I recently came across a video recently of a woman sharing her (frustrating) experience of the criticism she receives as a small farmer: That she doesn’t have the consent of the cow to wean her baby, she doesn’t have consent of the cow to deliver oral medication, she doesn’t have the consent of her chickens to take their eggs, and she doesn’t have consent of the cow to take her milk.
I have some thoughts around this I would really love to share, coming from the perspective of being a horse trainer with a huge focus on giving horses a voice + a choice — which of course includes themes around consent — as well as raising animals myself, such as dairy goats and sheep, and contending with these types of questions… mixed in with a lot of thinking around ways of being and relating beyond the current imposed systems of colonization and capitalism.
I think there is truth on both sides of this conversation — from the folk who are criticizing the farmer + the small farmer. I don’t see it as black or white, this or that. (Also note I am coming at this with the belief that there is always truth in what a person brings forth into a conversation… it’s just sometimes it can be the raw ingredients versus the meal that’s ready to be digested as wisdom, or a wound that has yet to alchemize into the wisdom it holds).
First, I think the truth/resonance in the criticism that I feel is a recognition of something being off about our relationship to land, animals, and food.. That “something off”, being a feeling of deep violence, extraction, and dishonoring of relationality that is woven into colonized ways of interacting with the earth and our more than human kin. If I could put my finger on the exact spot that hurts, it seems to come down to a core difference in ways of interacting with the gifts animals offer us: (1) Receiving the Gift (2) Taking the Gift. (I’m putting these into 2 categories for simplicity, of course we could think of these things on more of a spectrum).
In cultures who Receive the Gift, it seems that what animals offer us in the form of their own bodies - meat, milk, eggs, hides, skins, bone, blood, wool - are seen as gifts that are prayed for, are asked to be received in a consensual way, are graciously given to us, revered, and met with a deep expression of gratitude, beauty, and acts of tangible reciprocation (such as harvesting a plant in seed so we can, in one motion, both harvest the root + plant the seeds).
In cultures who Take the Gift, a hallmark trait of colonization, it seems the animal offering the gift is de-personalized, there is a non-consensual taking, a dishonoring of the gift through waste and disregard, and a stealing from the Mother. This goes with the “take what’s yours” mentality. There is no longer this approach of revering the gift and honoring/asking the giver.
There is a quote from The Great Cosmic Mother (pg 261-262) that says it well, bringing up the point that in both hunting and war, men experience the acquisition of things they have not themselves produced, which can swell the ego’s sense of power. In people of Old Europe, prior to colonization (and in still relatively in-tact cultures the world over) this danger is balanced by ritual propitiation and by the strong intact spiritual perception that LIFE IS GIVEN. But in colonizer culture/ideology, the opposite the underlying belief is that LIFE IS MADE TO BE TAKEN, that a real man doesn’t wait for it to be given, a real man just takes it, and that the the spoils of conquest belong to the victor - those so-called “spoils” being the products of women’s labor, women’s bodies, the body of Mother Earth herself. The Bronze Age celebration of war and hunting, seen as “manly virtues” and “male sport” became precisely the celebration of power over women, and over the female earth.
All this being said, what I’m feeling into in regards to the main criticism that was brought up in the video is this pulse of hey, I feel it in my bones, in the core of my being, that I am yearning for life ways that are in deeper relationship, and feel a deep sadness and outrage over the exploitative status quo.
But perhaps when we don’t stay with the yearning and grief for quite long enough, we run into the risk of jumping to impose our solutions and the “I know best” prescriptions, and then can end up villiannizing people as good or bad based on whether or not they are following them, leading to the expression of this valid and necessary grief and yearning to come off as attacking, condescending, self-righteous, and other shadowy forms of expression… which oftentimes is met with pushback.
I think two things that could potentially help with this and steward change are:
Expressing the yearning and staying in the place of discomfort that is - I yearn for things to be different, I sense there is a better way of going about this *AND* I am not yet sure what that is.
Looking at the system more, individuals less. It is my belief that people are kind by nature - but we are living in conditions that make it really hard for people to be kind and act relationally. This belief leads to me do a lot of investigating of systems and directing my energy towards changing the system to bring change, and having compassion for people who are navigating these systems… Which I think, is necessary, because we need everyone if we are going to fight the system (and the system actually depends on us being divided so we can’t come together to actually fight it and change it).
There are a plethora of ways we can bring more relational, consent-based ways of engaging with animal based life ways. Reading animals emotional states and retreating before the animal is over threshold, when receiving oral medication, for example, or kid/calf/lamb sharing for dairy animals. And of course there are also options like R+ based cooperative care husbandry training.
But to me it seems the issue is not that people would be against engaging in these types of processes (I think most people want what is best for their animals), the issue is usually the limitations that the system imposes on people.
For example, there’s no way that a single small farmer who is also raising kids and working a full-time job is going to be able to cooperative care train 5 cows for them to take oral medication voluntarily. We see these kinds of practices in zoos because they have around the clock teams of employees working on behalf of these animals. So if we take the pressure off the individual and look at the system, why don’t people have the time? Why are people having to do this solo? Where is the village? Why do we have to spend so much time working to make money for things that were once given freely by the Earth - or provided for by community, such as child care? These questions actually lead us to the root of the problem, in my opinion.
As far as a practice like milk sharing and more natural weaning processes, what are the limitations placed on people by the system in terms of pressure, financially, energetically, etc to “maximize” and get ultimate “efficiency” that lead to extractive processes? Does the need for “efficiency” really validate these practices as a “necessary evil”? I think this question would lead us down the road of questioning the myth of “efficiency” and seeing the harm that has taken place in the name of “efficiency” to us as individuals, the land, animals, etc. For example, is it really more “efficient” to selectively breed for large udders/milk production when the fallout is distended udders, mastitis, grain dependent and care intensive reliant animals that can’t sustain drought? I think these are important questions to consider.
These are my raw/initial thoughts and I think this conversation & questions are really important to have more dialogue around.
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