community doing something that we have come to view as a vocation. That vocation would make a contribution not only by providing nutritious food, but also by doing so in a way that does not cause suffering to our fellow sentient beings - a small contribution to the amelioration of suffering, but a contribution nonetheless.

These three reasons were more than sufficient to motivate us to try to harmonise our farming and Buddhist practices. Having made this decision it was clear that we needed a framework for making decisions regarding our relationship with animals that share our farm.

In agricultural systems animals have traditionally been vehicles for either production (meat) or destruction (pests). In both cases their ultimate fate was generally slaughter. Clearly, the Buddhist precept of non-harming, and its corollary of livelihood free from causing harm (right-livelihood) render conventional agricultural practice untenable.

However, set against Buddhism’s interdiction on the exploitation of animals was our ecological understanding that both herbivores and carnivores are crucial to ecological systems.

It was also clear that Buddhist practice does not preclude the incorporation of animals into agro-ecological systems. Rather, the practice of right livelihood excludes the raising of animals for slaughter, killing animals because they are inconvenient pests, or simply exploiting those animals that are integrated into our agro-ecology.

This process of realisation and decision led to two clear conclusions concerning a Buddhist approach to farming:

(1) We cannot expect to be free from suffering while participating in traditional forms of animal industries for food production. These forms include traditional egg and milk production as both of these involve systematic animal slaughter. These forms also include farming crops using methods that require animals to be killed in order to protect the crops.

(2) We can continue to farm and to accommodate a wide range of animals into our farming ecology providing we maintain a right relationship with those animals. No animal can be viewed as a problem that requires harm as a solution. A preliminary definition of harm includes not only death, but also precludes anything that results in animals suffering from our intentional or unintentional actions.