Abstract:

There is a lot of evidence that the living conditions or consciousness of farmed animals do not belong to common knowledge. Several studies demonstrate unawareness of these issues even among highly educated adult population, which is understandable because these topics are usually not discussed in schools at any level. The treatment of farmed animals is not only an ethical question, because it has impact also on climate change, environment, food and water supply, health and well-being, and equality.

There is no time to start changing the education from day-care and primary schools but education has to be able to wake up the young people in secondary and higher education as soon as possible. According to the latest IPCC report 2018, we have only 12 years, now less than 10 years, to make changes to restrain the climate change remarkably. Farmed animals play a crucial role in the climate change and environmental questions, and therefore it essential to include the topic also in educational discussion and education development. Additionally, intensive animal production is extremely topical because of increased circulation of animal-based viruses.

This paper aims to discuss the role of higher education as a change maker in awareness of consciousness and treatment of farmed animals. It is not only the responsibility of legislation or political decision-making but of higher education too to make the agriculture and food system more sustainable and ethically acceptable by providing respective knowledge, skills and attitudes. Higher education and curricula there have a huge potential both conceptually and politically by forwarding values, attitudes and ways of thinking, but still, these topics are usually neglected or ignored. In this paper, we describe how this topic is neglected in higher education and provide ideas how to bring it to curricula and educational practices and processes. The methods used focus on participatory observation, analyses of curricula, and student surveys.

Our finding is that farmed animals are not discussed in any ethical context in higher education but they should be, and that higher education needs to develop students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes to take into account the nature and other living beings including farmed animals. The conclusion is that by paying attention to other living beings in educational values and by renewing structures, processes and curriculum work in education, we can get new relevant tools to build a more sustainable society and future for all species including farmed animals.

Keywords:

Higher education, curricula, education development, ethics, farmed animals, animal production.