Journal articles: 'State Farm Products Show Commission' – Grafiati (2024)

Abstract:

Maharashtra is highly urbanized and economically developed state in India. But now the growth rate is declining, and debt burden has increased in the state. CAGR has been used to examine the impact of FRBM act on fiscal deficit in the state. The RBI data from 1991 to 2016 show that the primary and fiscal deficit is increasing fast. The revenue and capital expenditure are increasing after 2003 FRBM act. The debt burden has increased in the state due to interest payment, pension liabilities, seventh pay commission to state employees, farm loan waiver scheme and infrastructure projects. State government took loans from different sources to finance its capital expenditure. The least square regression result shows that development expenditure in the state has declined very fast. The expenditure on health, education and social welfare of scheduled caste and tribe has declined in the state over the period of time. Government must improve revenue and capital receipts within the short period. Efforts must be made to reduce the debt burden on the state. Therefore, a number of alternative policies are required to improve revenue and capital receipts. State government must increase taxes on electronic and tobacco-related products. Taxes must be increased on commercial vehicles, luxury hotels, entry tax at hill stations, malls and purchase of diamonds and gold, petrol and diesel. Such sources will increase tax revenue to state government and fiscal deficit can be reduced to some extent.

Abstract:

AbstractA mail survey was used to gather information from the main food buyer in random households in southeast Missouri to analyze consumer preferences for locally grown food. A majority of shoppers in the region were not aware of the state's AgriMissouri promotion program. Consumers defined locally grown not as a statewide concept but as a narrower regional concept that could cross state boundaries. Most important when purchasing produce were quality and freshness, and most consumers perceived local produce at farmers' markets to be of higher quality and lower price. Farm households were not significantly different from other households in the region and did not show a preference or willingness to pay a price premium for local food products. Food buyers who were members of an environmental group had higher education and income and were more likely to purchase organic food and more willing to pay a higher price for local produce. Households in which someone was raised on a farm, or had parents who were raised on a farm, had a preference for locally grown food and were willing to pay a price premium for it. Marketing local products should stress quality, freshness, and price competitiveness, and appeal to environmentalists and those with a favorable attitude towards family farms.

Abstract:

Abstract This paper presents the state of application of Precision Agricultural enabling Technology (PAT) in Swiss farms as an example for small-scale, highly mechanised Central European agriculture. Furthermore, correlations between farm and farmers’ characteristics and technology adoption were evaluated. Being part of a comprehensive and representative study assessing the state of mechanisation and automation in Swiss agriculture, this paper focuses on the adoption of Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) and activities in which Electronic Measuring Systems (EMS) are used. The adoption rate of DAS was markedly higher compared to EMS in all agricultural enterprises. The adoption rate was highest for high-value enterprise vegetables and surprisingly low for the high-value enterprise grapes. The results of a binary logistic regression showed that farmers located in the mountain zone were less likely to adopt PAT compared to farmers in the valley. Small farm size correlated with low adoption rates and vice versa showing adoption happens country-specific in the upper farm size distribution. The results show the potential for novel technologies to be adopted by farmers of high-value products. Furthermore, technologies have been partially used to reduce physical workload but not yet to evaluate crop or management performance to support decisions. However, automatic collection and forwarding of data is a fundamental step towards Smart Farming realizing its full potential in the future.

Abstract:

Individual tree detection (ITD) locates plants from images to estimate monitoring parameters, helping the management of forestry and agriculture systems. As a low-cost solution to help farm monitoring, digital surface models are increasingly involved together with mathematical morphology techniques within the framework of ITD tasks. However, morphology-based approaches are prone to omission and commission errors due to the shape and size of structuring elements. To reduce the error rate in ITD tasks, we introduce a morphological transform that is based on the local maxima segmentation (Cumulative Summation of Extended Maxima transform (SEMAX)) with the aim to enhance the seed selection by extracting information collected from different heights. Validation is performed on data collected from the plantations of citrus and avocado using different measures of precision. The results obtained by the SEMAX approach show that the devised ITD algorithm provides enough accuracy, and achieves the lowest false-negative rate than other compared state-of-art approaches do.

Abstract:

Increasing consumption of local products is a key factor for sustainable agriculture. This study deals with the factors that influence the sales of local products with a focus on value-added dairy products. The research involved 30 family businesses operating in the agro-sector. Primary data were obtained by a detailed online questionnaire survey. For deeper examination, five hypotheses were determined and statistically tested using the Friedman test and Nemenyi method. Using the acquired theoretical background and empirical research in a set of family farms, we can state that the goal of farmers is to sell their products through the shortest possible route directly to the consumer. The most commonly used tools of a short supply chain are on-farm sales and telephone order sales, on the other hand, farms rarely sell products in farmers’ markets, celebrations and anniversaries or e-shops, even though these tools all have great potential. The results show that farmers consider the product itself (quality, freshness, locality) to be the most important factor when selling local products, as well as customer recommendations and loyalty. Based on the results of the research, we propose to streamline sales support through new forms of marketing approaches to premium products, such as locally fresh products produced on family farms.

Abstract:

The objective of this study is to examine the state of financial conditions of the corn-based ethanol enterprises in the U.S. from 2009 to 2014. Ethanol enterprises are categorized as small, those producing up to 50 million gallons per year (MGY) and large producing between 50 and 100 MGY. Panel data from the annual financial reports submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are used to calculate the financial ratios of profitability, asset turnover, leverage, liquidity and operating margin. Results show that the corn-ethanol enterprise is moving into the direction of positive returns of investment. Associated factors for the profitability are found to be operating margin ratio, liquidity, leverage ratio, and subsidy. Findings of this study have an implication to the development of the cellulosic ethanol enterprise, which suggests the utilization and valuation of its co-products for revenue generation to improve economic financial success.

Abstract:

ABSTRACT The presence of antimicrobial and pesticide residues in products sourced from peasant family farms selected from eight regions of Chile was determined. A total of 204 samples were analyzed from family farm products, including honey, lettuce, tomato, strawberry, raspberry, lamb meat, and cow's milk. Pesticide residues were found in 43 of 107 samples tested for them, but only 4 samples had concentrations that exceeded the maximum residue limits (MRLs) set by Chilean regulations. As for animal products, 2 of 15 cow's milk samples tested positive for permethrin residues; however, these concentrations did not exceed Chilean MRLs. No pesticide residues were detected in honey samples. As for antimicrobial drugs, 4 of 14 lamb meat samples and 11 of 79 cow's milk samples tested positive for different classes of antimicrobial residues, such as tetracyclines, macrolides, aminoglycosides, and β-lactams. Among these, only three samples exceeded the MRLs for these matrices. Traces of tetracyclines and sulfonamides were detected in 7 of 29 honey samples. These findings show that these chemical contaminants are present in trace concentrations in foodstuffs produced by peasant family farms in Chile; however, most residues did not exceed the regulatory limits. This study is the first assessment of the presence of residues from antimicrobial drugs and pesticides in food products sourced from peasant family farms in Chile. Data about the current state of drug residues in this segment of food products provide a baseline for efforts to close possible gaps in current surveillance schemes.

Abstract:

Energy security is one of the challenging issues hindering developmental progress in developing countries. Wind power as a renewable energy source can play a significant role in poverty reduction if adequate information is provided. In this study, multi-approach technics were applied for a better understanding of the wind energy potential in Jubek State, South Sudan. Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing, and mathematical equations were applied in identifying suitable locations, potential power per unit area, wind farm layout, design of appropriate turbine size, and utilization of wind energy in both agricultural and domestic sectors. Wind speed, land use land cover, and digital elevation maps of the study area were processed in ArcGIS, MATLAB (Weibull distribution), and Minitab software. The results show that 17,331.4 km2 (94.64%) of the study area is appropriate for wind power generation, with wind density of about 3.65 W/m2 and installation capacity about 19,757.79 MW, resulting in an annual energy production of about 7269.29 GWh. With the proposed wind turbine, one ton of various crops and animal products require 1–4 and 2–20 turbines, respectively. Therefore, the step-by-step procedures followed in this study will contribute to poverty reduction through improving agricultural productivity and food quality.

Abstract:

Abstract The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III on ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) Reform considers issues of adjudicator diversity to be an area of concern for the legitimacy of the ISDS system. Studies show that nearly all of the most prominent and repeatedly appointed arbitrators in ISDS cases are men from the Global North with significant prior experience in ISDS cases. Rather than being seen as fair, just, and devoid of bias, decisions are sometimes suspected to be the products of adjudicators who share a particular world view. This article focuses on four key issues: (1) how a lack diversity affects the real and perceived legitimacy of the ISDS system; (2) empirical evidence on the current extent of the diversity problem in ISDS; (3) the causes of the perpetuation of the diversity deficit in ISDS; and (4) what can be done to improve diversity in ISDS.

Abstract:

AbstractTransportation no doubt remains a catalyst for all aspect of socio-economic and environmental development. Without its singular significance of mobility and accessibility for farmers, agricultural produce will rot on farms, while efforts in providing food would be fruitless. This paper assessed agricultural freight transportation in Saki area of Oyo State with a view of enhancing better product delivery mechanisms for farmers. It examined farmers’ socio-demographic; nature of farming and farm characteristics; and appraised the relationship between attributes of agricultural production and freight movement. Primary data employed consists of a questionnaire designed for farmers, structured interview for government officials complemented with personal field observations of agricultural freight transportation. 225 farmers were randomly selected for questionnaire administration. Major findings revealed that food crops, vegetables, fruits and poultry products are in persistent motion in the study area and that agricultural freight is a neglected sector with significant consequences on the access to cheap and affordable urban wellbeing. Findings also revealed that agricultural freight transportation within the study is very poor and uneconomical, as this depletes farmers’ profit-making. Regression analysis results show a significant relationship between attributes of agricultural freight and transport cost (F19205 11.916= P<0.05). The study recommends extensive road rehabilitation and constructions within the study area; provision of technological driven distribution and storage infrastructural facilities; creation of a databank for agricultural freight transport; reorganization and empowerment of farmers and improvement of rural infrastructure in Oyo state and Nigeria as a whole.

Abstract:

The International GNSS Service (IGS) real-time service (RTS) provides access to real-time precise products. State-Space Representation (SSR) products are disseminated through the Internet using the Networked Transport of the RTCM (Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services) via the Internet Protocol (NTRIP). However, communication outages caused by a loss of the communication link during ephemeris changes can occur. Unfortunately, any break in providing orbit and clock corrections affects the possibility to perform precise point positioning. To eliminate this problem, various methods have been developed and presented in the literature. The solution proposed by the authors is to directly predict geocentric corrections. This manuscript presents the results and analysis of geocentric correction predictions under two scenarios: the first between the IODE (issue of data ephemeris) value change and the second where prediction must be done for epochs containing a change in IODE ephemeris. In this case, the prediction uses data from a previous message. The Root Mean Square (RMS) values calculated based on the differences between the true correction values and the predicted geocentric corrections using a linear function, a second-degree polynomial and a constant value do not differ significantly. The numerical results show that, in most cases, maintaining the constant value of the last registered SSR correction is the best option.

Abstract:

According to David Harvey, Accumulation by Dispossession (ABD) has become the dominant form of accumulation under the mantra of neoliberalism backed by the State policies, whether in developed or in developing economies. Using empirical evidence on contract farming in India, I argue that capitalist accumulation can indeed occur without dispossession. I show how a class of petty capitalist farmers (petty, in comparison to corporate capital) is encouraged to maintain its private property (land) and to enter into commercial contracts with big industrial (multinational) companies to deliver certain farm products at a pre-determined price. These companies have no intention to dispossess the farmers, and they do not have to. As a structure of multiple class actors (big business; capitalist farmers; rural labour), contract farming is a process that represents centralisation (and concentration) of capital and points to the ways in which agrarian and industrial capitals are intertwined. Contract farming as a form of accumulation is based on appalling working conditions of labour, including vulnerable women workers and migrants, on contract farms, and it exhibits much geographical variation in its occurrence.

Abstract:

Abstract. Firms with an ethical behaviour, which satisfy the conditions of morality, namely to respect applicable law articles, have certain characteristics: “balance between profit and ethics; ethical values underlying the daily behaviour of individual actions; penalty system which provides penalty and correction actions by unethical nature; set of values that involves treating others with respect and honesty as you want and to be treated; manufacture and marketing of the products so that you are be thankful if you use them; treating the environment as it would be your property”. In Romania, although the law has improved methodologically according to the European Directives, but problems arise in its implementation. The Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council on Progress in Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism {SEC (2008) 2539} show that Romania continues to face important difficulties in the functioning of its judiciary and fighting the corruption. In 2013, the political clienteles and corruption have worsened the Romanian state budget, representing, however, the greatest threat to the economic growth (MCV Report - 2013 - Brussels, 30.01.2013 COM (2013) 47 final). What are the solutions? There are the political stability and, not least, that constitutional.

Abstract:

Relevance. In peasant-farm conditions and conditions of subsidiary plots, with a wide variety of growing times in greenhouses, which are very different in equipment, heating and use, it is necessary to clarify the agro-ecological terms and introduce regulators of the growth and development of cucumber plants. The use of the adaptogen increases the yield. The aim of the research was to consider the economic efficiency from the use of the adaptogen “Epin-extra” on the growth, development and productivity of various varieties of cucumbers when grown in spring-summer film greenhouses of the Megino-Kangalassky ulus of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Research methods were used according to the methods of the State Commission for Testing and Protection of Breeding Achievements of the Russian Federation [7, 8, 9]. The calculation of economic efficiency was carried out on the basis of the financial costs included in the technological map and the actual costs per 1 hectare according to the method of S.V. Melnikov.Results. As a result of the research it was found that with a two-fold treatment with a solution of Epin-extra, the development of the main phenological phase of flowering is accelerated for 6 days from control (without treatment with an adaptogen). At the same time, the prevalence of such diseases as ascochito decreases to 1.7%, and the prevalence of root rot is 2.5-3.2 times lower with 2-fold processing, depending on the hybrids. The use of the Epin-extra adaptogen solution increases the quality of products -marketability and weight of cucumber fruits. Due to the use in small volumes, ease of use, the Epin-extra solution increases profitability up to 58.1% with double processing on the Stella F1 hybrid and up to 46.4% in the Maisky F1 hybrid.

Abstract:

ABSTRACT The international production of farmed fish has been growing continuously over recent years. Until now few veterinary drugs have been approved by the European Union for use in aquaculture, and this has favored the off-label use of products authorized for use in food-producing animal species different from fishes among fish farmers. Adequate field studies are lacking, especially for those species called minor species which are consumed extensively only in some European countries. In the present investigation we studied the depletion of the fluoroquinolone antibacterial enrofloxacin over time in a minor species, the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), reared on a real fish farm and treated with medicated feed (10 mg kg of trout body weight−1 day−1). Edible tissue samples (muscle plus skin in natural proportions) and fish bone samples were analyzed for enrofloxacin and for its major metabolite, ciprofloxacin, by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection at different times after the end of treatment. Our results show that at 500°C-day (in which degree-days are calculated by multiplying the mean daily water temperature by the total number of days on which the temperature was measured), which is the minimum withdrawal period established by European Economic Commission Directive No. 82/2001 for any type of product administered off-label, edible trout tissues might still contain about 170 μg of enrofloxacin kg−1, whereas the maximum residue level for enrofloxacin plus ciprofloxacin is set at 100 μg kg−1. To our knowledge, no studies of the depletion of enrofloxacin in rainbow trout have been performed. On the basis of the data obtained in the present study, we suggest a more appropriate withdrawal time of 816°C-day for the sum of enrofloxacin plus ciprofloxacin levels in rainbow trout muscle plus skin tissues.

Abstract:

The goal is to show the main directions of increasing the volume of livestock production in Kazakhstan aimed to ensure the country's food security. The article sets the following objectives to analyze the current state of the livestock industry; determine the factors hindering its development; to develop proposals for the introduction of scientific achievements into production. Resultsan analysis of the current state of agriculture is presented, in particular, the livestock sector (the share of the industry in the structure of gross output of agricultural sector, the presence of livestock, volume of livestock production, etc.). The article presents data characterizing the current state of animal husbandry and the reasons that impede economic growth: irrational distribution of livestock in the context of farm categories, low level of its productivity, lack of a feed market, ineffective use of the potential of natural pastures and hayfields, violation of technologies in the procurement of feed, low proportion of breeding stock animals in the total livestock, etc. The conducted studies allowed us to draw the appropriate conclusions – in order to increase the competitiveness of the livestock industry, it is necessary to develop a strategy for its development in the republic, which would allow small households to realize their comparative advantages on market so that the products obtained meet the requirements of food safety and quality from the growing number of urban buyers and consumers using imported goods. Agricultural science of Kazakhstan has sufficient potential for the implementation of an active innovation policy – an issue of particular importance for the country's economy.

Abstract:

Dagestan is the leading Republic of Russia in terms of the number of sheep and sheep breeding products. The zoned target sheep breed in Dagestan is the Dagestan mountain breed. However, this breed produces thin but non-merino wool. Developing the Merino sheep breed suitable for mountain breeding is an urgent problem. The new Merino sheep breed was developed for the foothill zone of Dagestan, where summer Alpine and winter low-lying pastures are located at a distance of no more than 150 km from each other, and summer Alpine pastures are located at an altitude of up to 3000 meters above sea level. The research and stock breeding work was carried out at the farm production enterprise “Krasniy Oktyabr’”, the Kazbek district, in the period between 2005 and 2019. The work resulted in the development of the Arthlukh Merino sheep breed. (Patent for selection achievement No. 10112 “State Commission of the Russian Federation for Selection Achievement Tests and Protection”). The breed was developed by crossing the Stavropol sheep rams with the Dagestan mountain sheep, with the subsequent improvement of crossbreeds by the Manych Merino breed. A distinctive feature of the new Merino breed from the basic herdmates of the Dagestan Mountain breed is the high live weight, which is 15.3–16.5% higher in different sex and age groups. Besides, the amount of washed wool shorn is 16.2–26.0% higher. The ewes’ wool fineness is 22.9 microns (19.4–23.0) – 64 qualities. That of adult rams amounts to 23.3 microns (19.9–23.3) and has 60 qualities. The difference of the wool fineness on the side and thigh does not exceed one quality. The coat length on the side of ewes is not less than 9.0 cm, rams – 9.5 cm, gimmers (young ewes) – 9.5 cm and replacement rams – 10.0 cm. The wool strength is 7.0 cN/Tex. The belly wool cover is good. The suint is stable, of a white and light cream color. The average yield of washed wool excluding the lowest grades is 64%. The fertility of ewes ranged from 125% to 135%.

Abstract:

For 42 states and the District of Columbia, lottery games provide a steady revenue source which can bring in up to 4% of annual state revenues. Unlike other public finance tools such as income taxes, lottery products enjoy substantial popularity. A particular reason they appear to be popular among state policymakers is that lotteries are often referred to as a “voluntary tax.” Compared to income taxes, however, relatively little is known about who plays the lottery and thus who provides states with this stream of “voluntary tax revenues.” State government budgets in the US are currently under pressure for both structural and cyclical reasons. As a result, many are debating the expansion of state-sponsored gambling to enhance their fiscal revenue streams. Previous studies have presented evidence that lotteries are regressive. For the current public policy debate to be fully informed, it is important to have information about who pays the “voluntary tax.” This paper uses unpublished FY 2005 sales data, provided by the Maryland Lottery Commission, from every individual lottery point of sale terminal in the state of Maryland. Because our data include the physical addresses of the terminals, we use an interdisciplinary approach to analyze this data by incorporating some tools from contemporary economic geography into our research. First, we marry the lottery-terminal data to census tract data and examine it using geographic information system (GIS) maps. We use the GIS maps to explore the relationship between race, income, per-capita lottery sales and the density of lottery retail sites. We also use the maps to attempt to shed some light on how different racial and income groups contribute to total state lottery revenues. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first in-depth use of GIS techniques to explore these questions.Because the data include not only the physical address of the terminal, but sales data disaggregated by lottery game, we are able to show the geographic distribution of the sales of particular lottery games, offering insight into how different games are played by the populations in different areas of the state. These analyses reflect new directions in the study of the lottery as a public policy issue, offering insights beyond the usual research on income and demographic effects.Finally, we present the results of a regression analysis of the effect of various social and economic factors on per-capita lottery sales. Our results confirm the findings of many previous studies, but also demonstrate that the nature of the demographic “burden” of the lottery may not be the same in Maryland as it is in other states where studies have been conducted.We are grateful for the assistance of Joe School and Anthony Dowell, for research support provided by the Special Research Initiative Fund at UMBC, to the Maryland Lottery Commission, and to participants of the Symposium on Gambling, Prediction Markets, and Public Policy hosted by Nottingham-Trent University. The opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors.

Abstract:

According to the data indicating the decline and restructuring during the past decade, as well as the trend in the European Union member states, it can be expected that the role of traditional agriculture and fish production in direct rural employment decrease further. This also values those strategic directions for restructuring that will lead fishculture from quantity driven to quality production along with sustainable development (i.e. environmental conscious production) and multifunctional farming. This way the economic and social tensions caused by the concentration of the production and labour output can be mitigated.It is laid in the 1257/1999 Act on rural Development that farmers that enrol the agri-environmental scheme should follow the “Good Agricultural Practice” on the whole managed area. In case of agri-environmental schemes this is a precondition for which no grants are given.The adaptation of “Good Agricultural Practice” in fishproduction,where it is called: “Good Pond Culture Practice” is considered important on the basis of the above mentioned. This programme is undertaken in co-operation with the Research Institute for Aquaculture, Fisheries and Irrigation, University of Debrecen, Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development and the Association of Hungarian Fish Farmers and Product Council.The European Commission proposed the formulation of the European Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EFAF) for the period 2007-20013, which will replace the Financial Instruments for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG), but it also consists of several new elements and will be working differently, too. According to the proposal the budget for the Fund will be nearly 5 billion EUR (4963 million EUR). The development level of aquaculture and fisheries and the social and economic significance in the given member state will be considered when distributing the Fund between the Member States.According to the plan the Fund is organised along five priority axes, of which the most important for the Hungarian fisheries sector is No. II: Aquaculture and the processing and marketing of aquaculture and fisheries products. The main measure areas are the followings:1. investment support for aquaculture;2. support for aquatic-environmental schemes;3. environmental- and animal health issues;4. investments in processing and marketingIn case of accessing support under measure area No. 2 farms are obliged to meet the requirements of the scheme beyond the “good management practice” for 5 years, which is to be supervised by the approved body of the Member State. For this reason our work is considered to be substantial.Approval of the application of “Good Pond Culture Practice” is based on two elements: first the prevailing environmental and nature conservation regulations, as well as the list of controllable conditions in the new agri-environmental agreements are to be met. “Good Pond Culture Practice” are to be conducted on the whole farm area. Its main elements are:- nutrition management,- feeding,- pond maintenance,- stocking,- harvesting,- animal welfare (storage and over-wintering).

Abstract:

Fish farming, as an agricultural sector, plays an important role in providing people with valuable food. In order to maintain fish stocks in reservoirs at the industrial level, the introduction of additional industrial species, as well as their hybrid forms, is important. Growing trout is promising in Ukraine, especially in the western region. The urgent task for modern freshwater fish farming in Ukraine is the restoration of effective development of trout fishing. An increase in the production of high-quality trout products in Ukraine will make it possible to significantly reduce imports of salmon fish. According to the working meeting of the trolling development team in Ukraine, held on September 6, trout growing in the Ukrainian market reached 6 thousand tons, while 10 thousand tons per year of grown trout is the absolute minimum that can be grown. In our country trout is not a traditional breeding object, its production is only 1.5% of all species of fish. The increase in the production trout fishing of products is possible due to the expansion of production areas, the integration of production processes, the transfer of experience from foreign producers, as well as investments in the fishing industry, which would allow small farms to supply domestic products to the market. An important moment in the development of profitable trout farms is the definition of the optimal commodity weight of trout. So in foreign trout fishing, small trout is not realized. Freshwater economies in Germany, Denmark, and Turkey face high feed costs and relatively low productivity. In the US, for example, during the year the trout reaches a mass of 410–450 g; in Japan, rainbow trout weighing 100–120 g is used as a landing material for garden cultivation in seawater, which is carried out from October to July next year at a water temperature of 8–14 °C. At the end of the period, the fish grown up to 2 kg. Growing rainbow trout as commercial fish in trout farms is organized with different terms of implementation, depending on the different weight of fish. Currently, trout is considered to be commodity in Ukraine with an average weight of 250–350 g. But given the current state of the market of fish products, it is not feasible to sell such fish because it does not show its food and taste preferences and does not have a commodity condition. Along with this, in the commodity trout weighing 500 g or more, except for meat, caviar are a valuable food product. Fishery productivity is a key indicator of the efficiency of farm fish farming and reflects the state of technology and production culture, and the level of management affects all economic performance of the fish industry. In modern trout fishing, traditional feeds are finally replaced with highly effective granulated dry feed mixes. Therefore, the purpose of our work was, based on a review of literary sources and analysis of the economic activity of the investigated farms, to give a general description of the forage for Aller Aqua, which is used for fish feeding, and to determine their effectiveness.

Abstract:

The microbiological quality of milk is important not only for food safety, but it can also influence the quality of dairy products. In this study, our aim was to assess the microbiological status of the bulk milk of a milk-producing farm, and some natural and flavored (garlic, dill, onion) gomolya cheeses made from pasteurized milk produced by their own processing plant. We determined the number of coliform bacteria, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and molds of three milk and eight cheese samples. The tests were conducted between July and September, 2017. In bulk milk, the mean coliform count was 3.83±0.17 log10 CFU/ml; the mean E. coli count was 1.38±0.14 log10 CFU/ml; the mean mold count was 3.74±1.30 log10 CFU/ml; and the S. aureus count was <1.00 log10 CFU/ml, respectively. The mean coliform count in gomolya cheeses was 3.69±1.00 log10 CFU/g; the mean E. coli count was 2.63±0.58 log10 CFU/g; the mean S. aureus count was 3.69±1.35 log10 CFU/g and the mean mold count was 1.74±0.37 log10 CFU/g. The amount of coliforms detected in different flavored gomolya cheeses were significantly different (P<0.05). More than 10 CFU/g of E. coli was found only in the dill flavored cheeses, and S. aureus was found only in dill (3.66±1.86 log10 CFU/g) and onion (3.71±0.52 log10 CFU/g) flavored gomolya cheeses. Based on the obtained results, it was found that the amount of coliform bacteria and E. coli in bulk milk exceeded the limit set in regulation of the Hungarian Ministry of Health (MoH) 4/1998 (XI. 11.) and the amount of S. aureus was below the limit. For gomolya cheeses, the S. aureus count exceeded the limit. The amount of coliform bacteria remained above the limit in cheeses, except for the garlic flavored gomolya cheese. In cheeses, a larger E. coli count was detected than in the bulk milk, but there is no specific limit for cheeses in the regulation. The mold count exceeded the limit specified in the regulation in cheeses, but a lower value was detected relative to milk. The results show that, in the case of bulk milk and gomolya cheeses, certain detected quantities exceeded the limit values set forth in regulation of MoH 4/1998 (XI. 11.). The results indicate an inadequate microbiological state of the raw material and the finished products. The reasons for these are due to reduced technological hygiene or the inappropriate handling of raw material and finished products. In this study, we have summarized the results of our preliminary studies, which can provide a basis for further hygiene studies.

Abstract:

Rejuvenation of the horticulture industry is a government priority in Afghanistan. With that purpose, European Commission-supported programs specifically focus on greater access to improved and appropriate planting materials to increase the quantity and quality of more competitive horticultural products. Establishment of a biotechnology laboratory was considered essential support to horticulture sector development. This laboratory has begun screening the health status of the Afghan Germplasm National Collection to ensure multiplication of not only the best selected varieties or ecotypes but also to avoid reproduction and distribution of virus-infected fruit trees. Symptom inspection and sample collection for viral diseases was carried out in the citrus orchard during survey activity at the National Collection Experimental Farm in Jalalabad (Nangarhar Province). Ninety-nine variety plots (one row of five plants) were inspected visually and samples from two plants for each plot were collected and analyzed by double-antibody sandwich (DAS)-ELISA. Plants showing vein flecking, yellowing, and plant decline symptoms were observed in several plots. Four accessions were found to be infected by Citrus tristeza virus (CTV): kumquat cv. Margarita (isolates J4 and J8), orange cv. Mahali (J61), mandarin group cv. Fruter (J76), and rough lemon cv. Mahali (J101). Identified isolates have been characterized molecularly. A 655-nt fragment, corresponding to the major coat protein gene, has been amplified from all ELISA-positive samples by reverse transcription (RT)-PCR using CTVF (5′-TAATGGACGACGAACAAAGA-3′) and CTVR (5′-CCAAGCTGCCTGACATTAGT-3′) primers. Sequence analysis revealed high similarity, ranging from 91.1 to 99.8%, within CTV isolates detected in Jalalabad. In accordance with the phylogenetic groups previously defined (page 8 in: Proceedings of the 15th Conference of the International Organization of Citrus Virologists, 2002), nucleotide sequences of Afghan CTV isolates investigated in the current work cluster in Group 1 (J4 and J8), Group 4 (J61 and J76), and Group 5 (J101). In particular, J4 and J8 isolates show, respectively, identity of 99.4 and 99.2% with reference isolate T36 (GenBank Accession No. M76485) from the United States (Florida). Moreover, in Group 4, isolate J61 and J76 were more similar to ANO-1 isolate (GenBank Accession No. DQ211658) from Egypt (identity of 98.5 and 98.0%, respectively) than to isolate 443-4 (GenBank Accession No. AY791844) from Croatia (97.4 and 97.5%, respectively). Finally, isolate J101 in Group 5, shows identity of 95.6% with isolates C268-2 (GenBank Accession No. AY750770) and C269-6 (GenBank Accession No. AY750775) from Argentina. To our knowledge, our results identified for the first time CTV-infected plants in Afghanistan. The presence of CTV in four accessions of the national citrus collection is of concern for Afghan horticulture. Implementation of the certification schemes is therefore necessary to guarantee the production and the employment of virus-free propagating material.

Abstract:

Seven spot ladybird beetle, (Coccinella septempunctata) is a widely distributed natural enemy of soft-bodied insect pests especially aphids worldwide. Both the adult and larvae of this coccinellid beetle are voracious feeders and serve as a commercially available biological control agent around the globe. Different techniques are adopted to enhance the mass rearing and storage of this natural enemy by taking advantage of its natural ability to withstand under extremely low temperatures and entering diapause under unfavorable low temperature conditions. The key objective of this study was to develop a cost effective technique for enhancing the storage life and predatory potential of the larvae of C. septempunctata through cold storage in conjunction with the use of nuclear techniques, gamma radiations. Results showed that the host eating potential of larvae was enhanced as the cold storage duration was increased. Gamma irradiation further enhanced the feeding potential of larvae that were kept under cold storage. Different irradiation doses also affected the development time of C. septempuntata larvae significantly. Without cold storage, the lower radiation doses (10 and 25 GY) prolonged the developmental time as compared to un-irradiated larvae. Furthermore, the higher dose of radiation (50GY) increased the developmental time after removal from cold storage. This study first time paves the way to use radiation in conjunction with cold storage as an effective technique in implementation of different biological control approaches as a part of any IPM programs.Key wordGamma irradiations; cold storage, Coccinella septempunctata larvae; predatory potential; integrated pest management programme.INTRODUCTIONNuclear techniques such as gamma radiations have a vast application in different programmes of biological control including continuous supply of sterilized host and improved rearing techniques (Greany and Carpenter, 2000; Cai et al., 2017). Similarly irradiation can be used for sentinel-host eggs and larvae for monitoring survival and distribution of parasitoids (Jordão-paranhos et al., 2003; Hendrichs et al., 2009; Tunçbilek et al., 2009; Zapater et al., 2009; Van Lenteren, 2012). Also, at the production level, such technique may facilitate the management of host rearing, improve quality and expedite transport of product (Fatima et al., 2009; Hamed et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2009). Gamma irradiations can also be used to stop insect’s development to enhance host suitability for their use in different mass rearing programs (Celmer-Warda, 2004; Hendrichs et al., 2009; Seth et al., 2009). Development and survival of all insects have a direct connection with temperatures which in turn affect the physical, functional and behavioral adaptations (Ramløy, 2000). Many insects living in moderate regions can survive at low temperature by process of diapause. A temperature between 0 to 10oC may cause some insects to become sluggish and they only become active when the temperature is suitable. Such insects show greater adaptations to flexible temperature regimes for better survival. Many studies have reported this concept of cold-hardiness in insects in general (Bale, 2002; Danks, 2006) and specifically in coccinellid beetles over past years (Watanabe, 2002; Koch et al., 2004; Pervez and Omkar, 2006; Labrie et al., 2008; Berkvens et al., 2010). Using this cold hardiness phenomenon, many coccinellids have been studied for the effect of cold storage such as Coccinella undecimpunctata (Abdel‐Salam and Abdel‐Baky, 2000), Coleomegilla maculata (Gagné and Coderre, 2001) and Harmonia axyridis (Watanabe, 2002). This natural phenomenon, therefore, can be a helpful tool in developing low temperature stockpiling for improving mass-rearing procedures (Mousapour et al., 2014). It may provide a significant output in terms of providing natural enemies as and when required during pest infestation peaks (Venkatesan et al., 2000). Use of irradiation in conjunction with cold storage proves to be an effective technique in implementation of different biological control approaches as a part of any IPM programme. A study reported that the pupate of house fly, Musca domestica irradiated at dose of 500 Gy and can stored up to 2 months at 6°C for future use for a parasitoid wasp Spalangia endius rearing (Zapater et al., 2009). Similarly, when irradiated at 20 GY, parasitic wasps Cotesia flavipes were stored safely up to two months without deterioration of their parasitic potential (Fatima et al., 2009). Similarly, bio-control program of sugarcane shoot borer Chilo infescatellus proved successful through the use of irradiation combined with cold storage of its egg and larval parasitoids Trichogramma chilonis and C. flavipes (Fatima et al., 2009). Less mobile life stages such as larvae are of significance in any IPM strategy because they remain on target site for more time period as compared to adults. Therefore, use of predatory larvae is very promising in different biological control approaches because of their immediate attack on pests and more resistance to unfavorable environmental conditions than delicate egg stage. In addition, with their augmentation into fields, larval stage shows their presence for longer time than adult stage and their feeding potential is also satisfactory as that of adults. For the best utilization of these predators in the field and maximum impact of 3rd and 4th larval instars on prey, we should encourage late 2nd second instar larvae of predatory beetles in the fields as these instars have more feeding capacity due to increased size and ability to handle larger preys.In spite of higher significance, there is little information available about the effect of cold storage on the survival of larval instars of different ladybird beetles and its effect on their predatory potential. Very few studies report the use of cold storage for non-diapausing larval stage like for Semiadalia undecimnotata and only one study reported the short-term storage (up to two weeks) of 2nd and 3rd instar coccinellid, C. maculate, without any loss in feeding voracity of larvae after storage (Gagné and Coderre, 2001). The survival of 3rd and 4th larval instars of C. undecimpunctata for 7 days after storage at 5oC was reported in a study but the survival rate declined after 15-60 days of storage (Abdel‐Salam and Abdel‐Baky, 2000). As C. septempunctata is considered one of the voracious predators (Afroz, 2001; Jandial and Malik, 2006; Bilashini and Singh, 2009; Xia et al., 2018) and diapause is a prominent feature of this beetle and it may undergo facultative diapause under suitable laboratory conditions (Suleman, 2015). No information is available to date about the combined effect of cold storage and irradiation on the larval instars of this species.OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to devise a cost effective technique for the cold storage and its effect on the subsequent predatory potential of the seven spotted ladybird beetle larvae in conjunction with the use of gamma radiations. Hypothesis of the study was that an optimum length of low temperature treatment for storage purpose would not affect the predation capacity of C. septempunctata larvae and their developmental parameters including survival and pupation will remain unaffected. Furthermore, use of gamma irradiation will have some additional effects on survival and feeding capacity of irradiated C. septempunctata larvae. Such techniques can be utilized in different biocontrol programs where short term storage is required. So these larvae can be successfully imparted in different IPM programs against sucking complex of insect pests as a component of biological control strategyMATERIALS AND METHODSPlant materials: Collection and rearing of C. septempunctata: Adult C. septempunctata were collected from the wheat crop (in NIAB vicinity and farm area) in the month of March during late winter and early in spring season 2016-2017. They were kept in plastic jars and were fed with brassica aphids. Under controlled laboratory conditions (25+2oC, 16h: 8h L:D and 65+5% R.H.), eggs of C. septempuctata were obtained and after hatching, larvae were also given brassica aphids as dietary source. Larvae of second instar were selected for this experiment (as the first instar is generally very weak and vulnerable to mortality under low temperatures). As the larvae approached second instar, they were separated for the experimentation. Irradiation of larvae at different doses: Irradiation of larvae was carried out by the irradiation source 137CS at Radiation laboratory, and the larvae were then brought back to the IPM laboratory, Plant Protection Division, Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) Faisalabad. Radiation doses of 10 GY (Grey), 25 GY and 50 GY were used to treat the second instar larvae. There were three replicates for each treatment and five larvae per replicate were used. Control treatment was left un-irradiated.Cold storage of irradiated larvae: In present work, second instar C. septempunctata larvae were studied for storage at low temperature of 8oC. The larvae were kept at 8oC for 0, I and II weeks where week 0 depicts no cold treatment and this set of larvae was left under laboratory conditions for feeding and to complete their development. For larvae that were kept under cold storage for one week at 8°C, the term week I was devised. Similarly, week II denotes the larvae that remained under cold conditions (8°C) for two continuous weeks. Larvae were removed from cold storage in their respective week i.e., after week I and week II and were left under laboratory conditions to complete their development by feeding on aphids. Data collection: For recording the predatory potential of C. septempunctata larvae, 100 aphids were provided per larva per replicate on a daily basis until pupation as this number was more than their feeding capacity to make sure that they were not starved (personal observation). Observations were recorded for survival rate, developmental time and feeding potential. Data analysis: Data were statistically analysed by Statistical Software SPSS (Version 16.0). The data were subjected to normality check through the One-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Non normal data were transformed to normal data which were then used for all parametric variance tests. One-way and two-way analyses of variance were used. For comparison between variables, LSD test at α 0.05 was applied.RESULTSFeeding potential of irradiated larvae after removal from cold storage: Results showed an increase in the feeding potential of C. septempunctata larvae with increased cold storage duration. The feeding potential was significantly higher for the larvae that spent maximum length of time (week II) under cold storage conditions followed by week I and week 0. Gamma irradiations further enhanced the feeding potential of larvae that were kept under cold storage. When larvae were irradiated at 10 GY, the eating capacity of larvae increased significantly with the duration of cold storage. Similarly, larvae that were irradiated at 25 GY, showed increase in feeding potential on aphids as the time period of cold storage increased. The feeding potential of larvae that were irradiated at 50 GY, was again significantly increased with increase of cold storage duration. When different radiation doses were compared to week 0 of storage, there was a significant difference in feeding potential and larvae irradiated at 50 GY consumed the maximum numbers of aphids when no cold storage was done followed by larvae irradiated at 10 and 25 GY. With the other treatment, where larvae were kept under cold storage for one week (week I) the larvae irradiated at 50GY again showed the highest feeding potential. The feeding potential of irradiated larvae was again significantly higher than the un-irradiated larvae that were kept for two weeks (week II) under cold storage (table 1).Two-way ANOVA was performed to check the interaction between the different radiation doses and different lengths of storage durations for feeding potential of C. septempunctata larvae on aphids. The feeding potential of larvae irradiated at different doses and subjected to variable durations of cold storage were significantly different for both the radiation doses and cold storage intervals. Furthermore, the interaction between the radiation doses and storage duration was also significant meaning that the larvae irradiated at different doses with different length of cold storage were having significant variations in feeding levels (table 2).Developmental time of irradiated larvae after removal from cold storage: Significant difference was found in the development time of the larvae of C. septempunctata when irradiated at different doses at week 0 (without cold storage). The larvae irradiated at 10 GY took the maximum time for development and with the increase in irradiation dosage, from 25 to 50 GY, the time of development was shortened. The larvae irradiated at 50 GY had the same development time as the un-irradiated ones. When, the irradiated larvae were subjected to cold storage of one week duration (week I), their development time after removal from storage condition varied significantly. The larvae irradiated at 25 GY took the maximum time for development followed by larvae irradiated at 50 GY and 10 GY. There was an indication that the development time was extended for irradiated larvae as compared to un-irradiated larvae.Results also depicted a significant difference in the time taken by irradiated larvae to complete their development after taken out from cold storage of two weeks duration (week II). As the storage time of irradiated larvae increased, the development time was prolonged. Results showed that the larvae that were irradiated at 25 and 50 GY, took the maximum time to complete their development. With the prolonged duration of cold storage up to two weeks (week II), this difference of development time was less evident at lower doses (10 GY). The larvae irradiated at 10 GY showed a significant difference in their developmental duration after being taken out of cold storage conditions of the week 0, I and II. There was no difference in the developmental duration of larvae that were un-irradiated and subjected to different regimes of storage. Un-irradiated larvae were least affected by the duration of storage. With the increase in the storage time, a decrease in the developmental time was recorded. Larvae that were irradiated at 10 GY, took the maximum period to complete their development when no cold storage was done (week 0) followed by week I and II of cold storage. When the larvae irradiated at 25 GY were compared for their development time, there was again significant difference for week 0, I and II of storage duration. Maximum time was taken by the larvae for their complete development when removed from cold storage after one week (week I). With the increase in storage duration the time taken by larvae to complete their development after removal from cold storage reduced.When the larvae were removed after different lengths of cold storage duration i.e., week 0, week I and week II, there was a significant difference in the developmental time afterwards. Results have shown that the higher dose of radiation, increased the developmental time after removal from cold storage. The larvae irradiated at 50 GY took the longest time to complete their development after removal from cold storage (week I and week II) as compared the larvae that were not kept under cold storage conditions (week 0) (table 3).Interaction between the different radiation doses and different lengths of storage durations for development time of larvae were checked by two-way ANOVA. The development time of larvae irradiated at different doses and subjected to variable durations of cold storage were significantly different for both the doses and cold storage intervals. Furthermore, the interaction between the radiation doses and storage duration was also significant meaning that the larvae irradiated at different doses with different length of cold storage were having significant variations in development times (table 4). DISCUSSIONThe present research work indicates the possibility of keeping the larval instars of C. septempunctata under cold storage conditions of 8oC for a short duration of around 14 days without affecting its further development and feeding potential. Furthermore, irradiation can enhance the feeding potential and increase the development time of larval instars. This in turn could be a useful technique in mass rearing and field release programmes for biological control through larval instars. Usually temperature range of 8-10oC is an optimal selection of low temperature for storage as reported earlier for eggs two spotted ladybird beetle, Adalia bipunctata and the eggs of C. septempunctata (Hamalainen and Markkula, 1977), Trichogramma species (Jalali and Singh, 1992) and fairyfly, Gonatocerus ashmeadi (Hymenoptra; Mymaridae) (Leopold and Chen, 2007). However, a study reported more than 80% survival rate for the coccinellid beetle, Harmonia axyridis for up to 150 days at moderately low temperature of 3-6oC (Ruan et al., 2012). So there is great flexibility in coccinellid adults and larvae for tolerating low temperature conditions. After removal from cold storage, larvae showed better feeding potential with consumption of more aphids when compared to normal larvae that were not placed under low temperature conditions. This indicates that when the adult or immature insect stages are subjected to low temperature environment, they tend to reduce their metabolic activity for keeping them alive on the reserves of their body fats and sustain themselves for a substantial length of time under such cold environment. Hereafter, the larval instars that were in cold storage were behaving as if starved for a certain length of time and showed more hunger. This behavior of improved or higher feeding potential of stored larvae has been reported previously (Chapman, 1998). Hence, the feeding potential of C. septempunctata larvae significantly increased after cold storage. Gagné and Coderre (2001) reported higher predatory efficacy in larvae of C. maculata when stored at the same temperature as in the present study i.e., 8oC. Similarly, Ruan et al. (2012) showed that the multicolored Asian ladybug, H. axyridis, when stored under cold conditions, had more eating capacity towards aphids Aphis craccivora Koch than the individuals that were not stored. Such studies indicate that the higher feeding potential in insects after being subjected to low temperature environmental conditions could be due to the maintenance of their metabolism rate to a certain level while utilizing their energy reserves to the maximum extent (Watanabe, 2002).The individuals coming out from cold storage are therefore capable of consuming more pray as they were in a condition of starvation and they have to regain their energy loss through enhanced consumption. Furthermore, the starvation in C. septempunctata has previously been reported to affect their feeding potential (Suleman et al., 2017). In the present study, the larval development was delayed after returning to normal laboratory conditions. Cold storage affects the life cycle of many insects other than coccinellids. The cold storage of green bug aphid parasitoid, Lysiphlebus testaceipes Cresson (Hymenoptra; Braconidae) mummies increased the life cycle 3-4 times. Nevertheless, in current study the development process of stored larvae resumed quickly after taking them out and larvae completed their development up to adult stage. Similar kinds of results were reported for resumption of larval development after removal from cold storage conditions. Such studies only report satisfactory survival rates and development for a short duration of cold storage but as the length of storage is increased, it could become harmful to certain insects. Gagné and Coderre (2001) reported that cold storage for longer period (three weeks) proved fatal for almost 40% of larvae of C. maculata. Furthermore, in the same study, the feeding potential of C. maculata larvae was also affected beyond two weeks of cold storage due to the loss of mobility after a long storage period. Many studies have reported that longer durations of low temperature conditions can either damage the metabolic pathways of body cells or may increase the levels of toxins within the bodies of insects. Also, low temperature exposure for longer duration may cause specific interruptions in the insect body especially neuro-hormones responsible for insect development, which could be dangerous or even life threatening.Chen et al. (2004) also reported that the biological qualities of parasitized Bemisia tabaci pupae on population quality of Encarsia formosa were affected negatively with increase in cold storage duration. Similarly, the egg hatchability of green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea Stephen was lost completely beyond 18 days of cold storage (Sohail et al., 2019). However, in the present study the cold storage was done for maximum two weeks and it is to be regarded as a short term storage hence the survival rate was satisfactory. Longer periods of cold storage for larvae are not considered safe due to their vulnerable state as compared to adults which are hardier. Also 2nd instar larvae used in the present study for cold storage for being bigger in size and physical stronger than 1st instar. Abdel‐Salam and Abdel‐Baky (2000) reported that in C. undecimpunctata the cold storage of 3rd and 4th larval instars was higher and considered safer than early larval instars. The same study showed sharp decline in survival rate after two weeks and there was no survival beyond 30-60 days of cold storage. The present study showed that short term storage of the larvae of C. septempunctata could be done without any loss of their feeding potential or development so the quality of predator remained unaffected. Similar kind of work for many other insects had been reported previously where cold storage technique proved useful without deteriorating the fitness of stored insects. For example, the flight ability of reared codling moth Cydia pomonella Linnaeus remained unaffected after removal from cold storage (Matveev et al., 2017). Moreover, a sturdy reported that pupae of a parasitoid wasp Trichogramma nerudai (Hymenoptera; Trichogrammatidae) could be safely put in cold storage for above than 50 days (Tezze and Botto, 2004). Similarly, a technique of cold storage of non-diapausing eggs of black fly Simulium ornaturm Meigen was developed at 1oC. Another study reported safe storage of a predatory bug insidious flower bug Orius insidiosus for more than 10 days at 8°C (Bueno et al., 2014).In present study without cold storage, the lower doses of 10 and 25 GY prolonged the developmental time as compared to un-irradiated larvae and higher doses of irradiations in conjunction with cold storage again significantly prolonged the developmental time of larvae when returned to the laboratory conditions. Salem et al. (2014) also reported that Gamma irradiations significantly increased the duration of developmental stages (larvae and pupae) in cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel). In another study, where endoparasitic wasps Glyptapanteles liparidis were evaluated with irradiated and non-irradiated gypsy moth Lymantria dispar larvae for oviposition, it was found that non-irradiated larvae had a shorter time to reach the adult stage as compared to irradiated larvae (Novotny et al., 2003). Both for higher doses with cold storage and lower doses without cold storage extended the larval duration of C. septempunctata. In another study when the parasitoid wasp Habrobracon hebetor was irradiated at the dose of 10 GY, it resulted in prolonged longevity (Genchev et al., 2008). In the same study, when another parasitoid Ventruria canescens was irradiated at lower doses of 4GY and 3 GY, it resulted in increased emergence from the host larvae, while gamma irradiations at the dose of 1 GY and 2 GY significantly stimulated the rate of parasitism (Genchev et al., 2008). The current study also indicated higher rates of predation in the form of increased feeding potential of larvae as a result of irradiations at lower doses.CONCLUSIONThe outcome of the current study shows that storage of 2nd instar C. septempunctata at low temperature of 8oC for a short duration of about 14 days is completely safe and could have broader application in different biocontrol programs. Such flexibility in storage duration can also assist in different mass rearing techniques and commercial uses. The combination of gamma radiation with low temperature cold storage could be a useful tool in developing different biological pest management programs against sucking insect pests. Incidence of periodic occurrence of both the target insect pests with their predatory ladybird beetles in synchrony is an important aspect that could be further strengthened by cold storage techniques. Therefore, short or long term bulk cold storage of useful commercial biocontrol agents and then reactivating them at appropriate time of pest infestation is a simple but an advantageous method in mass rearing programs. Increased feeding capacity of stored larvae is another edge and hence such larvae may prove more beneficial as compared to unstored larvae. Both cold storage and improved feeding of the C. septempuctata larvae can be utilized for implementation of IPM for many sucking insect pests of various crops, fruits and vegetables. Due to some constraints this study could not be continued beyond two weeks but for future directions, higher doses and longer duration periods could further elaborate the understanding and better application of such useful techniques in future IPM programmes on a wider scale. Also, some other predatory coccinellid beetle species can be tested with similar doses and cold storage treatments to see how effective this technique is on other species as well.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We acknowledge the Sugarcane Research and Development Board for providing a research grant (No. SRDB/P/4/16) to carry out this research work. This paper is a part of research thesis entitled “Effect of gamma irradiation on storage and predatory potential of seven spotted lady bird beetle larvae” submitted to Higher Education Commission, Pakistan for the degree of M.Phil. Biological Sciences.CONFLICT OF INTERESTAuthors have no conflict of interest.REFERENCESAbdel‐Salam, A. and N. J. J. o. A. E. Abdel‐Baky, 2000. Possible storage of Coccinella undecimpunctata (Col., coccinellidae) under low temperature and its effect on some biological characteristics. 124(3‐4): 169-176.Afroz, S., 2001. Relative abundance of aphids and their coccinellid predators. Journal of aphidology, 15: 113-118.Bale, J., 2002. Insects and low temperatures: From molecular biology to distributions and abundance. Biological sciences, 357(1423): 849-862.Berkvens, N., J. S. Bale, D. Berkvens, L. Tirry and P. De Clercq, 2010. Cold tolerance of the harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis in europe. Journal of insect physiology, 56(4): 438-444.Bilashini, Y. and T. J. I. J. A. E. Singh, 2009. Studies on population dynamics and feeding potential of Coccinella septempunctata linnaeus in relation to Lipaphis erysimi (kaltenbach) on cabbage. Indian journal of applied entomology, 23: 99-103.Bueno, V. H. P., L. M. Carvalho and J. Van Lenteren, 2014. Performance of Orius insidiosus after storage, exposure to dispersal material, handling and shipment processes. Bulletin of insectology, 67(2): 175-183.Cai, P., X. Gu, M. Yao, H. Zhang, J. Huang, A. Idress, Q. Ji, J. Chen and J. Yang, 2017. The optimal age and radiation dose for Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel)(Diptera: Tephritidae) eggs as hosts for mass-reared Fopius arisanus (Sonan)(Hymenoptera: Braconidae). Biological control, 108: 89-97.Celmer-Warda, K., 2004. Preliminary studies suitability and acceptability of irradiated host larvae Plodia interpunctella (Hubner) on larval parasitoids Venturia canescens (gravenhorst). Annals of warsaw agricultural university, horticulture (Landscape Architecture), 25: 67-73.Chapman, R. F., 1998. The insects: Structure and function. Cambridge university press.Chen, Q., L.-f. Xiao, G.-r. Zhu, Y.-s. LIU, Y.-j. ZHANG, Q.-j. WU and B.-y. XU, 2004. Effect of cold storage on the quality of Encarsia formosa Gahan. Chinese journal of biological control, 20(2): 107-109.Danks, H., 2006. Insect adaptations to cold and changing environments. The Canadian entomologist, 138(1): 1-23.Fatima, B., N. Ahmad, R. M. Memon, M. Bux and Q. Ahmad, 2009. Enhancing biological control of sugarcane shoot borer, Chilo infuscatellus (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), through use of radiation to improve laboratory rearing and field augmentation of egg and larval parasitoids. Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 277-290.Gagné, I. and D. Coderre, 2001. Cold storage of Coleomegilla maculata larvae. Biocontrol science technology, 11(3): 361-369.Genchev, N., N. Balevski, D. Obretenchev and A. Obretencheva, 2008. Stimulation effects of low gamma radiation doses on perasitoids Habrobracon hebetor and Ventruria canescens. Journal of Balkan ecology, 11: 99-102.Greany, P. D. and J. E. Carpenter, 2000. Årea-ide control of fruit flies and other insect pests: Importance. Joint proceedings of the International Conference on Årea-Wide Control of insect pests, May 28–June 2, 1998 and the Fifth International symposium on fruit flies of economi, June 1-5.Hamalainen, M. and M. Markkula, 1977. Cool storage of Coccinella septempunctata and Adalia bipunctata (Col., coccinellidae) eggs for use in the biological control in greenhouses. Annales agricultural fennicae, 16: 132-136.Hamed, M., S. Nadeem and A. Riaz, 2009. Use of gamma radiation for improving the mass production of Trichogramma chilonis and Chrysoperla carnea. Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 43-48.Hendrichs, J., K. Bloem, G. Hoch, J. E. Carpenter, P. Greany and A. S. Robinson, 2009. Improving the cost-effectiveness, trade and safety of biological control for agricultural insect pests using nuclear techniques. Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 3-22.Jalali, S. and S. Singh, 1992. Differential response of four Trichogramma species to low temperatures for short term storage. Entomophaga, 37(1): 159-165.Jandial, V. K. and K. Malik, 2006. Feeding potential of Coccinella septempunctata Linn. (Coccinellidae: Coleoptera) on mustard aphid, lipaphis erysimi kalt. And potato peach aphid, Myzus persicae sulzer. Journal of entomological research, 30(4): 291-293.Jordão-paranhos, B. A., J. M. Walder and N. T. Papadopoulos, 2003. A simple method to study parasitism and field biology of the parasitoid Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) on Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae). Biocontrol science technology, 13(6): 631-639.Koch, R. L., M. Carrillo, R. Venette, C. Cannon and W. D. Hutchison, 2004. Cold hardiness of the multicolored asian lady beetle (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae). Environmental entomology, 33(4): 815-822.Labrie, G., D. Coderre and E. Lucas, 2008. Overwintering strategy of multicolored asian lady beetle (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae): Cold-free space as a factor of invasive success. Annals of the entomological society of America, 101(5): 860-866.Leopold, R. and W.-l. Chen, 2007. Cold storage of the adult stage of Gonatocerus ashmeadi girault: The impact on maternal and progeny quality. In: Proceedings of the 2007 pierce’s disease research symposium, San Diego, CA. pp: 42-46.Matveev, E., J. Kwon, G. Judd and M. J. T. C. E. Evenden, 2017. The effect of cold storage of mass-reared codling moths (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) on subsequent flight capacity. The Canadian entomologist, 149(3): 391-398.Mousapour, Z., A. Askarianzadeh and H. Abbasipour, 2014. Effect of cold storage of pupae parasitoid wasp, Habrobracon hebetor (say)(Hymenoptera: Braconidae), on its efficiency. Archives of phytopathology plant protection, 47(8): 966-972.Novotny, J., M. Zúbrik, M. L. McManus and A. M. Liebhold, 2003. Sterile insect technique as a tool for increasing the efficacy of gypsy moth biocontrol. Proceedings: Ecology, survey and management of forest insects GTR-NE-311, 311.Pervez, A. and Omkar, 2006. Ecology and biological control application of multicoloured asian ladybird, Harmonia axyridis: A review. Biocontrol science technology, 16(2): 111-128.Ramløy, U.-B., 2000. Aspects of natural cold tolerance in ectothermic animals. Human reproduction, 15(suppl_5): 26-46.Ruan, C.-C., W.-M. Du, X.-M. Wang, J.-J. Zhang and L.-S. Zang, 2012. Effect of long-term cold storage on the fitness of pre-wintering Harmonia axyridis (pallas). BioControl, 57(1): 95-102.Salem, H., M. Fouda, A. Abas, W. Ali and A. Gabarty, 2014. Effects of gamma irradiation on the development and reproduction of the greasy cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufn.). Journal of radiation research applied sciences, 7(1): 110-115.Seth, R. K., T. K. Barik and S. Chauhan, 2009. Interaction of entomopathogenic nematodes, Steinernema glaseri (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae), cultured in irradiated hosts, with ‘f1 sterility’: Towards management of a tropical pest, Spodoptera litura (fabr.)(Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 139-155.Sohail, M., S. S. Khan, R. Muhammad, Q. A. Soomro, M. U. Asif and B. K. Solangi, 2019. Impact of insect growth regulators on biology and behavior of Chrysoperla carnea (stephens)(Neuroptera: Chrysopidae). Ecotoxicology, 28(9): 1115-1125.Suleman, N., 2015. Heterodynamic processes in Coccinella septempunctata L. (Coccinellidae: Coleoptera): A mini review. Entomological science, 18(2): 141-146.Suleman, N., M. Hamed and A. Riaz, 2017. Feeding potential of the predatory ladybird beetle Coccinella septempunctata (Coleoptera; Coccinellidae) as affected by the hunger levels on natural host species. Journal of phytopathology pest management, 4: 38-47.Tezze, A. A. and E. N. Botto, 2004. Effect of cold storage on the quality of Trichogramma nerudai (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae). Biological control, 30(1): 11-16.Tunçbilek, A. S., U. Canpolat and F. Sumer, 2009. Suitability of irradiated and cold-stored eggs of Ephestia kuehniella (Pyralidae: Lepidoptera) and Sitotroga cerealella (Gelechidae: Lepidoptera) for stockpiling the egg-parasitoid Trichogramma evanescens (Trichogrammatidae: Hymenoptera) in diapause. Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 127-138.Van Lenteren, J. C., 2012. The state of commercial augmentative biological control: Plenty of natural enemies, but a frustrating lack of uptake. BioControl, 57(1): 1-20.Venkatesan, T., S. Singh and S. Jalali, 2000. Effect of cold storage on cocoons of Goniozus nephantidis muesebeck (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) stored for varying periods at different temperature regimes. Journal of entomological research, 24(1): 43-47.Wang, E., D. Lu, X. Liu and Y. Li, 2009. Evaluating the use of nuclear techniques for colonization and production of Trichogramma chilonis in combination with releasing irradiated moths for control of cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera. Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 235-242.Watanabe, M., 2002. Cold tolerance and myo-inositol accumulation in overwintering adults of a lady beetle, Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae). European journal of entomology, 99(1): 5-10.Xia, J., J. Wang, J. Cui, P. Leffelaar, R. Rabbinge and W. Van Der Werf, 2018. Development of a stage-structured process-based predator–prey model to analyse biological control of cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii, by the sevenspot ladybeetle, Coccinella septempunctata, in cotton. Ecological complexity, 33: 11-30.Zapater, M. C., C. E. Andiarena, G. P. Camargo and N. Bartoloni, 2009. Use of irradiated musca domestica pupae to optimize mass rearing and commercial shipment of the parasitoid spalangia endius (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae). Biocontrol science technology, 19(sup1): 261-270.

Abstract:

During World War II, the Soviet Union’s food supply was in a state of crisis. Hitler’s army had occupied the agricultural heartlands of Ukraine and Southern Russia in 1941 and, as a result, agricultural production for the entire nation had plummeted. Soldiers in Red Army, who easily ate the best rations in the country, subsisted on a daily allowance of just under a kilogram of bread, supplemented with meat, tea, sugar and butter when and if these items were available. The hunger of the Red Army and its effect on the morale and strength of Europe’s eastern warfront were causes for concern for the Soviet government and its European and American allies. The one country with a food surplus decided to do something to help, and in 1942 the United States agreed to send thousands of pounds of meat, cheese and butter overseas to help feed the Red Army. After receiving several shipments of the all-American spiced canned meat SPAM, the Red Army’s quartermaster put in a request for a more familiar canned pork product, Russian tushonka. Pound for pound, America sent more pigs overseas than soldiers during World War II, in part because pork was in oversupply in the America of the early 1940s. Shipping meat to hungry soldiers and civilians in war torn countries was a practical way to build business for the U.S. meat industry, which had been in decline throughout the 1930s. As per a Soviet-supplied recipe, the first cans of Lend-Lease tushonka were made in the heart of the American Midwest, at meatpacking plants in Iowa and Ohio (Stettinus 6-7). Government contracts in the meat packing industry helped fuel economic recovery, and meatpackers were in a position to take special request orders like the one for tushonka that came through the lines. Unlike SPAM, which was something of a novelty item during the war, tushonka was a food with a past. The original recipe was based on a recipe for preserved meat that had been a traditional product of the Ural Mountains, preserved in jars with salt and fat rather than by pressure and heat. Thus tushonka was requested—and was mass-produced—not simply as a convenience but also as a traditional and familiar food—a taste of home cooking that soldiers could carry with them into the field. Nikita Khrushchev later claimed that the arrival of tushonka was instrumental in helping the Red Army push back against the Nazi invasion (178). Unlike SPAM and other wartime rations, tushonka did not fade away after the war. Instead, it was distributed to the Soviet civilian population, appearing in charity donations and on the shelves of state shops. Often it was the only meat product available on a regular basis. Salty, fatty, and slightly grey-toned, tushonka was an unlikely hero of the postwar-era, but during this period tushonka rose from obscurity to become an emblem of socialist modernity. Because it was shelf stable and could be made from a variety of different cuts of meat, it proved an ideal product for the socialist production lines where supplies and the pace of production were infinitely variable. Unusual in a socialist system of supply, this product shaped production and distribution lines, and even influenced the layout of meatpacking factories and the genetic stocks of the animals that were to be eaten. Tushonka’s initial ubiquity in the postwar Soviet Union had little to do with the USSR’s own hog industry. Pig populations as well as their processing facilities had been decimated in the war, and pigs that did survive the Axis invasion had been evacuated East with human populations. Instead, the early presence of tushonka in the pig-scarce postwar Soviet Union had everything to do with Harry Truman’s unexpected September 1945 decision to end all “economically useful” Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union (Martel). By the end of September, canned meat was practically the only product still being shipped as part of Lend-Lease (NARA RG 59). Although the United Nations was supposed to distribute these supplies to needy civilians free of cost, travelers to the Soviet Union in 1946 spotted cans of American tushonka for sale in state shops (Skeoch 231). After American tushonka “donations” disappeared from store shelves, the Soviet Union’s meat syndicates decided to continue producing the product. Between its first appearance during the war in 1943, and the 1957 announcement by Nikita Khrushchev that Soviet policy would restructure all state animal farms to support the mass production of one or several processed meat products, tushonka helped to drive the evolution of the Soviet Union’s meat packing industry. Its popularity with both planners and the public gave it the power to reach into food commodity chains. It is this backward reach and the longer-term impacts of these policies that make tushonka an unusual byproduct of the Cold War era. State planners loved tushonka: it was cheap to make, the logistics of preparing it were not complicated, it was easy to transport, and most importantly, it served as tangible evidence that the state was accomplishing a long-standing goal to get more meat to its citizenry and improving the diet of the average Soviet worker. Tushonka became a highly visible product in the Soviet Union’s much vaunted push to establish a modern food regime intended to rival that of the United States. Because it was shelf-stable, wartime tushonka had served as a practical food for soldiers, but after the war tushonka became an ideal food for workers who had neither the time nor the space to prepare a home-cooked meal with fresh meat. The Soviet state started to produce its own tushonka because it was such an excellent fit for the needs and abilities of the Soviet state—consumer demand was rarely considered by planners in this era. Not only did tushonka fit the look and taste of a modern processed meat product (that is, it was standard in texture and flavor from can to can, and was an obviously industrially processed product), it was also an excellent way to make the most of the predominant kind of meat the Soviet Union had the in the 1950s: small scraps low-grade pork and beef, trimmings leftover from butchering practices that focused on harvesting as much animal fat, rather than muscle, from the carcass in question. Just like tushonka, pork sausages and frozen pelmeny, a meat-filled pasta dumpling, also became winning postwar foods thanks to a happy synergy of increased animal production, better butchering and new food processing machines. As postwar pigs recovered their populations, the Soviet processed meat industry followed suit. One official source listed twenty-six different kinds of meat products being issued in 1964, although not all of these were pork (Danilov). An instructional manual distributed by the meat and milk syndicate demonstrated how meat shops should wrap and display sausages, and listed 24 different kinds of sausages that all needed a special style of tying up. Because of packaging shortages, the string that bound the sausage was wrapped in a different way for every type of sausage, and shop assistants were expected to be able to identify sausages based on the pattern of their binding. Pelmeny were produced at every meat factory that processed pork. These were “made from start to finish in a special, automated machine, human hands do not touch them. Which makes them a higher quality and better (prevoskhodnogo) product” (Book of Healthy and Delicious Food). These were foods that became possible to produce economically because of a co-occurring increase in pigs, the new standardized practice of equipping meatpacking plants with large-capacity grinders, and freezers or coolers and the enforcement of a system of grading meat. As the state began to rebuild Soviet agriculture from its near-collapse during the war, the Soviet Union looked to the United States for inspiration. Surprisingly, Soviet planners found some of the United States’ more outdated techniques to be quite valuable for new Soviet hog operations. The most striking of these was the adoption of competing phenotypes in the Soviet hog industry. Most major swine varieties had been developed and described in the 19th century in Germany and Great Britain. Breeds had a tendency to split into two phenotypically distinct groups, and in early 20th Century American pig farms, there was strong disagreement as to which style of pig was better suited to industrial conditions of production. Some pigs were “hot-blooded” (in other words, fast maturing and prolific reproducers) while others were a slower “big type” pig (a self-explanatory descriptor). Breeds rarely excelled at both traits and it was a matter of opinion whether speed or size was the most desirable trait to augment. The over-emphasis of either set of qualities damaged survival rates. At their largest, big type pigs resembled small hippopotamuses, and sows were so corpulent they unwittingly crushed their tiny piglets. But the sleeker hot-blooded pigs had a similarly lethal relationship with their young. Sows often produced litters of upwards of a dozen piglets and the stress of tending such a large brood led overwhelmed sows to devour their own offspring (Long). American pig breeders had been forced to navigate between these two undesirable extremes, but by the 1930s, big type pigs were fading in popularity mainly because butter and newly developed plant oils were replacing lard as the cooking fat of preference in American kitchens. The remarkable propensity of the big type to pack on pounds of extra fat was more of a liability than a benefit in this period, as the price that lard and salt pork plummeted in this decade. By the time U.S. meat packers were shipping cans of tushonka to their Soviet allies across the seas, US hog operations had already developed a strong preference for hot-blooded breeds and research had shifted to building and maintaining lean muscle on these swiftly maturing animals. When Soviet industrial planners hoping to learn how to make more tushonka entered the scene however, their interpretation of american efficiency was hardly predictable: scientifically nourished big type pigs may have been advantageous to the United States at midcentury, but the Soviet Union’s farms and hungry citizens had a very different list of needs and wants. At midcentury, Soviet pigs were still handicapped by old-fashioned variables such as cold weather, long winters, poor farm organisation and impoverished feed regimens. The look of the average Soviet hog operation was hardly industrial. In 1955 the typical Soviet pig was petite, shaggy, and slow to reproduce. In the absence of robust dairy or vegetable oil industries, Soviet pigs had always been valued for their fat rather than their meat, and tushonka had been a byproduct of an industry focused mainly on supplying the country with fat and lard. Until the mid 1950s, the most valuable pig on many Soviet state and collective farms was the nondescript but very rotund “lard and bacon” pig, an inefficient eater that could take upwards of two years to reach full maturity. In searching for a way to serve up more tushonka, Soviet planners became aware that their entire industry needed to be revamped. When the Soviet Union looked to the United States, planners were inspired by the earlier competition between hot-blooded and big type pigs, which Soviet planners thought, ambitiously, they could combine into one splendid pig. The Soviet Union imported new pigs from Poland, Lithuania, East Germany and Denmark, trying valiantly to create hybrid pigs that would exhibit both hot blood and big type. Soviet planners were especially interested in inspiring the Poland-China, an especially rotund specimen, to speed up its life cycle during them mid 1950s. Hybrdizing and cross breeding a Soviet super-pig, no matter how closely laid out on paper, was probably always a socialist pipe dream. However, when the Soviets decided to try to outbreed American hog breeders, they created an infrastructure for pigs and pig breeding that had a dramatic positive impact of hog populations across the country, and the 1950s were marked by a large increase in the number of pigs in the Soviet union, as well as dramatic increases in the numbers of purebred and scientific hybrids the country developed, all in the name of tushonka. It was not just the genetic stock that received a makeover in the postwar drive to can more tushonka; a revolution in the barnyard also took place and in less than 10 years, pigs were living in new housing stock and eating new feed sources. The most obvious postwar change was in farm layout and the use of building space. In the early 1950s, many collective farms had been consolidated. In 1940 there were a quarter of a million kolkhozii, by 1951 fewer than half that many remained (NARA RG166). Farm consolidation movements most often combined two, three or four collective farms into one economic unit, thus scaling up the average size and productivity of each collective farm and simplifying their administration. While there were originally ambitious plans to re-center farms around new “agro-city” bases with new, modern farm buildings, these projects were ultimately abandoned. Instead, existing buildings were repurposed and the several clusters of farm buildings that had once been the heart of separate villages acquired different uses. For animals this meant new barns and new daily routines. Barns were redesigned and compartmentalized around ideas of gender and age segregation—weaned baby pigs in one area, farrowing sows in another—as well as maximising growth and health. Pigs spent less outside time and more time at the trough. Pigs that were wanted for different purposes (breeding, meat and lard) were kept in different areas, isolated from each other to minimize the spread of disease as well as improve the efficiency of production. Much like postwar housing for humans, the new and improved pig barn was a crowded and often chaotic place where the electricity, heat and water functioned only sporadically. New barns were supposed to be mechanised. In some places, mechanisation had helped speed things along, but as one American official viewing a new mechanised pig farm in 1955 noted, “it did not appear to be a highly efficient organisation. The mechanised or automated operations, such as the preparation of hog feed, were eclipsed by the amount of hand labor which both preceded and followed the mechanised portion” (NARA RG166 1961). The American official estimated that by mechanizing, Soviet farms had actually increased the amount of human labor needed for farming operations. The other major environmental change took place away from the barnyard, in new crops the Soviet Union began to grow for fodder. The heart and soul of this project was establishing field corn as a major new fodder crop. Originally intended as a feed for cows that would replace hay, corn quickly became the feed of choice for raising pigs. After a visit by a United States delegation to Iowa and other U.S. farms over the summer of 1955, corn became the centerpiece of Khrushchev’s efforts to raise meat and milk productivity. These efforts were what earned Khrushchev his nickname of kukuruznik, or “corn fanatic.” Since so little of the Soviet Union looks or feels much like the plains and hills of Iowa, adopting corn might seem quixotic, but raising corn was a potentially practical move for a cold country. Unlike the other major fodder crops of turnips and potatoes, corn could be harvested early, while still green but already possessing a high level of protein. Corn provided a “gap month” of green feed during July and August, when grazing animals had eaten the first spring green growth but these same plants had not recovered their biomass. What corn remained in the fields in late summer was harvested and made into silage, and corn made the best silage that had been historically available in the Soviet Union. The high protein content of even silage made from green mass and unripe corn ears prevented them from losing weight in the winter. Thus the desire to put more meat on Soviet tables—a desire first prompted by American food donations of surplus pork from Iowa farmers adapting to agro-industrial reordering in their own country—pushed back into the commodity supply network of the Soviet Union. World War II rations that were well adapted to the uncertainty and poor infrastructure not just of war but also of peacetime were a source of inspiration for Soviet planners striving to improve the diets of citizens. To do this, they purchased and bred more and better animals, inventing breeds and paying attention, for the first time, to the efficiency and speed with which these animals were ready to become meat. Reinventing Soviet pigs pushed even back farther, and inspired agricultural economists and state planners to embrace new farm organizational structures. Pigs meant for the tushonka can spent more time inside eating, and led their lives in a rigid compartmentalization that mimicked emerging trends in human urban society. Beyond the barnyard, a new concern with feed-to weight conversions led agriculturalists to seek new crops; crops like corn that were costly to grow but were a perfect food for a pig destined for a tushonka tin. Thus in Soviet industrialization, pigs evolved. No longer simply recyclers of human waste, socialist pigs were consumers in their own right, their newly crafted genetic compositions demanded ever more technical feed sources in order to maximize their own productivity. Food is transformative, and in this case study the prosaic substance of canned meat proved to be unusually transformative for the history of the Soviet Union. In its early history it kept soldiers alive long enough to win an important war, later the requirements for its manufacture re-prioritized muscle tissue over fat tissue in the disassembly of carcasses. This transformative influence reached backwards into the supply lines and farms of the Soviet Union, revolutionizing the scale and goals of farming and meat packing for the Soviet food industry, as well as the relationship between the pig and the consumer. References Bentley, Amy. Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity. Where: University of Illinois Press, 1998. The Book of Healthy and Delicious Food, Kniga O Vkusnoi I Zdorovoi Pishche. Moscow: AMN Izd., 1952. 161. Danilov, M. M. Tovaravedenie Prodovol’stvennykh Tovarov: Miaso I Miasnye Tovarye. Moscow: Iz. Ekonomika, 1964. Khrushchev, Nikita. Khrushchev Remembers. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1970. 178. Long, James. The Book of the Pig. London: Upcott Gill, 1886. 102. Lush, Jay & A.L. Anderson, “A Genetic History of Poland-China Swine: I—Early Breed History: The ‘Hot Blood’ versus the ‘Big Type’” Journal of Heredity 30.4 (1939): 149-56. Martel, Leon. Lend-Lease, Loans, and the Coming of the Cold War: A Study of the Implementation of Foreign Policy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1979. 35. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). RG 59, General Records of the Department of State. Office of Soviet Union affairs, Box 6. “Records relating to Lend Lease with the USSR 1941-1952”. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). RG166, Records of the Foreign Agricultural Service. Narrative reports 1940-1954. USSR Cotton-USSR Foreign trade. Box 64, Folder “farm management”. Report written by David V Kelly, 6 Apr. 1951. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA). RG 166, Records of the Foreign Agricultural Service. Narrative Reports 1955-1961. Folder: “Agriculture” “Visits to Soviet agricultural installations,” 15 Nov. 1961. Skeoch, L.A. Food Prices and Ration Scale in the Ukraine, 1946 The Review of Economics and Statistics 35.3 (Aug. 1953), 229-35. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Fond R-7021. The Report of Extraordinary Special State Commission on Wartime Losses Resulting from the German-Fascist Occupation cites the following losses in the German takeover. 1948. Stettinus, Edward R. Jr. Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory. Penguin Books, 1944.

Abstract:

A same-but-different dichotomy has recently been encapsulated within the US Food and Drug Administration’s ill-defined concept of “substantial equivalence” (USFDA, FDA). By invoking this concept the genetically modified organism (GMO) industry has escaped the rigors of safety testing that might otherwise apply. The curious concept of “substantial equivalence” grants a presumption of safety to GMO food. This presumption has yet to be earned, and has been used to constrain labelling of both GMO and non-GMO food. It is an idea that well serves corporatism. It enables the claim of difference to secure patent protection, while upholding the contrary claim of sameness to avoid labelling and safety scrutiny. It offers the best of both worlds for corporate food entrepreneurs, and delivers the worst of both worlds to consumers. The term “substantial equivalence” has established its currency within the GMO discourse. As the opportunities for patenting food technologies expand, the GMO recruitment of this concept will likely be a dress rehearsal for the developing debates on the labelling and testing of other techno-foods – including nano-foods and clone-foods. “Substantial Equivalence” “Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?” asks Clover in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. By way of response, Benjamin “read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”. After this reductionist revelation, further novel and curious events at Manor Farm, “did not seem strange” (Orwell, ch. X). Equality is a concept at the very core of mathematics, but beyond the domain of logic, equality becomes a hotly contested notion – and the domain of food is no exception. A novel food has a regulatory advantage if it can claim to be the same as an established food – a food that has proven its worth over centuries, perhaps even millennia – and thus does not trigger new, perhaps costly and onerous, testing, compliance, and even new and burdensome regulations. On the other hand, such a novel food has an intellectual property (IP) advantage only in terms of its difference. And thus there is an entrenched dissonance for newly technologised foods, between claiming sameness, and claiming difference. The same/different dilemma is erased, so some would have it, by appeal to the curious new dualist doctrine of “substantial equivalence” whereby sameness and difference are claimed simultaneously, thereby creating a win/win for corporatism, and a loss/loss for consumerism. This ground has been pioneered, and to some extent conquered, by the GMO industry. The conquest has ramifications for other cryptic food technologies, that is technologies that are invisible to the consumer and that are not evident to the consumer other than via labelling. Cryptic technologies pertaining to food include GMOs, pesticides, hormone treatments, irradiation and, most recently, manufactured nano-particles introduced into the food production and delivery stream. Genetic modification of plants was reported as early as 1984 by Horsch et al. The case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty resulted in a US Supreme Court decision that upheld the prior decision of the US Court of Customs and Patent Appeal that “the fact that micro-organisms are alive is without legal significance for purposes of the patent law”, and ruled that the “respondent’s micro-organism plainly qualifies as patentable subject matter”. This was a majority decision of nine judges, with four judges dissenting (Burger). It was this Chakrabarty judgement that has seriously opened the Pandora’s box of GMOs because patenting rights makes GMOs an attractive corporate proposition by offering potentially unique monopoly rights over food. The rear guard action against GMOs has most often focussed on health repercussions (Smith, Genetic), food security issues, and also the potential for corporate malfeasance to hide behind a cloak of secrecy citing commercial confidentiality (Smith, Seeds). Others have tilted at the foundational plank on which the economics of the GMO industry sits: “I suggest that the main concern is that we do not want a single molecule of anything we eat to contribute to, or be patented and owned by, a reckless, ruthless chemical organisation” (Grist 22). The GMO industry exhibits bipolar behaviour, invoking the concept of “substantial difference” to claim patent rights by way of “novelty”, and then claiming “substantial equivalence” when dealing with other regulatory authorities including food, drug and pesticide agencies; a case of “having their cake and eating it too” (Engdahl 8). This is a clever slight-of-rhetoric, laying claim to the best of both worlds for corporations, and the worst of both worlds for consumers. Corporations achieve patent protection and no concomitant specific regulatory oversight; while consumers pay the cost of patent monopolization, and are not necessarily apprised, by way of labelling or otherwise, that they are purchasing and eating GMOs, and thereby financing the GMO industry. The lemma of “substantial equivalence” does not bear close scrutiny. It is a fuzzy concept that lacks a tight testable definition. It is exactly this fuzziness that allows lots of wriggle room to keep GMOs out of rigorous testing regimes. Millstone et al. argue that “substantial equivalence is a pseudo-scientific concept because it is a commercial and political judgement masquerading as if it is scientific. It is moreover, inherently anti-scientific because it was created primarily to provide an excuse for not requiring biochemical or toxicological tests. It therefore serves to discourage and inhibit informative scientific research” (526). “Substantial equivalence” grants GMOs the benefit of the doubt regarding safety, and thereby leaves unexamined the ramifications for human consumer health, for farm labourer and food-processor health, for the welfare of farm animals fed a diet of GMO grain, and for the well-being of the ecosystem, both in general and in its particularities. “Substantial equivalence” was introduced into the food discourse by an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report: “safety evaluation of foods derived by modern biotechnology: concepts and principles”. It is from this document that the ongoing mantra of assumed safety of GMOs derives: “modern biotechnology … does not inherently lead to foods that are less safe … . Therefore evaluation of foods and food components obtained from organisms developed by the application of the newer techniques does not necessitate a fundamental change in established principles, nor does it require a different standard of safety” (OECD, “Safety” 10). This was at the time, and remains, an act of faith, a pro-corporatist and a post-cautionary approach. The OECD motto reveals where their priorities lean: “for a better world economy” (OECD, “Better”). The term “substantial equivalence” was preceded by the 1992 USFDA concept of “substantial similarity” (Levidow, Murphy and Carr) and was adopted from a prior usage by the US Food and Drug Agency (USFDA) where it was used pertaining to medical devices (Miller). Even GMO proponents accept that “Substantial equivalence is not intended to be a scientific formulation; it is a conceptual tool for food producers and government regulators” (Miller 1043). And there’s the rub – there is no scientific definition of “substantial equivalence”, no scientific test of proof of concept, and nor is there likely to be, since this is a ‘spinmeister’ term. And yet this is the cornerstone on which rests the presumption of safety of GMOs. Absence of evidence is taken to be evidence of absence. History suggests that this is a fraught presumption. By way of contrast, the patenting of GMOs depends on the antithesis of assumed ‘sameness’. Patenting rests on proven, scrutinised, challengeable and robust tests of difference and novelty. Lightfoot et al. report that transgenic plants exhibit “unexpected changes [that] challenge the usual assumptions of GMO equivalence and suggest genomic, proteomic and metanomic characterization of transgenics is advisable” (1). GMO Milk and Contested Labelling Pesticide company Monsanto markets the genetically engineered hormone rBST (recombinant Bovine Somatotropin; also known as: rbST; rBGH, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone; and the brand name Prosilac) to dairy farmers who inject it into their cows to increase milk production. This product is not approved for use in many jurisdictions, including Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan. Even Monsanto accepts that rBST leads to mastitis (inflammation and pus in the udder) and other “cow health problems”, however, it maintains that “these problems did not occur at rates that would prohibit the use of Prosilac” (Monsanto). A European Union study identified an extensive list of health concerns of rBST use (European Commission). The US Dairy Export Council however entertain no doubt. In their background document they ask “is milk from cows treated with rBST safe?” and answer “Absolutely” (USDEC). Meanwhile, Monsanto’s website raises and answers the question: “Is the milk from cows treated with rbST any different from milk from untreated cows? No” (Monsanto). Injecting cows with genetically modified hormones to boost their milk production remains a contested practice, banned in many countries. It is the claimed equivalence that has kept consumers of US dairy products in the dark, shielded rBST dairy farmers from having to declare that their milk production is GMO-enhanced, and has inhibited non-GMO producers from declaring their milk as non-GMO, non rBST, or not hormone enhanced. This is a battle that has simmered, and sometimes raged, for a decade in the US. Finally there is a modest victory for consumers: the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) requires all labels used on milk products to be approved in advance by the department. The standard issued in October 2007 (PDA, “Standards”) signalled to producers that any milk labels claiming rBST-free status would be rejected. This advice was rescinded in January 2008 with new, specific, department-approved textual constructions allowed, and ensuring that any “no rBST” style claim was paired with a PDA-prescribed disclaimer (PDA, “Revised Standards”). However, parsimonious labelling is prohibited: No labeling may contain references such as ‘No Hormones’, ‘Hormone Free’, ‘Free of Hormones’, ‘No BST’, ‘Free of BST’, ‘BST Free’,’No added BST’, or any statement which indicates, implies or could be construed to mean that no natural bovine somatotropin (BST) or synthetic bovine somatotropin (rBST) are contained in or added to the product. (PDA, “Revised Standards” 3) Difference claims are prohibited: In no instance shall any label state or imply that milk from cows not treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST, rbST, RBST or rbst) differs in composition from milk or products made with milk from treated cows, or that rBST is not contained in or added to the product. If a product is represented as, or intended to be represented to consumers as, containing or produced from milk from cows not treated with rBST any labeling information must convey only a difference in farming practices or dairy herd management methods. (PDA, “Revised Standards” 3) The PDA-approved labelling text for non-GMO dairy farmers is specified as follows: ‘From cows not treated with rBST. No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows’ or a substantial equivalent. Hereinafter, the first sentence shall be referred to as the ‘Claim’, and the second sentence shall be referred to as the ‘Disclaimer’. (PDA, “Revised Standards” 4) It is onto the non-GMO dairy farmer alone, that the costs of compliance fall. These costs include label preparation and approval, proving non-usage of GMOs, and of creating and maintaining an audit trail. In nearby Ohio a similar consumer versus corporatist pantomime is playing out. This time with the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) calling the shots, and again serving the GMO industry. The ODA prescribed text allowed to non-GMO dairy farmers is “from cows not supplemented with rbST” and this is to be conjoined with the mandatory disclaimer “no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-supplemented and non-rbST supplemented cows” (Curet). These are “emergency rules”: they apply for 90 days, and are proposed as permanent. Once again, the onus is on the non-GMO dairy farmers to document and prove their claims. GMO dairy farmers face no such governmental requirements, including no disclosure requirement, and thus an asymmetric regulatory impost is placed on the non-GMO farmer which opens up new opportunities for administrative demands and technocratic harassment. Levidow et al. argue, somewhat Eurocentrically, that from its 1990s adoption “as the basis for a harmonized science-based approach to risk assessment” (26) the concept of “substantial equivalence” has “been recast in at least three ways” (58). It is true that the GMO debate has evolved differently in the US and Europe, and with other jurisdictions usually adopting intermediate positions, yet the concept persists. Levidow et al. nominate their three recastings as: firstly an “implicit redefinition” by the appending of “extra phrases in official documents”; secondly, “it has been reinterpreted, as risk assessment processes have … required more evidence of safety than before, especially in Europe”; and thirdly, “it has been demoted in the European Union regulatory procedures so that it can no longer be used to justify the claim that a risk assessment is unnecessary” (58). Romeis et al. have proposed a decision tree approach to GMO risks based on cascading tiers of risk assessment. However what remains is that the defects of the concept of “substantial equivalence” persist. Schauzu identified that: such decisions are a matter of “opinion”; that there is “no clear definition of the term ‘substantial’”; that because genetic modification “is aimed at introducing new traits into organisms, the result will always be a different combination of genes and proteins”; and that “there is no general checklist that could be followed by those who are responsible for allowing a product to be placed on the market” (2). Benchmark for Further Food Novelties? The discourse, contestation, and debate about “substantial equivalence” have largely focussed on the introduction of GMOs into food production processes. GM can best be regarded as the test case, and proof of concept, for establishing “substantial equivalence” as a benchmark for evaluating new and forthcoming food technologies. This is of concern, because the concept of “substantial equivalence” is scientific hokum, and yet its persistence, even entrenchment, within regulatory agencies may be a harbinger of forthcoming same-but-different debates for nanotechnology and other future bioengineering. The appeal of “substantial equivalence” has been a brake on the creation of GMO-specific regulations and on rigorous GMO testing. The food nanotechnology industry can be expected to look to the precedent of the GMO debate to head off specific nano-regulations and nano-testing. As cloning becomes economically viable, then this may be another wave of food innovation that muddies the regulatory waters with the confused – and ultimately self-contradictory – concept of “substantial equivalence”. Nanotechnology engineers particles in the size range 1 to 100 nanometres – a nanometre is one billionth of a metre. This is interesting for manufacturers because at this size chemicals behave differently, or as the Australian Office of Nanotechnology expresses it, “new functionalities are obtained” (AON). Globally, government expenditure on nanotechnology research reached US$4.6 billion in 2006 (Roco 3.12). While there are now many patents (ETC Group; Roco), regulation specific to nanoparticles is lacking (Bowman and Hodge; Miller and Senjen). The USFDA advises that nano-manufacturers “must show a reasonable assurance of safety … or substantial equivalence” (FDA). A recent inventory of nano-products already on the market identified 580 products. Of these 11.4% were categorised as “Food and Beverage” (WWICS). This is at a time when public confidence in regulatory bodies is declining (HRA). In an Australian consumer survey on nanotechnology, 65% of respondents indicated they were concerned about “unknown and long term side effects”, and 71% agreed that it is important “to know if products are made with nanotechnology” (MARS 22). Cloned animals are currently more expensive to produce than traditional animal progeny. In the course of 678 pages, the USFDA Animal Cloning: A Draft Risk Assessment has not a single mention of “substantial equivalence”. However the Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS) in its single page “Statement in Support of USFDA’s Risk Assessment Conclusion That Food from Cloned Animals Is Safe for Human Consumption” states that “FASS endorses the use of this comparative evaluation process as the foundation of establishing substantial equivalence of any food being evaluated. It must be emphasized that it is the food product itself that should be the focus of the evaluation rather than the technology used to generate cloned animals” (FASS 1). Contrary to the FASS derogation of the importance of process in food production, for consumers both the process and provenance of production is an important and integral aspect of a food product’s value and identity. Some consumers will legitimately insist that their Kalamata olives are from Greece, or their balsamic vinegar is from Modena. It was the British public’s growing awareness that their sugar was being produced by slave labour that enabled the boycotting of the product, and ultimately the outlawing of slavery (Hochschild). When consumers boycott Nestle, because of past or present marketing practices, or boycott produce of USA because of, for example, US foreign policy or animal welfare concerns, they are distinguishing the food based on the narrative of the food, the production process and/or production context which are a part of the identity of the food. Consumers attribute value to food based on production process and provenance information (Paull). Products produced by slave labour, by child labour, by political prisoners, by means of torture, theft, immoral, unethical or unsustainable practices are different from their alternatives. The process of production is a part of the identity of a product and consumers are increasingly interested in food narrative. It requires vigilance to ensure that these narratives are delivered with the product to the consumer, and are neither lost nor suppressed. Throughout the GM debate, the organic sector has successfully skirted the “substantial equivalence” debate by excluding GMOs from the certified organic food production process. This GMO-exclusion from the organic food stream is the one reprieve available to consumers worldwide who are keen to avoid GMOs in their diet. The organic industry carries the expectation of providing food produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and by extension, without GMOs. Most recently, the Soil Association, the leading organic certifier in the UK, claims to be the first organisation in the world to exclude manufactured nonoparticles from their products (Soil Association). There has been the call that engineered nanoparticles be excluded from organic standards worldwide, given that there is no mandatory safety testing and no compulsory labelling in place (Paull and Lyons). The twisted rhetoric of oxymorons does not make the ideal foundation for policy. Setting food policy on the shifting sands of “substantial equivalence” seems foolhardy when we consider the potentially profound ramifications of globally mass marketing a dysfunctional food. If there is a 2×2 matrix of terms – “substantial equivalence”, substantial difference, insubstantial equivalence, insubstantial difference – while only one corner of this matrix is engaged for food policy, and while the elements remain matters of opinion rather than being testable by science, or by some other regime, then the public is the dupe, and potentially the victim. “Substantial equivalence” has served the GMO corporates well and the public poorly, and this asymmetry is slated to escalate if nano-food and clone-food are also folded into the “substantial equivalence” paradigm. Only in Orwellian Newspeak is war peace, or is same different. It is time to jettison the pseudo-scientific doctrine of “substantial equivalence”, as a convenient oxymoron, and embrace full disclosure of provenance, process and difference, so that consumers are not collateral in a continuing asymmetric knowledge war. References Australian Office of Nanotechnology (AON). Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR) 6 Aug. 2007. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.innovation.gov.au/Section/Innovation/Pages/ AustralianOfficeofNanotechnology.aspx >.Bowman, Diana, and Graeme Hodge. “A Small Matter of Regulation: An International Review of Nanotechnology Regulation.” Columbia Science and Technology Law Review 8 (2007): 1-32.Burger, Warren. “Sidney A. Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks v. Ananda M. Chakrabarty, et al.” Supreme Court of the United States, decided 16 June 1980. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=447&invol=303 >.Curet, Monique. “New Rules Allow Dairy-Product Labels to Include Hormone Info.” The Columbus Dispatch 7 Feb. 2008. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/02/07/dairy.html >.Engdahl, F. William. Seeds of Destruction. Montréal: Global Research, 2007.ETC Group. Down on the Farm: The Impact of Nano-Scale Technologies on Food and Agriculture. Ottawa: Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Conservation, November, 2004. European Commission. Report on Public Health Aspects of the Use of Bovine Somatotropin. Brussels: European Commission, 15-16 March 1999.Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS). Statement in Support of FDA’s Risk Assessment Conclusion That Cloned Animals Are Safe for Human Consumption. 2007. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.fass.org/page.asp?pageID=191 >.Grist, Stuart. “True Threats to Reason.” New Scientist 197.2643 (16 Feb. 2008): 22-23.Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. London: Pan Books, 2006.Horsch, Robert, Robert Fraley, Stephen Rogers, Patricia Sanders, Alan Lloyd, and Nancy Hoffman. “Inheritance of Functional Foreign Genes in Plants.” Science 223 (1984): 496-498.HRA. Awareness of and Attitudes toward Nanotechnology and Federal Regulatory Agencies: A Report of Findings. Washington: Peter D. Hart Research Associates, 25 Sep. 2007.Levidow, Les, Joseph Murphy, and Susan Carr. “Recasting ‘Substantial Equivalence’: Transatlantic Governance of GM Food.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 32.1 (Jan. 2007): 26-64.Lightfoot, David, Rajsree Mungur, Rafiqa Ameziane, Anthony Glass, and Karen Berhard. “Transgenic Manipulation of C and N Metabolism: Stretching the GMO Equivalence.” American Society of Plant Biologists Conference: Plant Biology, 2000.MARS. “Final Report: Australian Community Attitudes Held about Nanotechnology – Trends 2005-2007.” Report prepared for Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR). Miranda, NSW: Market Attitude Research Services, 12 June 2007.Miller, Georgia, and Rye Senjen. “Out of the Laboratory and on to Our Plates: Nanotechnology in Food and Agriculture.” Friends of the Earth, 2008. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://nano.foe.org.au/node/220 >.Miller, Henry. “Substantial Equivalence: Its Uses and Abuses.” Nature Biotechnology 17 (7 Nov. 1999): 1042-1043.Millstone, Erik, Eric Brunner, and Sue Mayer. “Beyond ‘Substantial Equivalence’.” Nature 401 (7 Oct. 1999): 525-526.Monsanto. “Posilac, Bovine Somatotropin by Monsanto: Questions and Answers about bST from the United States Food and Drug Administration.” 2007. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.monsantodairy.com/faqs/fda_safety.html >.Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “For a Better World Economy.” Paris: OECD, 2008. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.oecd.org/ >.———. “Safety Evaluation of Foods Derived by Modern Biotechnology: Concepts and Principles.” Paris: OECD, 1993.Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Adelaide: ebooks@Adelaide, 2004 (1945). 30 Apr. 2008 < http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george >.Paull, John. “Provenance, Purity and Price Premiums: Consumer Valuations of Organic and Place-of-Origin Food Labelling.” Research Masters thesis, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 2006. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://eprints.utas.edu.au/690/ >.Paull, John, and Kristen Lyons. “Nanotechnology: The Next Challenge for Organics.” Journal of Organic Systems (in press).Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA). “Revised Standards and Procedure for Approval of Proposed Labeling of Fluid Milk.” Milk Labeling Standards (2.0.1.17.08). Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, 17 Jan. 2008. ———. “Standards and Procedure for Approval of Proposed Labeling of Fluid Milk, Milk Products and Manufactured Dairy Products.” Milk Labeling Standards (2.0.1.17.08). Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, 22 Oct. 2007.Roco, Mihail. “National Nanotechnology Initiative – Past, Present, Future.” In William Goddard, Donald Brenner, Sergy Lyshevski and Gerald Iafrate, eds. Handbook of Nanoscience, Engineering and Technology. 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2007.Romeis, Jorg, Detlef Bartsch, Franz Bigler, Marco Candolfi, Marco Gielkins, et al. “Assessment of Risk of Insect-Resistant Transgenic Crops to Nontarget Arthropods.” Nature Biotechnology 26.2 (Feb. 2008): 203-208.Schauzu, Marianna. “The Concept of Substantial Equivalence in Safety Assessment of Food Derived from Genetically Modified Organisms.” AgBiotechNet 2 (Apr. 2000): 1-4.Soil Association. “Soil Association First Organisation in the World to Ban Nanoparticles – Potentially Toxic Beauty Products That Get Right under Your Skin.” London: Soil Association, 17 Jan. 2008. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047 cb466780256a6b00298980/42308d944a3088a6802573d100351790!OpenDocument >.Smith, Jeffrey. Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods. Fairfield, Iowa: Yes! Books, 2007.———. Seeds of Deception. Melbourne: Scribe, 2004.U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). Bovine Somatotropin (BST) Backgrounder. Arlington, VA: U.S. Dairy Export Council, 2006.U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). Animal Cloning: A Draft Risk Assessment. Rockville, MD: Center for Veterinary Medicine, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 28 Dec. 2006.———. FDA and Nanotechnology Products. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2008. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.fda.gov/nanotechnology/faqs.html >.Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS). “A Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory.” Data set as at Sep. 2007. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Project on Emerging Technologies, Sep. 2007. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer >.

Abstract:

Aims: To assess the influence of agricultural production diversity of marginal and small farmers Study Design: Purposive Random Sampling Place and Duration of Study: Kanyakumari and Perambalur districts in Tamil Nadu were purposefully chosen for the survey, which was conducted through primary data collection from July to August 2020. Methodology: According to the Tamil Nadu state planning commission report 2017, Kanyakumari and Perambalur districts were chosen at random from the top five and bottom five districts of the food security index to analyze dietary diversity. The crop diversification index was calculated using the entropy index. The Tobit model is used to investigate the impact of diverse agriculture production among marginal and small farming households. Results: The findings clearly show that, of the two districts, Perambalur has diversified more than Kanyakumari. Farmers in Perambalur district cultivate agricultural crops, whereas farmers in Kanyakumari district selected block cultivate horticultural crops, particularly plantation crops. According to the Tobit results, the number of cattle, farm size, credit available, and distance from the market all had a positive and significant influence on crop diversification. Improving female-headed household decision-making, promoting household investment and infrastructure facilities, and suggesting crop development as crop diversification measures. Conclusion: The results conclude that farmers in Perambalur district have highly diversified cropping than Kanyakumari district.

Abstract:

In modern conditions, the problem of pollution of reservoirs with heavy metals becomes especially relevant, especially given the man-made load on surface waters of Ukraine. Heavy metals are among the most dangerous conservative chemical pollutants, due to their physiological and biochemical characteristics of action, as well as transmission through food chains. Also, the danger of heavy metals is that they are bioavailable and enter the fish ponds not only during the water harvest, but also during the application of fertilizers to fields or feeding fish. Fish that complete the trophic chain of the reservoir are the end products of the fishery activities of the enterprise and directly accumulate heavy metals. At the same time, such heavy metals as Fe, Zn, Mn are essential, ie they in physiological concentrations are vital for the implementation of regulatory functions in fish. However, the body of fish accumulates heavy metals that even in small concentrations adversely affect its physiological state. The aim of the study was to determine the characteristics of the accumulation of heavy metals in the body of young carp fish in typical pond farms of Dnipropetrovsk region. The object of research were this year's scaly carp and silver carp, which were grown in Tarom and Krynychany fisheries. In the cities of heavy metals in water ponds and the carcass of fish were determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer her on a spectrophotometer S115-M1. The results of the study show that the content of Pb and Fe in the water of ponds of both fisheries did not exceed the MPC (SOU, 2006). The Cd content in the water of the Krynychany fish farm exceeded the maximum concentration limit by 2 times. The level of Mn in the water of the Tarom fish farm was 3 times higher than the MPC. The level of Zn content in both fish farms exceeded the permissible concentrations by almost 3 times. The concentration of Cu exceeded the MPC in the water of the ponds of the Tarom fish farm 5 times, and Krynychansky - 14 times. It is known that lead with significant exposure can cause bleeding in the digestive tract of fish, anemia, liver and kidney damage. In Tarom fishery, the maximum content of lead was found in scaly carp, which is 41,7% more than in white carp. A similar trend was observed in the Krynychany fish farm, but the content of this element in carp was only 2,2% higher. At the same time, the lead content of carp of the scaly Tarom farm was 34,4% higher in comparison with the same-age carp individuals grown in the Krynychany fish farm. The lead content in the body of young carp fish of the Dnieper fisheries was low. Cadmium is known to be more toxic than other heavy metals. In the young of silver carp Tarom fish farm cadmium concentration was higher by 14,3% than in carp. In fish of the Krynychany farm, on the contrary, the cadmium content was higher by 14.3% in scaly carp compared to silver carp. The biological role of manganese in fish is realized mainly through enzymes that are activated by this element. In Tarom farm the highest content of manganese was observed in silver carp, the concentration of manganese in scaly carp was 2,2 times less. In the Krynychany fish farm, on the other hand, the manganese content of scaly carp is 35% less than that of silver carp. Analyzing the data, it can be noted that the concentration of manganese in fish of Krynychany fish farm was higher compared to Tarom in 3,2 and 1,1 times in carp and silver carp, respectively. Copper is required for the synthesis of erythrocytes, in addition, it is part of liver proteins and a number of oxidative enzymes. In the young fish of both fish farms, the maximum copper content was observed in carp, it exceeded the content of this metal in silver carp by 1,3 and 2,1 times in Tarom and Krynychany farms, respectively. At the same time, the concentration of copper in this year's Tarom farm exceeded this indicator in the fish of the Krynychany fish farm by 1,5 and 2,3 times for carp and silver carp, respectively. The biological role of iron is mainly related to the function of iron-containing proteins. In young fish of Tarom fishery, the maximum concentration of iron ions was observed in silver carp and was 47,8% higher compared to carp. In the Krynychany fishery, on the other hand, a larger amount of iron was concentrated in the carp's body and was 1.9 times higher than in the silver carp of the same reservoir. The highest level of iron among the same-age fish of both fish farms was found in the young silverfish of Tarom farm, which was 2,4 times higher than the level of iron in silverfish of Krynychany fishery. The iron content in the young scaly carp of the Tarom fish farm was 21,5% higher than in the carp of the Krynychany farm. The importance of zinc for the body of fish is due to its participation in the regulation of many metabolic components in zinc-containing enzymes. In Tarom fish farm the highest content of zinc was found in carp, which is 2,4 times more than in silver carp. In Krynychany fish farm the highest concentration of zinc was found in silver carp, it was 18,6% higher than the concentration of zinc in carp. The highest level of zinc content among the studied fish farms was observed in the scaly carp of the Tarom farm and was 2,4 times higher than in the same carp of the Krynychany fish farm. The content of zinc in the carcass of silver carp of the Krynychany farm was higher by 19,6% in comparison with the one-year-old individuals of the Tarom fish farm. Thus, in the body of young fish of the studied fish farms actively accumulated such essential elements as Fe and Zn, which are necessary for normal growth and development of the organism. The minimum content of heavy metals was set for Cd. This pattern is the norm for growing fish. Prospects for further research are related to the study of the effect of toxicants of different origins on the morphobiological parameters of carp fish, which determines the feasibility of their continuation with the use of fish of different ages raised in the Dnipropetrovsk region. In addition, the results obtained can contribute to effective scientific support for the development of aquaculture in the region.

Abstract:

AbstractIntroductionIn Nigeria, up to 70 percent of the populations are employed in the agricultural sector. Majority of the farmers are in the rural area (Khayesi, 2001). Poverty in rural areas is much more widespread than in urban areas. A high proportion of poor households consist of farmers who depend on agriculture as a primary food and livelihood source. Malnutrition is widespread in the entire country and rural areas are especially vulnerable to chronic food shortage, unbalanced nutrition, poor quality and high cost of food (Akinyele, 2009).ObjectivesThe specific objectives were to: (i) obtain information about the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers; (ii) assess the dietary pattern of the rural farmers using food frequency questionnaire. (iii) obtain the anthropometric measurements of the rural farmers; (iv) compare dietary pattern and anthropometric data of the farmers.Materials and MethodsFour hundred and fifty farmers were randomly selected from the list of registered farmers in Osisioma L.G.A. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information on socio economic and dietary pattern of farmers. Anthropometric measurements were obtained using standardized procedures. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used for data analysis.ResultsResult show that 62.5% were males and 37.5% females. About 62.5% were between 40–50 years while only 1% was less than 30 years. About 12% of the farmers were underweight, 26% were overweight and 3% were obese. Results on dietary practices showed that less than half (45%) of the farmers' source of nutrition information came from the community health workers. Large number of the population (65%) reported a poor feeding practice and 76.4% skipped meals, which is an unhealthy nutritional practice. Majority (84.7%) also indicated not to have enough resources for family feeding. Farming activity revealed majority (86%) practiced crop farming with cassava (48.4%), garden egg (46.8%), maize/Oka (46.8%) and pumpkin/Ugu (37.5%) as the most farm produce of income. Bread, rice and maize were the most consumed cereal. Garri/fufu topped the most consumed root and tuber food produce. Seasonal variation affected fruit consumption with paw-paw (65.7%), orange (48.5%) and mango (55.0%) being the most consumed fruits.ConclusionThis study showed poor participation of youths in farming. Farmers in the study location majorly engaged in crop farming of cassava, maize and vegetables, this led to a high consumption of cassava and maize products.

Abstract:

IntroductionWe are increasingly being told to make ethical food choices, often by high-profile chefs advocating what they view as ethical consumption habits. Some actively promote vegetarian or vegan diets, with a growing number of high-profile restaurants featuring only or mainly plant-based meals. However, what makes food or restaurant menus ethical is not assessed by most of us using one standardised definition. Our food values differ based on our outlooks, past experiences, and perhaps most importantly, how we balance various trade-offs inherent in making food choices under different circ*mstances and in diverse contexts.Restaurants can face difficulties when trying to balance ethical considerations. For instance, is it inconsistent to promote foraging, seasonality, local products, and plant-based eating, yet also serve meat and other animal-derived protein products on the same menu? For example, Danish chef Rene Redzepi, co-owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant Noma in Copenhagen who recently had an extended stay in Australia (Redzepi), recently offered a purely vegetarian menu featuring foraged native ingredients. However, Redzepi followed this with a meat-based menu including teal, moose leg, reindeer tongue, and wild duck brain. These changes make clear that although Redzepi was still conflicted about serving animal products (Ankeny and Bray), he thinks that options for ethical eating are not limited to plants and that it is important to utilise available, and especially neglected, resources in novel ways.In this article, we argue that celebrity and other high-profile chefs have roles to play in conversations about the emerging range of new meat consumption norms, which might include humanely produced meat, wild meat, or other considerations. However, we contend that restaurants and popular media may be limited spaces in which to engage consumers in these conversations. Ultimately, celebrity and high-profile chefs can help us not only to reflect on our eating habits, but also to engage us in ways that help us to ask the right questions rather than encouraging reliance on set answers from them or other supposed experts.Chefs and New Meat NormsChefs are now key voices in the politics of lifestyle, shaping both the grammars and the practices of ethical consumption, which is further reinforced by the increasing mediatisation of food and food politics (Phillipov, Media). Contemporary trends toward ethical consumption have been much critiqued; nevertheless, ethical consumption has become a dominant means through which individuals within contemporary marketised, neoliberal economies are able to invest lifestyle choices with ethical, social, and civic meanings (Barnett et al.; Lewis and Potter). While vegetarianism was once considered a central pillar of ethical diets, the rise of individualized and diverse approaches to food and food politics has seen meat (at least in its “ethical” form) not only remain firmly on the menu, but also become a powerful symbol of “good” politics, taste, and desirable lifestyles (Pilgrim 112).Chefs’ involvement in promoting ethical meat initially began within restaurants catering for an elite foodie clientele. The details provided about meat producers and production methods on the menu of Alice Waters’ Californian restaurant Chez Panisse and her cookbooks (Waters), or the focus by Fergus Henderson on “nose to tail” eating at his London restaurant St. John (Henderson) has led many to cite them as among the originators of the ethical meat movement. But the increasing mediatisation of food and the emergence of chefs as celebrity brands with their own TV shows, cookbooks, YouTube channels, websites, sponsorship deals, and myriad other media appearances has allowed ethical meat to move out of elite restaurants and into more quotidian domestic spaces. High profile UK and US exposés including “campaigning culinary documentaries” fronted by celebrity chefs (Bell, Hollows, and Jones 179), along with the work of popular food writers such as Michael Pollan, have been instrumental in the mainstreaming of diverse new meat norms.The horrifying depictions of intensive chicken, beef, and pork farming in these exposés have contributed to greater public awareness of, and concern about, industrialised meat production. However, the poor welfare conditions of animals raised in battery cages and concentrated animal feeding operations often are presented not as motivations to eschew meat entirely, but instead as reasons to opt for more ethical alternatives. For instance, Hugh’s Chicken Run, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s 2008 television campaign for chicken welfare, resulted in making more free-range products available in British supermarkets (Johnston). More recently, there have been significant expansions in markets for variously defined categories such as grass-fed, free-range, organic, welfare-certified, humane, and/or environmentally friendly meat products in Australia and elsewhere, thanks in part to increased media attention to animal welfare issues (Arcari 169).As media has emerged as a “fundamental component of contemporary foodscapes, how they ‘perform’ and function, and the socio-material means by which they are produced” (Johnston and Goodman 205), ethical meat has increasingly been employed as a strategic resource in mainstream media and marketing. Ethical meat, for example, has been a key pillar in the contemporary rebranding of both of Australia’s major supermarkets (Lewis and Huber 289). Through partnerships that draw upon the “ethical capital” (290) of celebrity chefs including Jamie Oliver and Curtis Stone, and collaborations with animal welfare organisations such as the RSPCA, ethical meat has become central to supermarket advertising campaigns in recent years. Such campaigns have been especially successful for Coles supermarkets, which controls almost 30% of Australia’s highly concentrated grocery market (Roy Morgan). The retailer’s long-term sponsorship of MasterChef Australia (Network 10, 2009–)—a show that presents meat (or, as they term it, “protein”) as an essential component of most dishes and which regularly rates in the top 10 of Australian television programs (OzTAM)—further helps to emphasise that the solution to ethical problems is not to avoid meat, but to choose (Coles’) “better” meat (see fig. 1). This is promoted on the basis of a combination of ethics, price, and taste, and, remarkably, is able to deliver “better welfare at no extra cost to you” (Parker, Carey, and Scrinis 209). In short, chefs are making major contributions to awareness of ethical norms relating to meat consumption in a variety of settings. Figure 1: An example of a current meat product on the shelf at a major Australian retailer with packaging that makes a range of claims relating to production practices and quality, among other attributes. (Emily Buddle)“The Good Life”Lifestyle media has been a key site through which meat eating is normalised and recuperated into “ethical” frameworks (Arcari 169). Utopian visions of small-scale animal agriculture are a key feature of popular texts from the River Cottage Australia (Foxtel Networks, 2013–) series to Gourmet Farmer (SBS, 2010–) and Paddock to Plate (Foxtel Networks, 2013–). These programs are typically set in bucolic rural surrounds and centre on the host’s “escape” from the city to a more fulfilling, happier existence in the country (Phillipov, “Escaping”). Rural self-sufficiency is frequently framed as the solution to urban consumers’ alienation from the sources of their food, and a means of taking responsibility for the food they eat. The opening credits of Gourmet Farmer, for instance, outline host Matthew Evans’s quest to “know and trust what [he] eat[s]”, either by growing the food himself or being “no more than one degree of separation from the person who does”.This sense of connection to one’s food is central to how these programs make meat consumption ethical. Indeed, the production of animals for food reinforces particular notions of “the good life” in which the happiness of the animal is closely aligned with the happiness of its human producer. While texts sometimes show food animals’ full lifecycle from birth to slaughter, lifestyle media focuses mainly on their happy existence while still alive. Evans gives his pigs names that foreground their destiny as food (e.g., Prosciutto and Cassoulet), but he also pampers them as though they are pets, feeding them cherries and apples, and scratching them behind the ears much like he would his dog. These bucolic televisual images serve to anchor the programs’ many “spin-off” media texts, including blog posts, cookbooks (e.g. Evans), and endorsem*nts, that instruct urban audiences who do not have the luxury of raising their own meat on how to source ethical alternatives. They also emphasise the deliciousness of meat raised and killed in humane, “natural” conditions, as opposed to those subjected to more intensive, industrialised production systems.Some argue that the notion of “ethical meat” merely masks the realities of humans’ domination over animals (Arcari). However the transition from “happy animals” to “happy meat” (Pilgrim 123) has been key to lifestyle media’s recuperation of (certain kinds of) meat production as a “humane, benevolent and wholly ‘natural’ process” (Parry 381), which helps to morally absolve the chefs who promote it, and by extension, their audiences.The Good DeathMeat consumption has been theorised to be based on the invisibility of the lives and deaths of animals—what has been termed the “absent referent” by feminist philosopher Carol J. Adams (14; see also Fiddes). This line of argument holds that slaughter and other practices that may raise moral concerns are actively hidden from view, and that animals are “made absent” within food consumption practices (Evans and Miele 298). Few meat consumers, at least those in Western countries, have seen animal slaughter first hand, and a disconnect between meat and animal is actively maintained through current retail practices (such as pre-packaged meat with few identifying cues), as well as in our language use, at least in English where most of the names of the meat are different to those of the animal (Plous; Croney) and where euphemisms such as “harvesting” abound (Abrams, Zimbres, and Carr). In many locales, including Australia, there is squeamishness about talking about slaughter and the processes by which “animal” becomes “meat” which in turn prevents open discussion about the origins of meat (Bray et al., “Conversation”).Campaigning culinary documentaries by chefs, including Matthew Evans’s recent For the Love of Meat (SBS, 2016), aim to reconnect animal and meat in order to critique modern meat production methods. In addition, Gourmet Farmer and River Cottage Australia both feature depictions of hunting (skinning and butchering of the animals is shown but viewers are rarely exposed to the kill itself) and emphasise the use of highly skilled hunters in order to bring about a quick death. By highlighting not only a good life but also what constitutes a “good death”, celebrity chefs and others are arguably generating discussion about what makes meat ethical by emphasizing that the quality of death is as important as the quality of life. In many of these programs, the emphasis is on more boutique or small-scale production systems which typically produce meat products that are higher priced and more difficult to source.Given that such products are likely out of reach for many potential consumers because of price point, convenience, or both, perhaps unsurprisingly the emphasis in many of these programs is on the consumer rather than the consumed. Hence these programs tend to be more about constructing an “ethical meat consumer”, defined implicitly as someone who acknowledges the meat/animal connection through conscious exposure to the realities of animal slaughter (for example, by watching a documentary), by “meeting your meat” such as in the BBC series Kill It, Cook It, Eat It (BBC, 2007; Evans and Miele), or by actively participating in the slaughter process as Evans did with his own chickens on Gourmet Farmer. As anthropologist Catie Gressier notes in her study of wild meat consumers in Australia, “hunting meat is seen as more noble than purchasing it, while wild meat is seen as preferable to farmed” (Gressier 58). Gressier also describes how one of her participants viewed hunting (and eating locally) as preferable to veganism because of the “animal violence that is the inevitable outcome of mass-crop agriculture” (58). However some scholars have argued that highly graphic depictions of slaughter in the popular media are becoming more commonplace as a masculinised type of “gastro-snuff” (a term referring to food-related visual depictions of brutal killings) (Parry 382). These types of efforts thus may fail to create dialogue about what constitutes ethical meat or even an ethical meat consumer, and may well reinforce more traditional ideas about human/non-human hierarchies.In contrast to coverage in popular media, detailed descriptions of commercial slaughter, in particular pre-slaughter (lairage) conditions, are yet to make it on to restaurant menus, despite the connections between meat quality and pre-slaughter conditions being well recognised even by consumers (Evans and Miele). Commercial slaughter conditions are one of the reasons that hunting is framed as more ethical than “ethically farmed” animals. As an Internet post, quoted in Adams (“Redneck” 50), puts it: “Hunting? A creature is peacefully in its own domain, it is shot. How is that worse than being carried for hours in a truck, being forced into a crush, hearing the bellows of other creatures, being physically restrained at the peak of terror, then culled?” Although determining precise rates of consumption of wild meat is methodologically difficult (Conservation Visions 28), available rates of hunting together with limited consumption data indicate that Australians currently eat less game or wild-caught meat per capita than those in Europe or North America. However, there is a sector of the community in Australia who pursue hunting as part of their ethical food habits (Bray et al., “Ferals”) with the largest proportion of wild-meat consumers being those who hunted it themselves (Gressier).In many cases, descriptions of animal lives (using descriptors such as “free range” or “grass fed”) serve implicitly as proxies for assurances that the animals’ deaths also have been good. One exception is the increasing awareness of the use of halal slaughter methods in part due to more transparent labelling, despite limited public awareness about the nature of these methods, particularly in the Australian context where they in fact comply with standard animal welfare requirements such as pre-slaughter stunning (Bergeauld-Blackler). Detailed descriptions of post-mortem conditions (e.g., aging conditions and time) are more common on restaurant menus, although arguably these no longer draw attention to the connections between the animal and the meat, and instead focus on the meat itself, its flavour and other physical qualities, rather than on ethical attributes.Thus, although it would seem obvious that ethical meat consumption should involve considerations about slaughter conditions or what makes a “good death”, most efforts have focused on encouraging people to make better and more reflexive consumer choices, rather than promoting deeper engagement with slaughter processes, perhaps underscoring that this domain may still represent one of the final food taboos. Although it might seem to be counterintuitive that wild or hunted meat could be viewed as an ethical food choice, particularly if vegetarianism or veganism is taken as the main point of comparison, these trends point toward the complexities inherent in food choice and the inevitable trade-offs in values that occur in these processes.Problems with Promoting Ethical Meat Norms: Ways ForwardIt is undeniable that many people are reflecting on their consumption habits in order to pursue decisions that better reflect their values. Attempting to be an “ethical meat consumer” clearly fits within these broader trends. However there are a number of problems associated with current approaches to ethical meat consumption, and these raise questions as to whether such efforts are likely to result in broader changes. First, it is not clear that restaurants are the most appropriate spaces for people to engage with ethical considerations, including those relating to meat consumption. Many people seek to try something new, or to treat themselves when dining out, but these behaviours do not necessarily translate into changes in everyday eating habits. Reasons are varied but include that people cannot reproduce the same types of dishes or concepts at home as what they get at restaurants (or see on TV shows for that matter), and that many products may be out of an acceptable price range or inconvenient for daily consumption. Others want to escape from ethical decisions when dining out by relying on those preparing the food to do the work for them, and thus sometimes simply consume without necessarily investigating every detail relating to its production, preparation, and so on.Perhaps more importantly, many are sceptical about the promotion of various meat-related values by high-profile or celebrity chefs, raising questions about whether ethical categories are merely packaging or window dressing designed to sell products, or if they are truly tied to deeper values and better products. Such concerns are reinforced by tendencies to emphasize one type of meat product—say free-range, grass-fed, or humanely-raised—as better than all others, or even as the only right choice, and thus can at times seem to be elitist in their approaches, since they emphasize that only certain (often extremely expensive boutique products) count as ethical. As scholars have noted about the classed nature of many of these consumption practices (see, for example, Bell and Hollows; Naccarato and LeBesco), these types of value judgments are likely to be alienating to many people, and most importantly will not foster deeper reflections on our consumption habits.However it is clear that celebrity and other high-profile chefs do get the public’s attention, and thus can play important roles in shaping conversations about fostering more ethical ways of eating, including meat consumption. We contend that it is important not to emphasize only one right way of eating, but to actively consider the various trade-offs that we make when choosing what to buy, prepare, and consume. Promoting answers by nominating certain meat products or production methods as always better in all circ*mstances, no matter how these might be in conflict with other values, such as preferences for local, organic, alignment with cultural or religious values, sustainable, fair trade, and so on, is not likely to result in meaningful public engagement. Critiques of Pollan and other food activists make similar points about the potential elitism and hence limited value of promoting narrow forms of ethical eating (e.g., Guthman et al.; Zimmerman).In addition, such food categories often serve as proxies for deeper values, but not necessarily for the same values for all of us. Simply relying on categories or types of products thus fails to allow engagement with the underlying rationale for various choices. More generally, promoting individual consumer decision-making and market demand as the keys to ethical consumption overlooks the broader systemic issues that limit our choices, and in turn limits attention to changes that might be made in that system (e.g., Lavin; Guthman et al.; DeLind; Ankeny).Thus instead of promoting one right way of eating meat, or a narrow number of acceptable choices, celebrities, chefs, and restauranteurs should consider how they can help to promote dialogue and the posing of the right types of questions to consumers and diners, including about trade-offs inherent in meat consumption and choices of other products, ethical and otherwise. They also should use their roles as change-makers to consider how they might influence the broader food system, but without promoting a single right way of eating. Parallel to recent calls from scientists for a new planetary health diet which promotes increased vegetable consumption and reduced meat consumption for environmental, health, and other reasons, by providing a range of trade-offs to support a diet that that allows individuals to make personalised choices (Willett et al.), hybrid approaches to ethical eating are more likely to have influence on consumers and in turn on changing eating habits.ReferencesAbrams, Katie M., Thais Zimbres, and Chad Carr. “Communicating Sensitive Scientific Issues: The Interplay between Values, Attitudes, and Euphemisms in Communicating Livestock Slaughter.” Science Communication 37 (2015): 485–505.Adams, Carol. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist Vegetarian Critical Theory. London: Continuum, 2000.Adams, Michael. “‘Redneck, Barbaric, Cashed Up Bogan? I Don’t Think So’: Hunting and Nature in Australia.” Environmental Humanities 2 (2013): 43–56.Ankeny, Rachel A. “From Food Consumers to Food Citizens: Reconceptualising Environmentally-Conscious Food Decision-Making.” Food Justice, the Environment, and Climate Change. Eds. Erinn Gilson, and Sarah Kenehan. New York: Routledge, 2019. 267–79.Ankeny, Rachel A., and Heather J. Bray. “Red Meat and Imported Wine: Why Ethical Eating Often Stops at the Restaurant Door.” The Conversation 8 Jan. 2019. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://theconversation.com/red-meat-and-imported-wine-why-ethical-eating-often-stops-at-the-restaurant-door-106926>.Arcari, Paula. “The Ethical Masquerade: (Un)masking Mechanisms of Power behind ‘Ethical’ Meat.” Alternative Food Politics: From the Margins to the Mainstream. Eds. Michelle Phillipov and Katherine Kirkwood. London: Routledge, 2019. 169–89.Barnett, Clive, Nick Clarke, Paul Cloke, and Alice Malpass. “The Political Ethics of Consumerism.” Consumer Policy Review 15 (2005): 45–51.Bell, David, and Joanne Hollows. “From River Cottage to Chicken Run: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the Class Politics of Ethical Consumption.” Celebrity Studies 2 (2011): 178–91.———, Joanne Hollows, and Steven Jones. “Campaigning Culinary Documentaries and the Responsibilization of Food Crises.” Geoforum 84 (2017): 179–87.Bergeauld-Blackler, Florence. “The Halal Certification Market in Europe and the World: A First Panorama.” Halal Matters: Islam, Politics and Markets in Global Perspective. Eds. Florence Bergeauld-Blackler, Johan Fischer, and John Lever. London: Routledge, 2016. 105–26.Bray, Heather J., Sebastian Konyn, Yvette Wijnandts, and Rachel Ankeny. “Ferals or Food? Does Hunting Have a Role in Ethical Food Consumption in Australia?” Wild Animals and Leisure: Rights and Wellbeing. Eds. Neill Carr and Jeanette Young. London: Routledge, 2018. 210–24.———, Sofia C. Zambrano, Anna Chur-Hansen, and Rachel A. Ankeny. “Not Appropriate Dinner Table Conversation? Talking to Children about Meat Production.” Appetite 100 (2016): 1–9.Conservation Visions. State of Knowledge Report: Consumption Patterns of Wild Protein in North America. A Literature Review in Support of the Wild Harvest Initiative. St John’s: Conservation Visions, April 2016.Croney, C.C. “The Ethics of Semantics: Do We Clarify or Obfuscate Reality to Influence Perceptions of Farm Animal Production?” Poultry Science 87 (2008): 387–91.DeLind, Laura B. “Are Local Food and the Local Food Movement Taking Us Where We Want to Go? Or Are We Hitching Our Wagons to the Wrong Stars?” Agriculture and Human Values 28 (2011): 273–83.Evans, Adrian B., and Mara Miele. “Between Food and Flesh: How Animals Are Made to Matter (and Not Matter) within Food Consumption Practices.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30 (2012): 298–314.Evans, Matthew. For the Love of Meat. Richmond: Hardie Grant Books, 2016.Fiddes, Nick. Meat: A Natural Symbol. London: Routledge, 1991.Gressier, Catie. “Going Feral: Wild Meat Consumption and the Uncanny in Melbourne, Australia.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 27 (2016): 49–65.Guthman, Julie, et al. “Can’t Stomach It: How Michael Pollan et al. Made Me Want to Eat Cheetos.” Gastronomica 7 (2007): 75–9.Henderson, Fergus. Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking. London: Bloomsbury, 2004 (1999).Johnston, Ian. “Campaign Leads to Free Range Chicken Shortage.” The Telegraph 13 Apr. 2008. 20 Mar. 2019 <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584952/Campaign-leads-to-free-range-chicken-shortage.html>.Johnston, Josée, and Michael K. Goodman. “Spectacular Foodscapes: Food Celebrities and the Politics of Lifestyle Mediation in an Age of Inequality.” Food, Culture and Society 18 (2015): 205–22.Lavin, Chad. Eating Anxiety: The Perils of Food Politics. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 2013.Lewis, Tania, and Alison Huber. “A Revolution in an Eggcup? Supermarket Wars, Celebrity Chefs and Ethical Consumption.” Food, Culture and Society 18 (2015): 289–307.———, and Emily Potter. “Introducing Ethical Consumption.” Ethical Consumption: A Critical Introduction. Eds. Tania Lewis and Emily Potter. London: Routledge, 2011. 3–24.Naccarato, Peter, and Kathleen LeBesco. Culinary Capital. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.OzTAM. “Consolidated Metropolitan Top 20 Programs: Week 22 2018, 27/05/2018–02/06/2018.” OzTAM 20 Mar. 2019 <https://oztam.com.au/documents/2018/OzTAM-20180527-EMetFTARankSumCons.pdf>.Parker, Christine, Rachel Carey, and Gyorgy Scrinis. “The Consumer Labelling Turn in Farmed Animal Welfare Politics: From the Margins of Animal Advocacy to Mainstream Supermarket Shelves.” Alternative Food Politics: From the Margins to the Mainstream. Eds. Michelle Phillipov and Katherine Kirkwood. London: Routledge, 2019. 193–215.Parry, Jovian. “The New Visibility of Slaughter in Popular Gastronomy.” MA thesis. U of Canterbury, 2010.Phillipov, Michelle. “Escaping to the Country: Media, Nostalgia, and the New Food Industries.” Popular Communication 14 (2016): 111–22.———. Media and Food Industries: The New Politics of Food. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.Pilgrim, Karyn. “‘Happy Cows’, ‘Happy Beef’: A Critique of the Rationales for Ethical Meat.” Environmental Studies 3 (2013): 111–27.Plous, S.S. “Psychological Mechanisms in the Human Use of Animals.” Journal of Social Issues 49 (1993): 11–52.Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. London: Penguin, 2006.Redzepi, Rene. “Redzepi on Redzepi: The Noma Australia Exit Interview.” Gourmet Traveller 30 Mar. 2016. 20 Mar. 2019 <https://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/news/restaurant-news/redzepi-on-redzepi-the-noma-australia-exit-interview-3702>.Roy Morgan. “Woolworths Increases Lead in $100b+ Grocery War.” Roy Morgan 23 Mar. 2018. 20 Mar. 2019 <http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7537-woolworths-increases-lead-in-$100b-plus-grocery-war-201803230113>.Waters, Alice. The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook. London: Chatto and Windus / The Hogarth Press, 1982.———. “The Farm-Restaurant Connection.” A Slice of Life: Contemporary Writers on Food. Ed. Bonnie Marranca. Woodstock: Overlook Duckworth, 2003. 328–36.Willett, Walter, et al. “Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems.” The Lancet 393 (2019): 447–92.Zimmerman, Heidi. “Caring for the Middle Class Soul: Ambivalence, Ethical Eating and the Michael Pollan Phenomenon.” Food, Culture and Society 18 (2013): 31–50.

Abstract:

One of the main zoonoses that causes significant social and economic damage to health, livestock development and the economy as a whole, especially in developing countries, is rabies. According to other estimates, the total damage from rabies is about $ 124 billion a year. Given that about 1 million animals die each year in the world, this complements the enormous economic damage to the world economy. However, despite the fact that rabies in wild and domestic animals poses a threat to human life and significant damage due to livestock loss, there are few studies to date that examine the economic impact of rabies among animals. Ukraine is no exception and for our country the importance of rabies cannot be overestimated, as there is both a veterinary and a medical and social component. Given that animal husbandry is the basis of the food base and a source of income for the state, the financial losses from the death of animals require detailed study. The purpose of the study is to investigate the economic losses from rabies among farm animals in Ukraine over the past decade and to show the economic feasibility of preventive measures. Analyzing the results of rabies incidence, we took into account the official data of annual reports of regional laboratories of veterinary medicine of the State Food and Consumer Services of Ukraine in the period from 2009 to 2018. Epizootological methods of research, analysis, synthesis, generalization of scientific-methodical and special literature and statistical methods are used in the work. Standard methods of MS Excel were used for statistical calculations. Categories of economic losses were established in the analysis of the main methodological provisions of the economics of veterinary medicine in animal husbandry. Given the fact that rabies, unlike other infectious diseases, registers 100% mortality of animals, the corpses of which, according to the instructions, must be burned, the categories of damage due to rabies are differentiated into losses from death, forced slaughter and destruction of animals, losses from non-production, disposal of carcasses and processing of raw materials from suspicious animals. It is established that during the 10-year period (2009-2018), according to the official data of the annual reports of the regional branches of the State Food and Consumer Service of Ukraine, 1762 farm animals fell ill with rabies. From them among cattle - 1512 heads, DRH - 200 heads, horses - 37 heads, pigs - 13 heads. According to our calculations, the economic losses from death or forced slaughter due to rabies in all species of farm animals in the period from 2009 to 2018 amounted to UAH 17,228,874. The calculation of losses from the shortage of raw materials (milk, meat, wool) was carried out only for cattle and sheep. According to the results the damage from the shortage of raw materials for cattle significantly exceeds the losses due to the death of animals. The calculation of the damage for the disposal of corpses was carried out taking into account the fact that the only type of disposal for rabies is incineration, and according to the instructions, the corpses of animals killed, dead or suspected of burning are burned together with the skin. As can be seen from Table 3, the losses from the disposal of carcasses of all farm animals killed by rabies for 10 years amounted to more than 8 million UAH. (UAH 8264613), of which UAH 7.9 million. only because of rabies in cattle, which is too much for a disease that could be prevented by preventive vaccination. If we calculate the total amount of economic damage, then for cattle for one year the losses are more than 8 million, and for 10 years, more than 80 million UAH, respectively. Based on the data listed in table 4, we can conclude that during 2009-2018 due to the death of farm animals from rabies, animal owners received total economic losses amounting to UAH 81,701,590, of which 98.7% relate to losses from death. Cattle, firstly, due to the largest number of sick animals, secondly, due to the lack of cattle in addition to meat and dairy products, and thirdly, significant costs for cremation of carcasses. Because the carcasses are large and it is forbidden to dissect the carcass, special large furnaces or trenches are needed to burn cattle. As of 2019, according to official data from the State Food and Consumer Service, the most tense epizootic situation was in five oblasts: Vinnytsia - 346, Cherkasy - 231, Khmelnytsky - 122, Zaporizhia - 114, Zhytomyr - 68 cases per year. Therefore, in our opinion, the introduction of the annual vaccination against cattle rabies, which is in the farms of the population in these five regions, will significantly reduce the number of cases among cattle. Given the number of livestock in these areas, we estimate that the number of animals to be vaccinated is 570,000. As rabies prevention measures are actively carried out at the state level and according to the Prozoro portal, the State Food and Consumer Service purchased Rabistar vaccines in the amount of UAH 82.86 million (number of doses 5.03 million, cost of one dose UAH 13.14), then, given the work of the service, it is quite possible to plan appropriate measures, realizing that veterinary costs will be: 570400 x 13.14 UAH. = UAH 7,495,056. Thus, vaccination of the entire herd of cows in the farms of the population in the five areas with the most intense epizootic situation with regard to cattle rabies would not only reduce to a minimum the number of cases of rabies among this species in the country as a whole, but also would have a fairly high economic efficiency. Thus, each hryvnia of veterinary costs aimed at the prevention of rabies among cattle in disadvantaged regions warns 9.03 UAH. losses in animal husbandry. In conclusion, it is necessary for the State Food and Consumer Service of Ukraine to consider the issue of vaccination of cattle and cattle in regions with a severe epizootic situation with regard to rabies and to assess the risks of rabies. We propose to develop and implement a national program on rabies control in Ukraine, to hold professional and public hearings, where some issues will consider the financing of rabies control measures, which should be based on SWOT analysis, risk assessment and modeling of rabies processes. Prospects for further research include assessing the risk of spreading rabies from pets and auditing the level of vaccination of dogs and cats with a depth of retrospection of at least 10 years.

Abstract:

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs infamously changed the law to read: “some animals are more equal than others” (108). From Charlotte’s Web to Babe, there are a plethora of contemporary cultural references, as well as expressions of their intelligence and worth, which would seem to support the pigs’ cause. However, simultaneously, the term “pig” is also synonymous with negative attributes—greed, dirtiness, disarray, brutality and chauvinism. Pigs are also used to name those out of favour, including police officers, the obese, capitalists and male chauvinists. Yet, the animal’s name is also used to express the most extraordinary and unlikely events as in “pigs might fly”. On the one hand, pigs are praised and represented as intelligent and useful, but then they are derided as unclean and slovenly. We are similarly paradoxical in our relationship with then, ranging from using them as a food source to keeping them as pets, and from seeing them as a valuable farm animal/resource or dangerous feral pest depending on which side of the farm gate they are on. Pigs also give a voice to many aspects of popular culture and feature in novels, fairytales, cartoons, comics and movies. As food, pigs are both for feasts and forbidden, their meat the site of both desire and disgust. They are smoked, roasted, fried, stewed and braised, and farmed in the worst of industrial food producing factories. They are also leading the charge in an eating revolution which is calling for heritage, free-range, organic and cruelty-free farming. Snuck into dishes during the Inquisition to expose false conversos, pigs are today seen by some as unclean, inedible and/or fattening and, yet, they provide the symbolic heart of tip-to-tail eating and some of the most expensive and desired of foodie products: heritage Spanish hams, for instance. In an age where to be slender is the goal of many, pigs have been bred and farmed to provide pork which is ever leaner, and yet, their fat—at its most unctuous and melting—is providing a space where the most celebrated of chefs revel. When more and more people are disconnected from what they eat, snout-to-tail eaters are dining on recognisable pigs’ ears, pig’s head filled pies and braised trotters. For many, pigs are the other white meat.Those of us who grew up with television muppet, Miss Piggy, are familiar with the mixed feelings that pigs can evoke. As the contributions to this issue attest, the idea of “pig” can evoke a similarly wide range of responses from scholars working in a variety of disciplines. While as editors we approached the idea of “pig” from an interdisciplinary food studies approach, the symbolic, and even iconic, significance of the pig is a central concern of all of the papers. As Claude Lévi-Strauss put it so elegantly “food has to be good to think as well as to eat” (1963: 128). A number of the authors in this issue have responded with a regional or country-specific focus, and include perspectives from, or about, places and cultures as diverse as Ireland, Tonga, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, the USA and China. “The Pig in Irish Cuisine and Culture”, the title and subject of Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire’s historical analysis, opens with the fact that more pork is eaten per capita than any other meat in Ireland but pigs themselves are almost invisible. Various themes confirm the importance of pigs in Irish culture—literature, folklore, the domestication of the animal and their value in household economics, their role in feasts and how they are raised, killed, prepared and consumed. How the history of the pig in Ireland complements that of the potato—the food item more widely recognised as a major contributor to Irish cuisine—is also included, as are an indication of the new interpretations of Irish pork and bacon dishes by contemporary chefs. In Tonga, conversely, pigs are killed to mark a special event, and are not eaten as everyday food by most people, although they are very significant in Tongan life and culture precisely because of this ceremonial importance. In “Pu‘aka Tonga,” ex-resident of Tonga Mandy Treagus, explains that this is one of the few things about the Tongan diet that has not changed since Cook visited the area and named it the “Friendly Islands”. Treagus also critiques the ways in which the Tongan diet has changed, and how food in Tonga is a neo-colonial issue with pervasive and, sometimes, negative ramifications for Tongans.Jeremy Fisher’s memoir “Tusk” similarly weaves personal and cultural history together, this time in New Zealand. “Tusk” orients the life story of the narrator’s father around the watershed moment he experienced when he killed a boar at 16. The tusks he took from the killing were mounted on gold and accompanied him throughout his life, as well as acting as a reminder to others of his act. The tusks thus function as a physical reminder of the night he spent out in the bush and killed the boar, but also a remembrance of both change and continuity over time. Jenny Smith moves us spatially, and temporally, to the Soviet Union in her “Tushonka: Cultivating Soviet Postwar Taste”. During the Second World War, the USA sent meat, cheese and butter overseas to help feed the Red Army. However, after receiving several shipments of SPAM, a more familiar canned pork product, Russian tushonka, was requested. Smith uses the example of tuskonka to trace how this pig-based product not only kept soldiers alive during the war, but how later the requirements for its manufacture re-prioritised muscle over fat and influenced pig breeding programs. Smith asserts that this had a significant influence on faming and food processing in the Soviet Union, as well as the relationship between the pig and the consumer.Pigs are at the centre of debates that have arisen from the growth of a number of social movements that are becoming increasingly mainstream, reminding us that they are also alive, and beings in their own right. These movements include environmentalism, vegetarianism and other alternative food movements advocating ethical eating. Thus, in his analysis of alien creatures with pig and human features in the science fiction series Dr Who, “Those Pig-Men Things”, Brett Mills explores our reactions to these characters and their fates. Discussing why pig-human representations are capable of being both “shocking and horrific”, but also of arousing our empathy, Mills’s analysis suggests the possibility of more complex notions of human/non-human interaction. It also assists in working towards, as he states, “helpfully destabilis[ing our] simplistic ideas of the superiority of the human race.” The deepest form of human-animal interaction underlies Peta S. Cook and Nicholas Osbaldiston’s “Pigs Hearts and Human Bodies: A Cultural Approach to Xenotransplantation”. Cook and Osbaldiston discuss how our categorisation of animals as a lower species has enabled their exploitation, arguing how, in the contemporary West, we largely attribute “a sacred high value to human bodies, and a low, profane quality to animal bodies.” The authors provide a compelling account of the social and cultural ramifications of the use of pigs in xenotransplantation (animal-to-human transplantation), a process in which the current “choice” animal source is pigs. The line dividing human and animal can at other times be a tenuous one, demonstrated by the anxiety generated over eating practices exposed in fears of eating “like a pig”. In her article, “Sugar Pigs: Children’s Consumption of Confectionery”, Toni Risson explains how rules about eating and concealing food in the mouth remind us that eating is an animal act that instruction is required to modify and control. Children’s lolly-eating rituals—sharing half-eaten food, monitoring the progress of its consumption and change, and using fingers to inspect this change or pull stuck lollies off teeth—can evoke disgust in adults, but can also create friendship networks, intimacy and a sense of belonging for children as they transgress the rules of civilised eating. As Risson puts it, as “the antithesis of civilisation, the pig is the means by which we understand ourselves as civilised beings, but the child with a lolly is an ever-present reminder that we may be animals after all”.Feminism can be added to this list of social movements, with Arhlene Ann Flowers drawing attention to the power of language in her article “Swine Semantics in U.S. Politics: Who Put Lipstick on the Pig?”. Flowers chronicles the linguistic battle between the presidential candidates in the US 2008 campaign over the colloquialism “lipstick on a pig”, used in a speech by then Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. Flowers traces the history of this phrase, as well as the use of other porcine terms in political language including “pork barrelling” and “male chauvinist pig.”In her article about New York’s first gastrobpub, The Spotted Pig, one of the co-editors of this issue, Donna Lee Brien, has constructed a brief restaurant biography for the eatery famous for founding chef April Bloomfield’s nose-to-tail, locally sourced pork dishes. In this, Brien reflects upon the pig’s place in contemporary dining, whether as “raw foodstuff, fashionable comestible, brand, symbol or marketing tool.” In Lillian Ng’s novel, Swallowing Clouds, references to pigs are similarly closely related to food, but in her article, Spanish author Catalina Ribas Segura argues these references to flesh and meat evoke the concepts of freedom, transgression and desire. In “Pigs and Desire in Lillian Ng´s Swallowing Clouds”, Segura focuses on pork and the pig and what these reveal about the two main characters’ relationship. One of these, Zhu Zhiyee, is a butcher, which means that pigs and pork are recurrent topics throughout the novel, but other porcine expressions appear throughout. Pig-related terminology in the novel provides a means for Segura to consider the relationship between food and sex, and sex and literature, and includes a discussion about the connotations of pigs in Chinese culture, where pork is used in a variety of dishes. Lee McGowan’s “Piggery and Predictability: An Exploration of the Hog in Football’s Limelight” focuses in more closely on one of the uses to which we have put pigs, discussing how far “the beautiful game” of football (soccer) has come from the days when an inflated pigs bladder was used as the ball.Reversing this focus from use back to how we, as humans, relate to animals, can show that how we conceive of pigs in our human history reveals our own prejudices. It is known that pigs and humans have interacted for some 10,000 years. The history of that interaction and their own adaptability mean that pigs have a broad range of possible relationships with humans, wider and more complex than either that of many other species or our contemporary treatment of them would attest. The other co-editor of this issue, Adele Wessell, takes a historical perspective to restore pigs to the centre of the narrative in “Making a Pig of the Humanities.” Drawing on a growing body of work on nonhuman animals, Wessell is interested in what a history of pigs and our relationship with them reveals about humans more generally. She argues that all the significant themes in modern history—production, religion, the body, science, power, the national state, colonialism, gender, consumption, migration, memory—can be understood through a history of our relationships with pigs. Jim Hearn is a chef, a researcher and writer. Hearn’s article “Percy” is the story of a pig who, as the only pig in the farmyard, longs to “escape the burden of allegory”. All Percy wanted was to belong, but his pig-ness caused offence to all the other animals in the farm. Percy’s story is about belonging and identity, body-image and representation, told from a pig’s point of view. Percy is burdened with the layers of meaning that have built up around pigs and longs to escape, and this fable provides a fitting ending to this issue.Together, we hope the articles in this collection indicate the wide significance and large number of meanings of “pig” that are possible for different cultures and across historical periods, and the place that pigs inhabit in our national, popular and food cultures. They reveal how pigs are used and misused, as well as how they are understood and misunderstood. These interesting and diverse articles also show how pigs are both material and allegorical; how they are paradoxical in how they are revered, avoided and derided; and, commonly, how they are eaten. ReferencesOrwell, George. Animal Farm. Fairfield, IA: 1st World Library—Library Society, 2004.Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Totemism. Boston, Beacon Press, 1963.

Abstract:

When George Orwell encountered ideas of a technological utopia sixty-five years ago, he acted the grumpy middle-aged man Reading recently a batch of rather shallowly optimistic “progressive” books, I was struck by the automatic way in which people go on repeating certain phrases which were fashionable before 1914. Two great favourites are “the abolition of distance” and “the disappearance of frontiers”. I do not know how often I have met with the statements that “the aeroplane and the radio have abolished distance” and “all parts of the world are now interdependent” (1944). It is worth revisiting the old boy’s grumpiness, because the rhetoric he so niftily skewers continues in our own time. Facebook features “Peace on Facebook” and even claims that it can “decrease world conflict” through inter-cultural communication. Twitter has announced itself as “a triumph of humanity” (“A Cyber-House” 61). Queue George. In between Orwell and latter-day hoody cybertarians, a whole host of excitable public intellectuals announced the impending end of materiality through emergent media forms. Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Daniel Bell, Ithiel de Sola Pool, George Gilder, Alvin Toffler—the list of 1960s futurists goes on and on. And this wasn’t just a matter of punditry: the OECD decreed the coming of the “information society” in 1975 and the European Union (EU) followed suit in 1979, while IBM merrily declared an “information age” in 1977. Bell theorized this technological utopia as post-ideological, because class would cease to matter (Mattelart). Polluting industries seemingly no longer represented the dynamic core of industrial capitalism; instead, market dynamism radiated from a networked, intellectual core of creative and informational activities. The new information and knowledge-based economies would rescue First World hegemony from an “insurgent world” that lurked within as well as beyond itself (Schiller). Orwell’s others and the Cold-War futurists propagated one of the most destructive myths shaping both public debate and scholarly studies of the media, culture, and communication. They convinced generations of analysts, activists, and arrivistes that the promises and problems of the media could be understood via metaphors of the environment, and that the media were weightless and virtual. The famous medium they wished us to see as the message —a substance as vital to our wellbeing as air, water, and soil—turned out to be no such thing. Today’s cybertarians inherit their anti-Marxist, anti-materialist positions, as a casual glance at any new media journal, culture-industry magazine, or bourgeois press outlet discloses. The media are undoubtedly important instruments of social cohesion and fragmentation, political power and dissent, democracy and demagoguery, and other fraught extensions of human consciousness. But talk of media systems as equivalent to physical ecosystems—fashionable among marketers and media scholars alike—is predicated on the notion that they are environmentally benign technologies. This has never been true, from the beginnings of print to today’s cloud-covered computing. Our new book Greening the Media focuses on the environmental impact of the media—the myriad ways that media technology consumes, despoils, and wastes natural resources. We introduce ideas, stories, and facts that have been marginal or absent from popular, academic, and professional histories of media technology. Throughout, ecological issues have been at the core of our work and we immodestly think the same should apply to media communications, and cultural studies more generally. We recognize that those fields have contributed valuable research and teaching that address environmental questions. For instance, there is an abundant literature on representations of the environment in cinema, how to communicate environmental messages successfully, and press coverage of climate change. That’s not enough. You may already know that media technologies contain toxic substances. You may have signed an on-line petition protesting the hazardous and oppressive conditions under which workers assemble cell phones and computers. But you may be startled, as we were, by the scale and pervasiveness of these environmental risks. They are present in and around every site where electronic and electric devices are manufactured, used, and thrown away, poisoning humans, animals, vegetation, soil, air and water. We are using the term “media” as a portmanteau word to cover a multitude of cultural and communications machines and processes—print, film, radio, television, information and communications technologies (ICT), and consumer electronics (CE). This is not only for analytical convenience, but because there is increasing overlap between the sectors. CE connect to ICT and vice versa; televisions resemble computers; books are read on telephones; newspapers are written through clouds; and so on. Cultural forms and gadgets that were once separate are now linked. The currently fashionable notion of convergence doesn’t quite capture the vastness of this integration, which includes any object with a circuit board, scores of accessories that plug into it, and a global nexus of labor and environmental inputs and effects that produce and flow from it. In 2007, a combination of ICT/CE and media production accounted for between 2 and 3 percent of all greenhouse gases emitted around the world (“Gartner Estimates,”; International Telecommunication Union; Malmodin et al.). Between twenty and fifty million tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) are generated annually, much of it via discarded cell phones and computers, which affluent populations throw out regularly in order to buy replacements. (Presumably this fits the narcissism of small differences that distinguishes them from their own past.) E-waste is historically produced in the Global North—Australasia, Western Europe, Japan, and the US—and dumped in the Global South—Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Southern and Southeast Asia, and China. It takes the form of a thousand different, often deadly, materials for each electrical and electronic gadget. This trend is changing as India and China generate their own media detritus (Robinson; Herat). Enclosed hard drives, backlit screens, cathode ray tubes, wiring, capacitors, and heavy metals pose few risks while these materials remain encased. But once discarded and dismantled, ICT/CE have the potential to expose workers and ecosystems to a morass of toxic components. Theoretically, “outmoded” parts could be reused or swapped for newer parts to refurbish devices. But items that are defined as waste undergo further destruction in order to collect remaining parts and valuable metals, such as gold, silver, copper, and rare-earth elements. This process causes serious health risks to bones, brains, stomachs, lungs, and other vital organs, in addition to birth defects and disrupted biological development in children. Medical catastrophes can result from lead, cadmium, mercury, other heavy metals, poisonous fumes emitted in search of precious metals, and such carcinogenic compounds as polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, polyvinyl chloride, and flame retardants (Maxwell and Miller 13). The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by 2007 US residents owned approximately three billion electronic devices, with an annual turnover rate of 400 million units, and well over half such purchases made by women. Overall CE ownership varied with age—adults under 45 typically boasted four gadgets; those over 65 made do with one. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) says US$145 billion was expended in the sector in 2006 in the US alone, up 13% on the previous year. The CEA refers joyously to a “consumer love affair with technology continuing at a healthy clip.” In the midst of a recession, 2009 saw $165 billion in sales, and households owned between fifteen and twenty-four gadgets on average. By 2010, US$233 billion was spent on electronic products, three-quarters of the population owned a computer, nearly half of all US adults owned an MP3 player, and 85% had a cell phone. By all measures, the amount of ICT/CE on the planet is staggering. As investigative science journalist, Elizabeth Grossman put it: “no industry pushes products into the global market on the scale that high-tech electronics does” (Maxwell and Miller 2). In 2007, “of the 2.25 million tons of TVs, cell phones and computer products ready for end-of-life management, 18% (414,000 tons) was collected for recycling and 82% (1.84 million tons) was disposed of, primarily in landfill” (Environmental Protection Agency 1). Twenty million computers fell obsolete across the US in 1998, and the rate was 130,000 a day by 2005. It has been estimated that the five hundred million personal computers discarded in the US between 1997 and 2007 contained 6.32 billion pounds of plastics, 1.58 billion pounds of lead, three million pounds of cadmium, 1.9 million pounds of chromium, and 632000 pounds of mercury (Environmental Protection Agency; Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 6). The European Union is expected to generate upwards of twelve million tons annually by 2020 (Commission of the European Communities 17). While refrigerators and dangerous refrigerants account for the bulk of EU e-waste, about 44% of the most toxic e-waste measured in 2005 came from medium-to-small ICT/CE: computer monitors, TVs, printers, ink cartridges, telecommunications equipment, toys, tools, and anything with a circuit board (Commission of the European Communities 31-34). Understanding the enormity of the environmental problems caused by making, using, and disposing of media technologies should arrest our enthusiasm for them. But intellectual correctives to the “love affair” with technology, or technophilia, have come and gone without establishing much of a foothold against the breathtaking flood of gadgets and the propaganda that proclaims their awe-inspiring capabilities.[i] There is a peculiar enchantment with the seeming magic of wireless communication, touch-screen phones and tablets, flat-screen high-definition televisions, 3-D IMAX cinema, mobile computing, and so on—a totemic, quasi-sacred power that the historian of technology David Nye has named the technological sublime (Nye Technological Sublime 297).[ii] We demonstrate in our book why there is no place for the technological sublime in projects to green the media. But first we should explain why such symbolic power does not accrue to more mundane technologies; after all, for the time-strapped cook, a pressure cooker does truly magical things. Three important qualities endow ICT/CE with unique symbolic potency—virtuality, volume, and novelty. The technological sublime of media technology is reinforced by the “virtual nature of much of the industry’s content,” which “tends to obscure their responsibility for a vast proliferation of hardware, all with high levels of built-in obsolescence and decreasing levels of efficiency” (Boyce and Lewis 5). Planned obsolescence entered the lexicon as a new “ethics” for electrical engineering in the 1920s and ’30s, when marketers, eager to “habituate people to buying new products,” called for designs to become quickly obsolete “in efficiency, economy, style, or taste” (Grossman 7-8).[iii] This defines the short lifespan deliberately constructed for computer systems (drives, interfaces, operating systems, batteries, etc.) by making tiny improvements incompatible with existing hardware (Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 33-50; Boyce and Lewis). With planned obsolescence leading to “dizzying new heights” of product replacement (Rogers 202), there is an overstated sense of the novelty and preeminence of “new” media—a “cult of the present” is particularly dazzled by the spread of electronic gadgets through globalization (Mattelart and Constantinou 22). References to the symbolic power of media technology can be found in hymnals across the internet and the halls of academe: technologies change us, the media will solve social problems or create new ones, ICTs transform work, monopoly ownership no longer matters, journalism is dead, social networking enables social revolution, and the media deliver a cleaner, post-industrial, capitalism. Here is a typical example from the twilight zone of the technological sublime (actually, the OECD): A major feature of the knowledge-based economy is the impact that ICTs have had on industrial structure, with a rapid growth of services and a relative decline of manufacturing. Services are typically less energy intensive and less polluting, so among those countries with a high and increasing share of services, we often see a declining energy intensity of production … with the emergence of the Knowledge Economy ending the old linear relationship between output and energy use (i.e. partially de-coupling growth and energy use) (Houghton 1) This statement mixes half-truths and nonsense. In reality, old-time, toxic manufacturing has moved to the Global South, where it is ascendant; pollution levels are rising worldwide; and energy consumption is accelerating in residential and institutional sectors, due almost entirely to ICT/CE usage, despite advances in energy conservation technology (a neat instance of the age-old Jevons Paradox). In our book we show how these are all outcomes of growth in ICT/CE, the foundation of the so-called knowledge-based economy. ICT/CE are misleadingly presented as having little or no material ecological impact. In the realm of everyday life, the sublime experience of electronic machinery conceals the physical work and material resources that go into them, while the technological sublime makes the idea that more-is-better palatable, axiomatic; even sexy. In this sense, the technological sublime relates to what Marx called “the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour” once they are in the hands of the consumer, who lusts after them as if they were “independent beings” (77). There is a direct but unseen relationship between technology’s symbolic power and the scale of its environmental impact, which the economist Juliet Schor refers to as a “materiality paradox” —the greater the frenzy to buy goods for their transcendent or nonmaterial cultural meaning, the greater the use of material resources (40-41). We wrote Greening the Media knowing that a study of the media’s effect on the environment must work especially hard to break the enchantment that inflames popular and elite passions for media technologies. We understand that the mere mention of the political-economic arrangements that make shiny gadgets possible, or the environmental consequences of their appearance and disappearance, is bad medicine. It’s an unwelcome buzz kill—not a cool way to converse about cool stuff. But we didn’t write the book expecting to win many allies among high-tech enthusiasts and ICT/CE industry leaders. We do not dispute the importance of information and communication media in our lives and modern social systems. We are media people by profession and personal choice, and deeply immersed in the study and use of emerging media technologies. But we think it’s time for a balanced assessment with less hype and more practical understanding of the relationship of media technologies to the biosphere they inhabit. Media consumers, designers, producers, activists, researchers, and policy makers must find new and effective ways to move ICT/CE production and consumption toward ecologically sound practices. In the course of this project, we found in casual conversation, lecture halls, classroom discussions, and correspondence, consistent and increasing concern with the environmental impact of media technology, especially the deleterious effects of e-waste toxins on workers, air, water, and soil. We have learned that the grip of the technological sublime is not ironclad. Its instability provides a point of departure for investigating and criticizing the relationship between the media and the environment. The media are, and have been for a long time, intimate environmental participants. Media technologies are yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s news, but rarely in the way they should be. The prevailing myth is that the printing press, telegraph, phonograph, photograph, cinema, telephone, wireless radio, television, and internet changed the world without changing the Earth. In reality, each technology has emerged by despoiling ecosystems and exposing workers to harmful environments, a truth obscured by symbolic power and the power of moguls to set the terms by which such technologies are designed and deployed. Those who benefit from ideas of growth, progress, and convergence, who profit from high-tech innovation, monopoly, and state collusion—the military-industrial-entertainment-academic complex and multinational commandants of labor—have for too long ripped off the Earth and workers. As the current celebration of media technology inevitably winds down, perhaps it will become easier to comprehend that digital wonders come at the expense of employees and ecosystems. This will return us to Max Weber’s insistence that we understand technology in a mundane way as a “mode of processing material goods” (27). Further to understanding that ordinariness, we can turn to the pioneering conversation analyst Harvey Sacks, who noted three decades ago “the failures of technocratic dreams [:] that if only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed.” Such fantasies derived from the very banality of these introductions—that every time they took place, one more “technical apparatus” was simply “being made at home with the rest of our world’ (548). Media studies can join in this repetitive banality. Or it can withdraw the welcome mat for media technologies that despoil the Earth and wreck the lives of those who make them. In our view, it’s time to green the media by greening media studies. References “A Cyber-House Divided.” Economist 4 Sep. 2010: 61-62. “Gartner Estimates ICT Industry Accounts for 2 Percent of Global CO2 Emissions.” Gartner press release. 6 April 2007. ‹http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503867›. Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia. Seattle: Basel Action Network, 25 Feb. 2002. Benjamin, Walter. “Central Park.” Trans. Lloyd Spencer with Mark Harrington. New German Critique 34 (1985): 32-58. Biagioli, Mario. “Postdisciplinary Liaisons: Science Studies and the Humanities.” Critical Inquiry 35.4 (2009): 816-33. Boyce, Tammy and Justin Lewis, eds. Climate Change and the Media. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Commission of the European Communities. “Impact Assessment.” Commission Staff Working Paper accompanying the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (recast). COM (2008) 810 Final. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 3 Dec. 2008. Environmental Protection Agency. Management of Electronic Waste in the United States. Washington, DC: EPA, 2007 Environmental Protection Agency. Statistics on the Management of Used and End-of-Life Electronics. Washington, DC: EPA, 2008 Grossman, Elizabeth. Tackling High-Tech Trash: The E-Waste Explosion & What We Can Do about It. New York: Demos, 2008. ‹http://www.demos.org/pubs/e-waste_FINAL.pdf› Herat, Sunil. “Review: Sustainable Management of Electronic Waste (e-Waste).” Clean 35.4 (2007): 305-10. Houghton, J. “ICT and the Environment in Developing Countries: Opportunities and Developments.” Paper prepared for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2009. International Telecommunication Union. ICTs for Environment: Guidelines for Developing Countries, with a Focus on Climate Change. Geneva: ICT Applications and Cybersecurity Division Policies and Strategies Department ITU Telecommunication Development Sector, 2008. Malmodin, Jens, Åsa Moberg, Dag Lundén, Göran Finnveden, and Nina Lövehagen. “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Operational Electricity Use in the ICT and Entertainment & Media Sectors.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 14.5 (2010): 770-90. Marx, Karl. Capital: Vol. 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, 3rd ed. Trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, Ed. Frederick Engels. New York: International Publishers, 1987. Mattelart, Armand and Costas M. Constantinou. “Communications/Excommunications: An Interview with Armand Mattelart.” Trans. Amandine Bled, Jacques Guot, and Costas Constantinou. Review of International Studies 34.1 (2008): 21-42. Mattelart, Armand. “Cómo nació el mito de Internet.” Trans. Yanina Guthman. El mito internet. Ed. Victor Hugo de la Fuente. Santiago: Editorial aún creemos en los sueños, 2002. 25-32. Maxwell, Richard and Toby Miller. Greening the Media. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Nye, David E. American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994. Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2007. Orwell, George. “As I Please.” Tribune. 12 May 1944. Richtel, Matt. “Consumers Hold on to Products Longer.” New York Times: B1, 26 Feb. 2011. Robinson, Brett H. “E-Waste: An Assessment of Global Production and Environmental Impacts.” Science of the Total Environment 408.2 (2009): 183-91. Rogers, Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. New York: New Press, 2005. Sacks, Harvey. Lectures on Conversation. Vols. I and II. Ed. Gail Jefferson. Malden: Blackwell, 1995. Schiller, Herbert I. Information and the Crisis Economy. Norwood: Ablex Publishing, 1984. Schor, Juliet B. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. New York: Penguin, 2010. Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials. Los Angeles: Academy Imprints, 2007. Weber, Max. “Remarks on Technology and Culture.” Trans. Beatrix Zumsteg and Thomas M. Kemple. Ed. Thomas M. Kemple. Theory, Culture [i] The global recession that began in 2007 has been the main reason for some declines in Global North energy consumption, slower turnover in gadget upgrades, and longer periods of consumer maintenance of electronic goods (Richtel). [ii] The emergence of the technological sublime has been attributed to the Western triumphs in the post-Second World War period, when technological power supposedly supplanted the power of nature to inspire fear and astonishment (Nye Technology Matters 28). Historian Mario Biagioli explains how the sublime permeates everyday life through technoscience: "If around 1950 the popular imaginary placed science close to the military and away from the home, today’s technoscience frames our everyday life at all levels, down to our notion of the self" (818). [iii] This compulsory repetition is seemingly undertaken each time as a novelty, governed by what German cultural critic Walter Benjamin called, in his awkward but occasionally illuminating prose, "the ever-always-the-same" of "mass-production" cloaked in "a hitherto unheard-of significance" (48).

Abstract:

Introduction Negative stereotyping of alternative diets such as veganism and other plant-based diets has been common in Australia, conventionally a meat-eating culture (OECD qtd. in Ting). Indeed, meat consumption in Australia is sanctioned by the ubiquity of advertising linking meat-eating to health, vitality and nation-building, and public challenges to such plant-based diets as veganism. In addition, state, commercial enterprises, and various community groups overtly resist challenges to Australian meat-eating norms and to the intensive animal husbandry practices that underpin it. Hence activists, who may contest not simply this norm but many of the customary industry practices that comprise Australia’s meat production, have been accused of promoting a vegan agenda and even of undermining the “Australian way of life”.If veganism meansa philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals. (Vegan Society)then our interest in this article lies in how a stereotyped label of veganism (and other associated attributes) is being used across Australian public spheres to challenge the work of animal activists as they call out factory farming for entrenched animal cruelty. This is carried out in three main parts. First, following an outline of our research approach, we examine the processes of stereotyping and the key dimensions of vegan stereotyping. Second, in the main part of the article, we reveal how opponents to such animal activist organisations as Animals Australia attempt to undermine activist calls for change by framing them as promoting an un-Australian vegan agenda. Finally, we consider how, despite such framing, that organisation is generating productive public debate around animal welfare, and, further, facilitating the creation of new activist identifications and identities.Research ApproachData collection involved searching for articles where Animals Australia and animal activism were yoked with veg*n (vegan and vegetarian), across the period May 2011 to 2016 (discussion peaked between May and June 2013). This period was of interest because it exposed a flare point with public discord being expressed between communities—namely between rural and urban consumers, farmers and animal activists, Coles Supermarkets (identified by The Australian Government the Treasury as one of two major supermarkets holding over 65% share of Australian food retail market) and their producers—and a consequent voicing of disquiet around Australian identity. We used purposive sampling (Waller, Farquharson, and Dempsey 67) to identify relevant materials as we knew in advance the case was “information-rich” (Patton 181) and would provide insightful information about a “troublesome” phenomenon (Emmel 6). Materials were collected from online news articles (30) and readers’ comments (167), online magazines (2) and websites (2) and readers’ comments (3), news items (Factiva 13), Australian Broadcasting Commission television (1) and radio (1), public blogs (2), and Facebook pages from involved organisations, specifically Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation (NFF, 155 posts) and Coles Supermarkets (29 posts). Many of these materials were explicitly responsive to a) Animals Australia’s Make It Possible campaign against Australian factory farming (launched and highly debated during this period), and b) Coles Supermarket’s short-lived partnership with Animals Australia in 2013. We utilised content analysis so as to make visible the most prominent and consistent stereotypes utilised in these various materials during the identified period. The approach allowed us to code and categorise materials so as to determine trends and patterns of words used, their relationships, and key structures and ways of speaking (Weerakkody). In addition, discourse analysis (Gee) was used in order to identify and track “language-in-use” so as to make visible the stereotyping deployed during the public reception of both the campaign and Animals Australia’s associated partnership with Coles. These methods enabled a “nuanced approach” (Coleman and Moss 12) with which to spot putdowns, innuendos, and stereotypical attitudes.Vegan StereotypingStereotypes creep into everyday language and are circulated and amplified through mainstream media, speeches by public figures, and social media. Stereotypes maintain their force through being reused and repurposed, making them difficult to eradicate due to their “cumulative effects” and influence (Harris and Sanborn 38; Inzlicht, Tullett, Legault, and Kang; Pickering). Over time stereotypes can become the lens through which we view “the world and social reality” (Harris and Sanborn 38; Inzlicht et al.). In summation, stereotyping:reduces identity categories to particular sets of deeds, attributes and attitudes (Whitley and Kite);informs individuals’ “cognitive investments” (Blum 267) by associating certain characteristics with particular groups;comprises symbolic and connotative codes that carry sets of traits, deeds, or beliefs (Cover; Rosello), and;becomes increasingly persuasive through regulating language and image use as well as identity categories (Cover; Pickering; Rosello).Not only is the “iterative force” (Rosello 35) of such associative stereotyping compounded due to its dissemination across digital media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, websites, and online news, but attempts to denounce it tend to increase its “persuasive power” (29). Indeed, stereotypes seem to refuse “to die” (23), remaining rooted in social and cultural memory (Whitley and Kite 10).As such, despite the fact that there is increasing interest in Australia and elsewhere in new food norms and plant-based diets (see, e.g., KPMG), as well as in vegan lifestyle options (Wright), studies still show that vegans remain a negatively stereotyped group. Previous studies have suggested that vegans mark a “symbolic threat” to Western, conventionally meat-eating cultures (MacInnis and Hodson 722; Stephens Griffin; Cole and Morgan). One key UK study of national newspapers, for instance, showed vegans continuing to be discredited in multiple ways as: 1) “self-evidently ridiculous”; 2) “ascetics”; 3) having a lifestyle difficult and impossible to maintain; 4) “faddist”; 5) “oversensitive”; and 6) “hostile extremists” (Cole and Morgan 140–47).For many Australians, veganism also appears anathema to their preferred culture and lifestyle of meat-eating. For instance, the NFF, Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), and other farming bodies continue to frame veganism as marking an extreme form of lifestyle, as anti-farming and un-Australian. Such perspectives are also circulated through online rural news and readers’ comments, as will be discussed later in the article. Such representations are further exemplified by the MLA’s (Lamb, Australia Day, Celebrate Australia) Australia Day lamb advertising campaigns (Bembridge; Canning). For multiple consecutive years, the campaign presented vegans (and vegetarians) as being self-evidently ridiculous and faddish, representing them as mentally unhinged and fringe dwellers. Such stereotyping not only invokes “affective reactions” (Whitley and Kite 8)—including feelings of disgust towards individuals living such lifestyles or holding such values—but operates as “political baits” (Rosello 18) to shore-up or challenge certain social or political positions.Although such advertisem*nts are arguably satirical, their repeated screening towards and on Australia Day highlights deeply held views about the normalcy of animal agriculture and meat-eating, “hom*ogenizing” (Blum 276; Pickering) both meat-eaters and non-meat-eaters alike. Cultural stereotyping of this kind amplifies “social” as well as political schisms (Blum 276), and arguably discourages consumers—whether meat-eaters or non-meat-eaters—from advocating together around shared goals such as animal welfare and food safety. Additionally, given the rise of new food practices in Australia—including flexitarian, reducetarian, pescatarian, kangatarian (a niche form of ethical eating), vegivores, semi-vegetarian, vegetarian, veganism—alongside broader commitments to ethical consumption, such stereotyping suggests that consumers’ actual values and preferences are being disregarded in order to shore-up the normalcy of meat-eating.Animals Australia and the (So-Called) Vegan Agenda of Animal ActivismGiven these points, it is no surprise that there is a tacit belief in Australia that anyone labelled an animal activist must also be vegan. Within this context, we have chosen to primarily focus on the attitudes towards the campaigning work of Animals Australia—a not-for-profit organisation representing some 30 member groups and over 2 million individual supporters (Animals Australia, “Who Is”)—as this organisation has been charged as promoting a vegan agenda. Along with the RSPCA and Voiceless, Animals Australia represents one of the largest animal protection organisations within Australia (Chen). Its mission is to:Investigate, expose and raise community awareness of animal cruelty;Provide animals with the strongest representation possible to Government and other decision-makers;Educate, inspire, empower and enlist the support of the community to prevent and prohibit animal cruelty;Strengthen the animal protection movement. (Animals Australia, “Who Is”)In delivery of this mission, the organisation curates public rallies and protests, makes government and industry submissions, and utilises corporate outreach. Campaigning engages the Web, multiple forms of print and broadcast media, and social media.With regards to Animals Australia’s campaigns regarding factory farming—including the Make It Possible campaign (see fig. 1), launched in 2013 and key to the period we are investigating—the main message is that: the animals kept in these barren and constrictive conditions are “no different to our pets at home”; they are “highly intelligent creatures who feel pain, and who will respond to kindness and affection – if given the chance”; they are “someone, not something” (see the Make It Possible transcript). Campaigns deliberately strive to engender feelings of empathy and produce affect in viewers (see, e.g., van Gurp). Specifically they strive to produce mainstream recognition of the cruelties entrenched in factory farming practices and build community outrage against these practices so as to initiate industry change. Campaigns thus expressly challenge Australians to no longer support factory farmed animal products, and to identify with what we have elsewhere called everyday activist positions (Rodan and Mummery, “Animal Welfare”; “Make It Possible”). They do not, however, explicitly endorse a vegan position. Figure 1: Make It Possible (Animals Australia, campaign poster)Nonetheless, as has been noted, a common counter-tactic used within Australia by the industries targeted by such campaigns, has been to use well-known negative stereotypes to discredit not only the charges of systemic animal cruelty but the associated organisations. In our analysis, we found four prominent interconnected stereotypes utilised in both digital and print media to discredit the animal welfare objectives of Animals Australia. Together these cast the organisation as: 1) anti-meat-eating; 2) anti-farming; 3) promoting a vegan agenda; and 4) hostile extremists. These stereotypes are examined below.Anti-Meat-EatingThe most common stereotype attributed to Animals Australia from its campaigning is of being anti-meat-eating. This charge, with its associations with veganism, is clearly problematic for industries that facilitate meat-eating and within a culture that normalises meat-eating, as the following example expresses:They’re [Animals Australia] all about stopping things. They want to stop factory farming – whatever factory farming is – or they want to stop live exports. And in fact they’re not necessarily about: how do I improve animal welfare in the pig industry? Or how do I improve animal welfare in the live export industry? Because ultimately they are about a meat-free future world and we’re about a meat producing industry, so there’s not a lot of overlap, really between what we’re doing. (Andrew Spencer, Australian Pork Ltd., qtd. in Clark)Respondents engaging this stereotype also express their “outrage at Coles” (McCarthy) and Animals Australia for “pedalling [sic]” a pro-vegan agenda (Nash), their sense that Animals Australia is operating with ulterior motives (Flint) and criminal intent (Brown). They see cultural refocus as unnecessary and “an exercise in futility” (Harris).Anti-FarmingTo be anti-farming in Australia is generally considered to be un-Australian, with Glasgow suggesting that any criticism of “farming practices” in Australian society can be “interpreted as an attack on the moral integrity of farmers, amounting to cultural blasphemy” (200). Given its objectives, it is unsurprising that Animals Australia has been stereotyped as being “anti-farming”, a phrase additionally often used in conjunction with the charge of veganism. Although this comprises a misreading of veganism—given its focus on challenging animal exploitation in farming rather than entailing opposition to all farming—the NFF accused Animals Australia of being “blatantly anti-farming and proveganism” (Linegar qtd. in Nason) and as wanting “to see animal agriculture phased out” (National Farmers’ Federation). As expressed in more detail:One of the main factors for VFF and other farmers being offended is because of AA’s opinion and stand on ALL farming. AA wants all farming banned and us all become vegans. Is it any wonder a lot of people were upset? Add to that the proceeds going to AA which may have been used for their next criminal activity washed against the grain. If people want to stand against factory farming they have the opportunity not to purchase them. Surely not buying a product will have a far greater impact on factory farmed produce. Maybe the money could have been given to farmers? (Hunter)Such stereotyping reveals how strongly normalised animal agriculture is in Australia, as well as a tendency on the part of respondents to reframe the challenge of animal cruelty in some farming practices into a position supposedly challenging all farming practices.Promoting a Vegan AgendaAs is already clear, Animals Australia is often reproached for promoting a vegan agenda, which, it is further suggested, it keeps hidden from the Australian public. This viewpoint was evident in two key examples: a) the Australian public and organisations such as the NFF are presented as being “defenceless” against the “myopic vitriol of the vegan abolitionists” (Jonas); and b) Animals Australia is accused of accepting “loans from liberation groups” and being “supported by an army of animal rights lawyers” to promote a “hard core” veganism message (Bourke).Nobody likes to see any animals hurt, but pushing a vegan agenda and pushing bad attitudes by group members is not helping any animals and just serves to slow any progress both sides are trying to resolve. (V.c. Deb Ford)Along with undermining farmers’ “legitimate business” (Jooste), veganism was also considered to undermine Australia’s rural communities (Park qtd. in Malone).Hostile ExtremistsThe final stereotype linking veganism with Animals Australia was of hostile extremism (cf. Cole and Morgan). This means, for users, being inimical to Australian national values but, also, being akin to terrorists who engage in criminal activities antagonistic to Australia’s democratic society and economic livelihood (see, e.g., Greer; ABC News). It is the broad symbolic threat that “extremism” invokes that makes this stereotype particularly “infectious” (Rosello 19).The latest tag team attacks on our pork industry saw AL giving crash courses in how to become a career criminal for the severely impressionable, after attacks on the RSPCA against the teachings of Peter Singer and trying to bully the RSPCA into vegan functions menu. (Cattle Advocate)The “extremists” want that extended to dairy products, as well. The fact that this will cause the total annihilation of practically all animals, wild and domestic, doesn’t bother them in the least. (Brown)What is interesting about these last two dimensions of stereotyping is their displacement of violence. That is, rather than responding to the charge of animal cruelty, violence and extremism is attributed to those making the charge.Stereotypes and Symbolic Boundary ShiftingWhat is evident throughout these instances is how stereotyping as a “cognitive mechanism” is being used to build boundaries (Cherry 460): in the first instance, between “us” (the meat-eating majority) and “them” (the vegan minority aka animal activists); and secondly between human interest and livestock. This point is that animals may hold instrumental value and receive some protection through such, but any more stringent arguments for their protection at the expense of perceived human interests tend to be seen as wrong-headed (Sorenson; Munro).These boundaries are deeply entrenched in Western culture (Wimmer). They are also deeply problematic in the context of animal activism because they fragment publics, promote restrictive identities, and close down public debate (Lamont and Molnár). Boundary entrenching is clearly evident in the stereotyping work carried out by industry stakeholders where meat-eating and practices of industrialised animal agriculture are valorised and normalised. Challenging Australia’s meat production practices—irrespective of the reason given—is framed and belittled as entailing a vegan agenda, and further as contributing to the demise of farming and rural communities in Australia.More broadly, industry stakeholders are explicitly targeting the activist work by such organisations as Animals Australia as undermining the ‘Australian way of life’. In their reading, there is an irreconcilable boundary between human and animal interests and between an activist minority which is vegan, unreasonable, extremist and hostile to farming and the meat-eating majority which is representative of the Australian community and sustains the Australian economy. As discussed so far, such stereotyping and boundary making—even in their inaccuracies—can be pernicious in the way they entrench identities and divisions, and close the possibility for public debate.Rather than directly contesting the presuppositions and inaccuracies of such stereotyping, however, Animals Australia can be read as cultivating a process of symbolic boundary shifting. That is, rather than responding by simply underlining its own moderate position of challenging only intensive animal agriculture for systemic animal cruelty, Animals Australia uses its campaigns to develop “boundary blurring and crossing” tactics (Cherry 451, 459), specifically to dismantle and shift the symbolic boundaries conventionally in place between humans and non-human animals in the first instance, and between those non-human animals used for companionship and those used for food in the second (see fig. 2). Figure 2: That Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady (Animals Australia, campaign image on back of taxi)Indeed, the symbolic boundaries between humans and animals left unquestioned in the preceding stereotyping are being profoundly shaken by Animals Australia with campaigns such as Make It Possible making morally relevant likenesses between humans and animals highly visible to mainstream Australians. Namely, the organisation works to interpellate viewers to exercise their own capacities for emotional identification and moral imagination, to identify with animals’ experiences and lives, and to act upon that identification to demand change.So, rather than reactively striving to refute the aforementioned stereotypes, organisations such as Animals Australia are modelling and facilitating symbolic boundary shifting by building broad, emotionally motivated, pathways through which Australians are being encouraged to refocus their own assumptions, practices and identities regarding animal experience, welfare and animal-human relations. Indeed the organisation has explicitly framed itself as speaking on behalf of not only animals but all caring Australians, suggesting thereby the possibility of a reframing of Australian national identity. Although such a tactic does not directly contest this negative stereotyping—direct contestation being, as noted, ineffective given the perniciousness of stereotyping—such work nonetheless dismantles the oppositional charge of such stereotyping in calling for all Australians to proudly be a little bit anti-meat-eating (when that meat is from factory farmed animals), a little bit anti-factory farming, a little bit pro-veg*n, and a little bit proud to consider themselves as caring about animal welfare.For Animals Australia, in other words, appealing to Australians to care about animal welfare and to act in support of that care, not only defuses the stereotypes targeting them but encourages the work of symbolic boundary shifting that is really at the heart of this dispute. Further research into the reception of the debate would give a sense of the extent to which such an approach is making a difference.ReferencesABC News. “Animal Rights Activists ‘Akin to Terrorists’, Says NSW Minister Katrina Hodgkinson.” ABC News 18 Jul. 2013. 21 Feb. 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-18/animal-rights-activists-27terrorists272c-says-nsw-minister/4828556>.Animals Australia. “Who Is Animals Australia?” 20 Feb. 2019 <http://www.animalsaustralia.org/about>.———. Make It Possible. Video and transcript. 21 Oct. 2012. 20 Feb. 2019 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM6V6lq_p0o>.The Australian Government the Treasury. Independent Review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct: Final Report. Commonwealth of Australia, 2018. 1 Apr. 2019 <https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/Independent-review-of-the-Food-and-Grocery-Code-of-Conduct-Final-Report.pdf>.Bembridge, Courtney. “Australia Day Lamb Ad, Starring Lee Lin Chin, Attracts Dozens of Complaints from Vegans.” ABC News 20 Jan. 2016. 21 Feb. 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-11/vegans-lodge-complaints-over-lamb-ad/7081706>.Blum, Lawrence. “Stereotypes and Stereotyping: A Moral Analysis.” Philosophical Papers 33.3 (2004): 251–89.Bourke, John. “Coles Undermines Our Way of Life.” Weekly Times Now 5 Jun. 2013. 19 Jun. 2013 <http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2013/06/05/572335_opinion-news.html>.Brown, Frank. “Letter to the Editor.” Northern Miner 9 Dec. 2014. 18 Nov. 2017 <http://www.newscorpaustralia.com/brand/northern-miner>.Canning, Simon. “MLA’s Australia Day Vegan Flaming Lamb Ad Cleared by Advertising Watchdog.” Mumbrella News 19 Jan. 2016. 18 Nov. 2017 <https://mumbrella.com.au/mlas-australia-day-vegan-flaming-lamb-ad-cleared-by-advertising-watchdog-340779>.Cattle Advocate. “Coles Bags a Boost for NFF.” Farm Weekly 3 Jul. 2013. 20 Feb. 2018 <http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/coles-bags-a-boost-for-nff/2660179.aspx>.Chen, Peter John. Animal Welfare in Australia: Politics and Policy. Sydney: U of Sydney Press, 2016.Cherry, Elizabeth. “Shifting Symbolic Boundaries: Cultural Strategies of the Animal Rights Movement.” Sociological Forum 25.3 (2010): 450–75.Clark, Chris. “Animals Australia under the Microscope.” ABC Landline 16 Jun. 2013. 24 Jun. 2013 <http://www.abc.net.au/landline/ content/2013/s3782456.htm>.Cole, Matthew, and Karen Morgan. “Vegaphobia: Derogatory Discourses of Veganism and the Reproduction of Speciesism in UK National Newspapers.” The British Journal of Sociology 62.1 (2011): 134–53.Coleman, Stephen, and Giles Moss. “Under Construction: The Field of Online Deliberation Research.” Journal of Information Technology and Politics 9.1 (2012): 1–15.Cover, Rob. “Digital Difference: Theorizing Frameworks of Bodies, Representation and Stereotypes in Digital Games.” Asia Pacific Media Educator 26.1 (2016): 4–16.Emmel, Nick. “Purposeful Sampling.” Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach. London: Sage Publications, 2013. 2–12. 28 Feb. 2019 <http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.ecu.edu.au/10.4135/9781473913882>.Flint, Nicole. “The ABC Continues to Broadcast Animals Australia Footage while Failing to Probe the Group’s Motivations.” The Advertiser 28 Oct. 2014. 18 Nov. 2017 <http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/>.Gee, James Paul. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2010.Glasgow, David. “The Law of the Jungle: Advocating for Animals in Australia.” Deakin Law Review 13.1 (2008): 181–210.Greer, Anna. “‘Akin to Terrorism’: The War on Animal Activists.” Overland 9 Aug. 2013. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://overland.org.au/2013/08/akin-to-terrorism-the-war-on-animal-activists/>Harris, Janeen. “Coles Are the Piggy in the Middle of Animal Welfare Confrontation.” The Conversation 13 Jun. 2013. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://theconversation.com/coles-are-the-piggy-in-the-middle-of-animal-welfare-confrontation-15078>.Harris, Richard Jackson, and Fred W. Sanborn. A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication. 6th ed. New York: Routledge, 2014.Hunter, Jim. “Animals Australia Bags Hot Property.” Weekly Times Now 10 Jun. 2013. 19 Jun. 2013 <http://tools.weeklytimesnow.com.au/yoursay/comment_all.php>.Inzlicht, Michael, Alexa M. Tullett, Lisa Legault, and Sonia K Kang. “Lingering Effects: Stereotype Threat Hurts More than You Think.” Social Issues and Policy Review 5.1 (2011): 227–56.Jonas, Tammi. “Coles & Animals Australia: Unlikely Bedfellows?” Blog post. 6 Jun. 2013. 24 Jun. 2013 <http://www.tammijonas.com/2013/06/06/coles-animals-australia-unlikely-bedfellows/>.Jooste, James. “Animals Australia Ready to Launch New Advertisem*nts Calling for Ban on Live Exports, after Complaints about Previous Campaign Dismissed.” ABC News 16 Feb. 2016. 21 Feb. 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-02-15/live-export-animals-australia-advertising-complaint-dismissed/7168534>.KPMG. Talking 2030: Growing Agriculture into a $100 Billion Industry. KPMG, 2018. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/f0cfd1_26dbb49eea91458d8b1606a0006ec20e.pdf>.Lamont, Michèle, and Virág Molnár. “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences.” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002): 167–95.MacInnis, Cara C., and Gordon Hodson. “It Ain’t Easy Eating Greens: Evidence of Bias towards Vegetarians and Vegans from Both Source and Target.” Group Process and Intergroup Relations 20.6 (2017): 721–44.Malone, Paul. “Farmers Face Changing World.” The Canberra Times 9 Jun. 2013. 22 Nov. 2013 <https://www.canberratimes.com.au/>.McCarthy, John. “Farmers Angered by Coles Campaign.” The Courier-Mail 4 Jun. 2013. 24 Jun. 2013 <http://www.couriermail.com.au/>.Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA). Australia Day Lamb 2016: Commence Operation Boomerang. Video. 9 Jan. 2016. 8 Nov. 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i15OPuFvmA>.———. Celebrate Australia with a Lamb BBQ. Video. 11 Jan. 2017. 8 Nov. 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX__i-zeaWs>.———. “Lamb Campaigns.” No date. 8 Nov. 2017 <https://www.mla.com.au/marketing-beef-and-lamb/domestic-marketing/lamb-campaigns/>.Munro, Lyle. “Animals, ‘Nature’ and Human Interests.” Controversies in Environmental Sociology. Ed. Rob White. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 61–76.Nash, Fiona. “Nationals Senator Congratulating Animals Australia’s Damaging …. .” The Nationals for Regional Australia 6 Jun. 2013. 21 Jun. 2013 <http://nationals.org.au/>.Nason, James. “Coles Bagged over Animals Australia Campaign.” Beef Central. 4 Jun. 2013. 22 Nov. 2013 <http://www.beefcentral.com/news/coles-bagged-over-animals-australia-campaign/>.National Farmers’ Federation. Facebook post. 30 May 2013. 26 Nov. 2013 <http://www.facebook.com/NationalFarmers>.Patton, Michael Quinn. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. 2nd ed. London: Sage, 1990. Pickering, Michael. Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.Rodan, Debbie, and Jane Mummery. “The ‘Make It Possible’ Multi-Media Campaign: Generating a New ‘Everyday’ in Animal Welfare.” Media International Australia, 153 (2014): 78–87.———. “Doing Animal Welfare Activism Everyday: Questions of Identity.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 30.4 (2016): 381–96.Rosello, Mireille. Declining the Stereotype: Ethnicity and Representation in French Culture. Hanover: U of New England, 1998.Sorenson John. “Constructing Terrorists: Propaganda about Animal Rights.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 2.2 (2009): 237-56.Stephens Griffin, Nathan. Understanding Veganism: Biography and Identity. Cham: Springer International, 2017.Ting, Inga. “Australia is the Meat-Eating Capital of the World.” The Sydney Morning Herald 27 Oct. 2015. 20 Feb. 2019 <http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/australia-is-the-meateating-capital-of-the-world-20151027-gkjhp4.html>.V.c. Deb Ford. “National Farmers Federation.” Facebook post. 30 May 2013. 26 Nov. 2013 <http://www.facebook.com/NationalFarmers>.Van Gurp, Marc. “Factory Farming the Musical.” Osocio 4 Nov. 2012. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://osocio.org/message/factory-farming-the-musical/>.Vegan Society. “History.” 20 Feb. 2019 <https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/history>.Waller, Vivienne, Karen Farquharson, and Deborah Dempsey. Qualitative Social Research: Contemporary Methods for the Digital Age. London: Sage, 2016Weerakkody, Niranjala. Research Methods for Media and Communication. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2009.Whitley, Bernard E., and Mary E. Kite. The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.Wimmer, Andreas. “The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 113.4 (2008): 970–1022.Wright, Laura. The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror. Georgia: U of Georgia Press, 2015.

Abstract:

Kangatarianism is the rather inelegant word coined in the first decade of the twenty-first century to describe an omnivorous diet in which the only meat consumed is that of the kangaroo. First published in the media in 2010 (Barone; Zukerman), the term circulated in Australian environmental and academic circles including the Global Animal conference at the University of Wollongong in July 2011 where I first heard it from members of the Think Tank for Kangaroos (THINKK) group. By June 2017, it had gained enough attention to be named the Oxford English Dictionary’s Australian word of the month (following on from May’s “smashed avo,” another Australian food innovation), but it took the Nine Network reality television series Love Island Australia to raise kangatarian to trending status on social media (Oxford UP). During the first episode, aired in late May 2018, Justin, a concreter and fashion model from Melbourne, declared himself to have previously been a kangatarian as he chatted with fellow contestant, Millie. Vet nurse and animal lover Millie appeared to be shocked by his revelation but was tentatively accepting when Justin explained what kangatarian meant, and justified his choice on the grounds that kangaroo are not farmed. In the social media response, it was clear that eating only the meat of kangaroos as an ethical choice was an entirely new concept to many viewers, with one tweet stating “Kangatarian isn’t a thing”, while others variously labelled the diet brutal, intriguing, or quintessentially Australian (see #kangatarian on Twitter).There is a well developed literature around the arguments for and against eating kangaroo, and why settler Australians tend to be so reluctant to do so (see for example, Probyn; Cawthorn and Hoffman). Here, I will concentrate on the role that ethics play in this food choice by examining how the adoption of kangatarianism can be understood as a bargain struck to help to manage grief in the Anthropocene, and the limitations of that bargain. As Lesley Head has argued, we are living in a time of loss and of grieving, when much that has been taken for granted is becoming unstable, and “we must imagine that drastic changes to everyday life are in the offing” (313). Applying the classic (and contested) model of five stages of grief, first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying in 1969, much of the population of the western world seems to be now experiencing denial, her first stage of loss, while those in the most vulnerable environments have moved on to anger with developed countries for destructive actions in the past and inaction in the present. The next stages (or states) of grieving—bargaining, depression, and acceptance—are likely to be manifested, although not in any predictable sequence, as the grief over current and future losses continues (Haslam).The great expansion of food restrictive diets in the Anthropocene can be interpreted as part of this bargaining state of grieving as individuals attempt to respond to the imperative to reduce their environmental impact but also to limit the degree of change to their own diet required to do so. Meat has long been identified as a key component of an individual’s environmental footprint. From Frances Moore Lappé’s 1971 Diet for a Small Planet through the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation’s 2006 report Livestock’s Long Shadow to the 2019 report of the EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems, the advice has been consistent: meat consumption should be minimised in, if not eradicated from, the human diet. The EAT–Lancet Commission Report quantified this to less than 28 grams (just under one ounce) of beef, lamb or pork per day (12, 25). For many this would be keenly felt, in terms of how meals are constructed, the sensory experiences associated with eating meat and perceptions of well-being but meat is offered up as a sacrifice to bring about the return of the beloved healthy planet.Rather than accept the advice to cut out meat entirely, those seeking to bargain with the Anthropocene also find other options. This has given rise to a suite of foodways based around restricting meat intake in volume or type. Reducing the amount of commercially produced beef, lamb and pork eaten is one approach, while substituting a meat the production of which has a smaller environmental footprint, most commonly chicken or fish, is another. For those willing to make deeper changes, the meat of free living animals, especially those which are killed accidentally on the roads or for deliberately for environmental management purposes, is another option. Further along this spectrum are the novel protein sources suggested in the Lancet report, including insects, blue-green algae and laboratory-cultured meats.Kangatarianism is another form of this bargain, and is backed by at least half a century of advocacy. The Australian Conservation Foundation made calls to reduce the numbers of other livestock and begin a sustainable harvest of kangaroo for food in 1970 when the sale of kangaroo meat for human consumption was still illegal across the country (Conservation of Kangaroos). The idea was repeated by biologist Gordon Grigg in the late 1980s (Jackson and Vernes 173), and again in the Garnaut Climate Change Review in 2008 (547–48). Kangaroo meat is high in protein and iron, low in fat, and high in healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, and, as these authors showed, has a smaller environmental footprint than beef, lamb, or pork. Kangaroo require less water than cattle, sheep or pigs, and no land is cleared to grow feed for them or give them space to graze. Their paws cause less erosion and compaction of soil than do the hooves of common livestock. They eat less fodder than ruminants and their digestive processes result in lower emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane and less solid waste.As Justin of Love Island was aware, kangaroo are not farmed in the sense of being deliberately bred, fed, confined, or treated with hormones, drugs or chemicals, which also adds to their lighter impact on the environment. However, some pastoralists argue that because they cannot prevent kangaroos from accessing the food, water, shelter, and protection from predators they provide for their livestock, they do effectively farm them, although they receive no income from sales of kangaroo meat. This type of light touch farming of kangaroos has a very long history in Australia going back to the continent’s first peopling some 60,000 years ago. Kangaroos were so important to Aboriginal people that a wide range of environments were manipulated to produce their favoured habitats of open grasslands edged by sheltering trees. As Bill Gammage demonstrated, fire was used as a tool to preserve and extend grassy areas, to encourage regrowth which would attract kangaroos and to drive the animals from one patch to another or towards hunters waiting with spears (passim, for example, 58, 72, 76, 93). Gammage and Bruce Pascoe agree that this was a form of animal husbandry in which the kangaroos were drawn to the areas prepared for them for the young grass or, more forcefully, physically directed using nets, brush fences or stone walls. Burnt ground served to contain the animals in place of fencing, and regular harvesting kept numbers from rising to levels which would place pressure on other species (Gammage 79, 281–86; Pascoe 42–43). Contemporary advocates of eating kangaroo have promoted the idea that they should be deliberately co-produced with other livestock instead of being killed to preserve feed and water for sheep and cattle (Ellicott; Wilson 39). Substituting kangaroo for the meat of more environmentally damaging animals would facilitate a reduction in the numbers of cattle and sheep, lessening the harm they do.Most proponents have assumed that their audience is current meat eaters who would substitute kangaroo for the meat of other more environmentally costly animals, but kangatarianism can also emerge from vegetarianism. Wendy Zukerman, who wrote about kangaroo hunting for New Scientist in 2010, was motivated to conduct the research because she was considering becoming an early adopter of kangatarianism as the least environmentally taxing way to counter the longterm anaemia she had developed as a vegetarian. In 2018, George Wilson, honorary professor in the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society called for vegetarians to become kangatarians as a means of boosting overall consumption of kangaroo for environmental and economic benefits to rural Australia (39).Given these persuasive environmental arguments, it might be expected that many people would have perceived eating kangaroo instead of other meat as a favourable bargain and taken up the call to become kangatarian. Certainly, there has been widespread interest in trying kangaroo meat. In 1997, only five years after the sale of kangaroo meat for human consumption had been legalised in most states (South Australia did so in 1980), 51% of 500 people surveyed in five capital cities said they had tried kangaroo. However, it had not become a meat of choice with very few found to eat it more than three times a year (Des Purtell and Associates iv). Just over a decade later, a study by Ampt and Owen found an increase to 58% of 1599 Australians surveyed across the country who had tried kangaroo but just 4.7% eating it at least monthly (14). Bryce Appleby, in his study of kangaroo consumption in the home based on interviews with 28 residents of Wollongong in 2010, specifically noted the absence of kangatarians—then a very new concept. A study of 261 Sydney university students in 2014 found that half had tried kangaroo meat and 10% continued to eat it with any regularity. Only two respondents identified themselves as kangatarian (Grant 14–15). Kangaroo meat advocate Michael Archer declared in 2017 that “there’s an awful lot of very, very smart vegetarians [who] have opted for semi vegetarianism and they’re calling themselves ‘kangatarians’, as they’re quite happy to eat kangaroo meat”, but unless there had been a significant change in a few years, the surveys did not bear out his assertion (154).The ethical calculations around eating kangaroo are complicated by factors beyond the strictly environmental. One Tweeter advised Justin: “‘I’m a kangatarian’ isn’t a pickup line, mate”, and certainly the reception of his declaration could have been very cool, especially as it was delivered to a self declared animal warrior (N’Tash Aha). All of the studies of beliefs and practices around the eating of kangaroo have noted a significant minority of Australians who would not consider eating kangaroo based on issues of animal welfare and animal rights. The 1997 study found that 11% were opposed to the idea of eating kangaroo, while in Grant’s 2014 study, 15% were ethically opposed to eating kangaroo meat (Des Purtell and Associates iv; Grant 14–15). Animal ethics complicate the bargains calculated principally on environmental grounds.These ethical concerns work across several registers. One is around the flesh and blood kangaroo as a charismatic native animal unique to Australia and which Australians have an obligation to respect and nurture. Sheep, cattle and pigs have been subject to longterm propaganda campaigns which entrench the idea that they are unattractive and unintelligent, and veil their transition to meat behind euphemistic language and abattoir walls, making it easier to eat them. Kangaroos are still seen as resourceful and graceful animals, and no linguistic tricks shield consumers from the knowledge that it is a roo on their plate. A proposal in 2009 to market a “coat of arms” emu and kangaroo-flavoured potato chip brought complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau that this was disrespectful to these native animals, although the flavours were to be simulated and the product vegetarian (Black). Coexisting with this high regard to kangaroos is its antithesis. That is, a valuation of them informed by their designation as a pest in the pastoral industry, and the use of the carcasses of those killed to feed dogs and other companion animals. Appleby identified a visceral, disgust response to the idea of eating kangaroo in many of his informants, including both vegetarians who would not consider eating kangaroo because of their commitment to a plant-based diet, and at least one omnivore who would prefer to give up all meat rather than eat kangaroo. While diametrically opposed, the end point of both positions is that kangaroo meat should not be eaten.A second animal ethics stance relates to the imagined kangaroo, a cultural construct which for most urban Australians is much more present in their lives and likely to shape their actions than the living animals. It is behind the rejection of eating an animal which holds such an iconic place in Australian culture: to the dexter on the 1912 national coat of arms; hopping through the Hundred Acre Wood as Kanga and Roo in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh children’s books from the 1920s and the Disney movies later made from them; as a boy’s best friend as Skippy the Bush Kangaroo in a fondly remembered 1970s television series; and high in the sky on QANTAS planes. The anthropomorphising of kangaroos permitted the spectacle of the boxing kangaroo from the late nineteenth century. By framing natural kangaroo behaviours as boxing, these exhibitions encouraged an ambiguous understanding of kangaroos as human-like, moving them further from the category of food (Golder and Kirkby). Australian government bodies used this idea of the kangaroo to support food exports to Britain, with kangaroos as cooks or diners rather than ingredients. The Kangaroo Kookery Book of 1932 (see fig. 1 below) portrayed kangaroos as a nuclear family in a suburban kitchen and another official campaign supporting sales of Australian produce in Britain in the 1950s featured a Disney-inspired kangaroo eating apples and chops washed down with wine (“Kangaroo to Be ‘Food Salesman’”). This imagining of kangaroos as human-like has persisted, leading to the opinion expressed in a 2008 focus group, that consuming kangaroo amounted to “‘eating an icon’ … Although they are pests they are still human nature … these are native animals, people and I believe that is a form of cannibalism!” (Ampt and Owen 26). Figure 1: Rather than promoting the eating of kangaroos, the portrayal of kangaroos as a modern suburban family in the Kangaroo Kookery Book (1932) made it unthinkable. (Source: Kangaroo Kookery Book, Director of Australian Trade Publicity, Australia House, London, 1932.)The third layer of ethical objection on the ground of animal welfare is more specific, being directed to the method of killing the kangaroos which become food. Kangaroos are perhaps the only native animals for which state governments set quotas for commercial harvest, on the grounds that they compete with livestock for pasturage and water. In most jurisdictions, commercially harvested kangaroo carcasses can be processed for human consumption, and they are the ones which ultimately appear in supermarket display cases.Kangaroos are killed by professional shooters at night using swivelling spotlights mounted on their vehicles to locate and daze the animals. While clean head shots are the ideal and regulations state that animals should be killed when at rest and without causing “undue agonal struggle”, this is not always achieved and some animals do suffer prolonged deaths (NSW Code of Practice for Kangaroo Meat for Human Consumption). By regulation, the young of any female kangaroo must be killed along with her. While averting a slow death by neglect, this is considered cruel and wasteful. The hunt has drawn international criticism, including from Greenpeace which organised campaigns against the sale of kangaroo meat in Europe in the 1980s, and Viva! which was successful in securing the withdrawal of kangaroo from sale in British supermarkets (“Kangaroo Meat Sales Criticised”). These arguments circulate and influence opinion within Australia.A final animal ethics issue is that what is actually behind the push for greater use of kangaroo meat is not concern for the environment or animal welfare but the quest to turn a profit from these animals. The Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia, formed in 1970 to represent those who dealt in the marsupials’ meat, fur and skins, has been a vocal advocate of eating kangaroo and a sponsor of market research into how it can be made more appealing to the market. The Association argued in 1971 that commercial harvest was part of the intelligent conservation of the kangaroo. They sought minimum size regulations to prevent overharvesting and protect their livelihoods (“Assn. Backs Kangaroo Conservation”). The Association’s current website makes the claim that wild harvested “Australian kangaroo meat is among the healthiest, tastiest and most sustainable red meats in the world” (Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia). That this is intended to initiate a new and less controlled branch of the meat industry for the benefit of hunters and processors, rather than foster a shift from sheep or cattle to kangaroos which might serve farmers and the environment, is the opinion of Dr. Louise Boronyak, of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation at the University of Technology Sydney (Boyle 19).Concerns such as these have meant that kangaroo is most consumed where it is least familiar, with most of the meat for human consumption recovered from culled animals being exported to Europe and Asia. Russia has been the largest export market. There, kangaroo meat is made less strange by blending it with other meats and traditional spices to make processed meats, avoiding objections to its appearance and uncertainty around preparation. With only a low profile as a novelty animal in Russia, there are fewer sentimental concerns about consuming kangaroo, although the additional food miles undermine its environmental credentials. The variable acceptability of kangaroo in more distant markets speaks to the role of culture in determining how patterns of eating are formed and can be shifted, or, as Elspeth Probyn phrased it “how natural entities are transformed into commodities within a context of globalisation and local communities”, underlining the impossibility of any straightforward ethics of eating kangaroo (33, 35).Kangatarianism is a neologism which makes the eating of kangaroo meat something it has not been in the past, a voluntary restriction based on environmental ethics. These environmental benefits are well founded and eating kangaroo can be understood as an Anthropocenic bargain struck to allow the continuation of the consumption of red meat while reducing one’s environmental footprint. Although superficially attractive, the numbers entering into this bargain remain small because environmental ethics cannot be disentangled from animal ethics. The anthropomorphising of the kangaroo and its use as a national symbol coexist with its categorisation as a pest and use of its meat as food for companion animals. Both understandings of kangaroos made their meat uneatable for many Australians. Paired with concerns over how kangaroos are killed and the commercialisation of a native species, kangaroo meat has a very mixed reception despite decades of advocacy for eating its meat in favour of that of more harmed and more harmful introduced species. Given these constraints, kangatarianism is unlikely to become widespread and indeed it should be viewed as at best a temporary exigency. As the climate warms and rainfall becomes more erratic, even animals which have evolved to suit Australian conditions will come under increasing pressure, and humans will need to reach Kübler-Ross’ final state of grief: acceptance. In this case, this would mean acceptance that our needs cannot be placed ahead of those of other animals.ReferencesAmpt, Peter, and Kate Owen. Consumer Attitudes to Kangaroo Meat Products. Canberra: Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, 2008.Appleby, Bryce. “Skippy the ‘Green’ Kangaroo: Identifying Resistances to Eating Kangaroo in the Home in a Context of Climate Change.” BSc Hons, U of Wollongong, 2010 <http://ro.uow.edu.au/thsci/103>.Archer, Michael. “Zoology on the Table: Plenary Session 4.” Australian Zoologist 39, 1 (2017): 154–60.“Assn. Backs Kangaroo Conservation.” The Beverley Times 26 Feb. 1971: 3. 22 Feb. 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202738733>.Barone, Tayissa. “Kangatarians Jump the Divide.” Sydney Morning Herald 9 Feb. 2010. 13 Apr. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/kangatarians-jump-the-divide-20100209-gdtvd8.html>.Black, Rosemary. “Some Australians Angry over Idea for Kangaroo and Emu-Flavored Potato Chips.” New York Daily News 4 Dec. 2009. 5 Feb. 2019 <https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/australians-angry-idea-kangaroo-emu-flavored-potato-chips-article-1.431865>.Boyle, Rhianna. “Eating Skippy.” Big Issue Australia 578 11-24 Jan. 2019: 16–19.Cawthorn, Donna-Mareè, and Louwrens C. Hoffman. “Controversial Cuisine: A Global Account of the Demand, Supply and Acceptance of ‘Unconventional’ and ‘Exotic’ Meats.” Meat Science 120 (2016): 26–7.Conservation of Kangaroos. Melbourne: Australian Conservation Foundation, 1970.Des Purtell and Associates. Improving Consumer Perceptions of Kangaroo Products: A Survey and Report. Canberra: Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, 1997.Ellicott, John. “Little Pay Incentive for Shooters to Join Kangaroo Meat Industry.” The Land 15 Mar. 2018. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://www.theland.com.au/story/5285265/top-roo-shooter-says-harvesting-is-a-low-paid-job/>.Garnaut, Ross. Garnaut Climate Change Review. 2008. 26 Feb. 2019 <http://www.garnautreview.org.au/index.htm>.Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2012.Golder, Hilary, and Diane Kirkby. “Mrs. Mayne and Her Boxing Kangaroo: A Married Woman Tests Her Property Rights in Colonial New South Wales.” Law and History Review 21.3 (2003): 585–605.Grant, Elisabeth. “Sustainable Kangaroo Harvesting: Perceptions and Consumption of Kangaroo Meat among University Students in New South Wales.” Independent Study Project (ISP). U of NSW, 2014. <https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1755>.Haslam, Nick. “The Five Stages of Grief Don’t Come in Fixed Steps – Everyone Feels Differently.” The Conversation 22 Oct. 2018. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://theconversation.com/the-five-stages-of-grief-dont-come-in-fixed-steps-everyone-feels-differently-96111>.Head, Lesley. “The Anthropoceans.” Geographical Research 53.3 (2015): 313–20.Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia. Kangaroo Meat. 26 Feb. 2019 <http://www.kangarooindustry.com/products/meat/>.“Kangaroo Meat Sales Criticised.” The Canberra Times 13 Sep. 1984: 14. 22 Feb 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article136915919>.“Kangaroo to Be Food ‘Salesman.’” Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 2 Dec. 1954. 22 Feb 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article134089767>.Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and their own Families. New York: Touchstone, 1997.Jackson, Stephen, and Karl Vernes. Kangaroo: Portrait of an Extraordinary Marsupial. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2010.Lappé, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971.N’Tash Aha (@Nsvasey). “‘I’m a Kangatarian’ isn’t a Pickup Line, Mate. #LoveIslandAU.” Twitter post. 27 May 2018. 5 Apr. 2019 <https://twitter.com/Nsvasey/status/1000697124122644480>.“NSW Code of Practice for Kangaroo Meat for Human Consumption.” Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales 24 Mar. 1993. 22 Feb. 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page14638033>.Oxford University Press, Australia and New Zealand. Word of the Month. June 2017. <https://www.oup.com.au/dictionaries/word-of-the-month>.Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books, 2014.Probyn, Elspeth. “Eating Roo: Of Things That Become Food.” New Formations 74.1 (2011): 33–45.Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vicent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, and Cees d Haan. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 2006.Trust Nature. Essence of Kangaroo Capsules. 26 Feb. 2019 <http://ncpro.com.au/products/all-products/item/88139-essence-of-kangaroo-35000>.Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. Kangaroo Pet Food Trial. 28 Mar. 2019 <https://www.wildlife.vic.gov.au/managing-wildlife/wildlife-management-and-control-authorisations/kangaroo-pet-food-trial>.Willett, Walter, et al. “Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems.” The Lancet 16 Jan. 2019. 26 Feb. 2019 <https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/EAT>.Wilson, George. “Kangaroos Can Be an Asset Rather than a Pest.” Australasian Science 39.1 (2018): 39.Zukerman, Wendy. “Eating Skippy: The Future of Kangaroo Meat.” New Scientist 208.2781 (2010): 42–5.

Abstract:

Online shopping is all the rage these days and the murderabilia industry in particular, which specializes in selling serial killer artifacts, is booming. At Spectre Studios, sculptor David Johnson sells flexible plastic action figures of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy and plans to produce a figure of Jack the Ripper in the future. Although some might think that making action figures of serial killers is tasteless, Johnson hastens to assure the potential consumer that he does have standards: “I wouldn’t do Osama bin Laden . . . I have some personal qualms about that” (Robinson). At Serial Killer Central, you can buy a range of items made by serial killers themselves, including paintings and drawings by Angelo Buono (one of the “Hillside Stranglers”) and Henry Lee Lucas. For the more discerning consumer, Supernaught.com charges a mere $300 for a brick from Dahmer’s apartment building, while a lock of Charles Manson’s hair is a real bargain at $995, shipping and handling not included. The sale of murderabilia is just a small part of the huge serial killer industry that has become a defining feature of American popular culture over the last twenty-five years. This industry is, in turn, a prime example of what Mark Seltzer has described as “wound culture,” consisting of a “public fascination with torn and open bodies and torn and opened persons, a collective gathering around shock, trauma, and the wound” (1). According to Seltzer, the serial killer is “one of the superstars of our wound culture” (2) and his claim is confirmed by the constant stream of movies, books, magazines, television shows, websites, t-shirts, and a tsunami of ephemera that has given the figure of the serial murderer an unparalleled degree of visibility and fame in the contemporary American public sphere. In a culture defined by celebrity, serial killers like Bundy, Dahmer and Gacy are the biggest stars of all, instantly recognized by the vast majority of Americans. Not surprisingly, murderabilia has been the focus of a sustained critique by the (usually self-appointed) guardians of ‘decency’ in American culture. On January 2, 2003 The John Walsh Show, the daytime television vehicle of the long-time host of America’s Most Wanted, featured an “inside look at the world of ‘murderabilia,’ which involves the sale of artwork, personal effects and letters from well-known killers” (The John Walsh Show Website). Featured guests included Andy Kahan, Director of the Mayor’s Crime Victim Assistance Office in Houston, Texas; ‘Thomas,’ who was horrified to find hair samples from “The Railroad Killer,” the individual who killed his mother, for sale on the Internet; Elmer Wayne Henley, a serial killer who sells his artwork to collectors; Joe, who runs “Serial Killer Central” and sells murderabilia from a wide range of killers, and Harold Schechter, a professor of English at Queens College, CUNY. Despite the program’s stated intention to “look at both sides of the issue,” the show was little more than a jeremiad against the murderabilia industry, with the majority of airtime being given to Andy Kahan and to the relatives of crime victims. The program’s bias was not lost on many of those who visited Joe’s Serial Killer Central site and left messages on the message board on the day The John Walsh Show aired. There were some visitors who shared Walsh’s perspective. A message from “serialkillersshouldnotprofit@aol.com,” for example, stated that “you will rot in hell with these killers,” while “Smithpi@hotmail.com” had a more elaborate critique: “You should pull your site off the net. I just watched the John Walsh show and your [sic] a f*cking idiot. I hope your [sic] never a victim, because if you do [sic] then you would understand what all those people were trying to tell you. You [sic] a dumb sh*t.” Most visitors, however, sympathized with the way Joe had been treated on the show: “I as well [sic] saw you on the John Walsh show, you should [sic] a lot of courage going on such a one sided show, and it was sh*t that they wouldnt [sic] let you talk, I would have walked off.” But whether the comments were positive or negative, one thing was clear: The John Walsh Show had created a great deal of interest in the Serial Killer Central site. As one of the messages put it, “I think that anything [sic] else he [John Walsh] has put a spark in everyones [sic] curiousity [sic] . . . I have noticed that you have more hits on your page today than any others [sic].” Apparently, even the most explicit rejection and condemnation of serial killer celebrity finds itself implicated in (and perhaps even unwittingly encouraging the growth of) that celebrity. John Walsh’s attack on the murderabilia industry was the latest skirmish in a campaign that has been growing steadily since the late 1990s. One of the campaign’s initial targets was the internet trading site eBay, which was criticized for allowing serial killer-related products to be sold online. In support of such criticism, conservative victims’ rights and pro-death penalty organizations like “Justice For All” organized online petitions against eBay. In November 2000, Business Week Online featured an interview with Andy Kahan in which he argued that the online sale of murderabilia should be suppressed: “The Internet just opens it all up to millions and millions more potential buyers and gives easy access to children. And it sends a negative message to society. What does it say about us? We continue to glorify killers and continue to put them in the mainstream public. That’s not right” (Business Week). Eventually bowing to public pressure, eBay decided to ban the sale of murderabilia items in May 2001, forcing the industry underground, where it continues to be pursued by the likes of John Walsh. Apart from highlighting how far the celebrity culture around serial killers has developed (so that one can now purchase the nail clippings and hair of some killers, as if they are religious icons), focusing on the ongoing debate around the ethics of murderabilia also emphasizes how difficult it is to draw a neat line between those who condemn and those who participate in that culture. Quite apart from the way in which John Walsh’s censoriousness brought more visitors to the Serial Killer Central site, one could also argue that few individuals have done more to disseminate information about violent crime in general and serial murder in particular to mainstream America than John Walsh. Of course, this information is presented in the unimpeachably moral context of fighting crime, but controversial features of America’s Most Wanted, such as the dramatic recreations of crime, pander to the same prurient public interest in crime that the program simultaneously condemns. An ABCNews.Com article on murderabilia inadvertently highlights the difficulty of distinguishing a legitimate from an illegitimate interest in serial murder by quoting Rick Staton, one of the biggest collectors and dealers of murderabilia in the United States, who emphasizes that the people he sells to are not “ghouls and creeps [who] crawl out of the woodwork”, but rather “pretty much your average Joe Blow.” Even his family, Staton goes on to say, who profess to be disgusted by what he does, act very differently in practice: “The minute they step into this room, they are glued to everything in here and they are asking questions and they are genuinely intrigued by it . . . So it makes me wonder: Am I the one who is so abnormal, or am I pretty normal?” (ABCNews.Com). To answer Staton’s question, we need to go back to 1944, when sociologist Leo Lowenthal published an essay entitled “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” an essay he later reprinted as a chapter in his 1961 book, Literature, Popular Culture And Society, under a new title: “The Triumph of Mass Idols.” Lowenthal argues that biographies in popular magazines underwent a striking change between 1901 and 1941, a change that signals the emergence of a new social type. According to Lowenthal, the earlier biographies indicate that American society’s heroes at the time were “idols of production” in that “they stem from the productive life, from industry, business, and natural sciences. There is not a single hero from the world of sports and the few artists and entertainers either do not belong to the sphere of cheap or mass entertainment or represent a serious attitude toward their art” (112-3). Sampling biographies in magazines from 1941, however, Lowenthal reaches a very different conclusion: “We called the heroes of the past ‘idols of production’: we feel entitled to call the present-day magazine heroes ‘idols of consumption’” (115). Unlike the businessmen, industrialists and scientists who dominated the earlier sample, almost every one of 1941’s heroes “is directly, or indirectly, related to the sphere of leisure time: either he does not belong to vocations which serve society’s basic needs (e.g., the worlds of entertainment and sport), or he amounts, more or less, to a caricature of a socially productive agent” (115). Lowenthal leaves his reader in no doubt that he sees the change from “idols of production” to “idols of consumption” as a serious decline: “If a student in some very distant future should use popular magazines of 1941 as a source of information as to what figures the American public looked to in the first stages of the greatest crisis since the birth of the Union, he would come to a grotesque result . . . the idols of the masses are not, as they were in the past, the leading names in the battle of production, but the headliners of the movies, the ball parks, and the night clubs” (116). With Lowenthal in mind, when one considers the fact that the serial killer is generally seen, in Richard Tithecott’s words, as “deserving of eternal fame, of media attention on a massive scale, of groupies” (144), one is tempted to describe the advent of celebrity serial killers as a further decline in the condition of American culture’s “mass idols.” The serial killer’s relationship to consumption, however, is too complex to allow for such a hasty judgment, as the murderabilia industry indicates. Throughout the edition of The John Walsh Show that attacked murderabilia, Walsh showed clips of Collectors, a recent documentary about the industry. Collectors is distributed by a small company named Abject Films and on their website the film’s director, Julian P. Hobbs, discusses some of the multiple connections between serial killing and consumerism. Hobbs points out that the serial killer is connected with consumerism in the most basic sense that he has become a commodity, “a merchandising phenomenon that rivals Mickey Mouse. From movies to television, books to on-line, serial killers are packaged and consumed en-masse” (Abject Films). But as Hobbs goes on to argue, serial killers themselves can be seen as consumers, making any representations of them implicated in the same consumerist logic: “Serial killers come into being by fetishizing and collecting artifacts – usually body parts – in turn, the dedicated collector gathers scraps connected with the actual events and so, too, a documentary a collection of images” (Abject Films). Along with Rick Staton, Hobbs implies that no one can avoid being involved with consumerism in relation to serial murder, even if one’s reasons for getting involved are high-minded. For example, when Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison in 1994, the families of his victims were delighted but his death also presented them with something of a problem. Throughout the short time Dahmer was in prison, there had been persistent rumors that he was in negotiations with both publishers and movie studios about selling his story. If such a deal had ever been struck, legal restrictions would have prevented Dahmer from receiving any of the money; instead, it would have been distributed among his victims’ families. Dahmer’s murder obviously ended this possibility, so the families explored another option: going into the murderabilia business by auctioning off Dahmer’s property, including such banal items as his toothbrush, but also many items he had used in commission of the murders, such as a saw, a hammer, the 55-gallon vat he used to decompose the bodies, and the refrigerator where he stored the hearts of his victims. Although the families’ motives for suggesting this auction may have been noble, they could not avoid participating in what Mark Pizzato has described as “the prior fetishization of such props and the consumption of [Dahmer’s] cannibal drama by a mass audience” (91). When the logic of consumerism dominates, is anyone truly innocent, or are there just varying degrees of guilt, of implication? The reason why it is impossible to separate neatly ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ expressions of interest in famous serial killers is the same reason why the murderabilia industry is booming; in the words of a 1994 National Examiner headline: “Serial Killers Are as American as Apple Pie.” Christopher Sharrett has suggested that: “Perhaps the fetish status of the criminal psychopath . . . is about recognizing the serial killer/mass murderer not as social rebel or folk hero . . . but as the most genuine representative of American life” (13). The enormous resistance to recognizing the representativeness of serial killers in American culture is fundamental to the appeal of fetishizing serial killers and their artifacts. As Sigmund Freud has explained, the act of disavowal that accompanies the formation of a fetish allows a perception (in this case, the Americanness of serial killers) to persist in a different form rather than being simply repressed (352-3). Consequently, just like the sexual fetishists discussed by Freud, although we may recognize our interest in serial killers “as an abnormality, it is seldom felt by [us] as a symptom of an ailment accompanied by suffering” (351). On the contrary, we are usually, in Freud’s words, “quite satisfied” (351) with our interest in serial killers precisely because we have turned them into celebrities. It is our complicated relationship with celebrities, affective as well as intellectual, composed of equal parts admiration and resentment, envy and contempt, that provides us with a lexicon through which we can manage our appalled and appalling fascination with the serial killer, contemporary American culture’s ultimate star. References ABCNews.Com. “Killer Collectibles: Inside the World of ‘Murderabilia.” 7 Nov. 2001. American Broadcasting Company. 9 May 2003 http://www.abcnews.com>. AbjectFilms.Com. “Collectors: A Film by Julian P. Hobbs.” Abject Films. 9 May 2003 http://www.abjectfilms.com/collectors.html>. BusinessWeek Online. 20 Nov. 2000. Business Week. 9 May 2003 http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_47/b3708056.htm>. Freud, Sigmund. “Fetishism.” On Sexuality. Trans. James Strachey. London: Penguin Books, 1977. 351-7. The John Walsh Show. Ed. Click Active Media. 2 Jan. 2003. 9 May 2003 http://www.johnwalsh.tv/cgi-bin/topics/today/cgi?id=90>. Lowenthal, Leo. “The Triumph of Mass Idols.” Literature, Popular Culture and Society. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961. 109-40. National Examiner. “Serial Killers Are as American as Apple Pie.” 7 Jun. 1994: 7. Pizzato, Mark. “Jeffrey Dahmer and Media Cannibalism: The Lure and Failure of Sacrifice.” Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media. Ed. Christopher Sharrett. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1999. 85-118. Robinson, Bryan. “Murder Incorporated: Denver Sculptor’s Serial Killer Action Figures Bringing in Profits and Raising Ire.” ABCNews.Com 25 Mar. 2002. American Broadcasting Company. 27 Apr. 2003 http://abcnews.com/>. Seltzer, Mark. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture. New York: Routledge, 1998. Sharrett, Christopher. “Introduction.” Mythologies of Violence in Postmodern Media. Ed. Christopher Sharrett. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1999. 9-20. Tithecott, Richard. Of Men and Monsters: Jeffrey Dahmer and the Construction of the Serial Killer. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Schmid, David. "Murderabilia: Consuming Fame." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/10-schmid.php>. APA Style Schmid, D. (Nov. 2004) "Murderabilia: Consuming Fame," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/10-schmid.php>.

Abstract:

IntroductionSupermarkets are functionally challenging environments for people with vision impairments. A supermarket is likely to house an average of 45,000 products in a median floor-space of 4,529 square meters and many visually impaired people are unable to shop without assistance, which greatly impedes personal independence (Nicholson et al.). The task of selecting goods in a supermarket is an “activity that is expressive of agency, identity and creativity” (Sutherland) from which many vision-impaired persons are excluded. In response to this, a number of proof of concept (demonstrating feasibility) and prototype assistive technologies are being developed which aim to use smart phones as potential sensorial aides for vision impaired persons. In this paper, I discuss two such prototypic technologies, Shop Talk and BlindShopping. I engage with this issue’s list theme by suggesting that, on the one hand, list making is a uniquely human activity that demonstrates our need for order, reliance on memory, reveals our idiosyncrasies, and provides insights into our private lives (Keaggy 12). On the other hand, lists feature in the creation of spatial inventories that represent physical environments (Perec 3-4, 9-10). The use of lists in the architecture of assistive technologies for shopping illuminates the interaction between these two modalities of list use where items contained in a list are not only textual but also cartographic elements that link the material and immaterial in space and time (Haber 63). I argue that despite the emancipatory potential of assistive shopping technologies, their efficacy in practical situations is highly dependent on the extent to which they can integrate a number of lists to produce representations of space that are meaningful for vision impaired users. I suggest that the extent to which these prototypes may translate to becoming commercially viable, widely adopted technologies is heavily reliant upon commercial and institutional infrastructures, data sources, and regulation. Thus, their design, manufacture and adoption-potential are shaped by the extent to which certain data inventories are accessible and made interoperable. To overcome such constraints, it is important to better understand the “spatial syntax” associated with the shopping task for a vision impaired person; that is, the connected ordering of real and virtual spatial elements that result in a supermarket as a knowable space within which an assisted “spatial practice” of shopping can occur (Kellerman 148, Lefebvre 16).In what follows, I use the concept of lists to discuss the production of supermarket-space in relation to the enabling and disabling potentials of assistive technologies. First, I discuss mobile digital technologies relative to disability and impairment and describe how the shopping task produces a disabling spatial practice. Second, I present a case study showing how assistive technologies function in aiding vision impaired users in completing the task of supermarket shopping. Third, I discuss various factors that may inhibit the liberating potential of technology assisted shopping by vision-impaired people. Addressing Shopping as a Disabling Spatial Practice Consider how a shopping list might inform one’s experience of supermarket space. The way shopping lists are written demonstrate the variability in the logic that governs list writing. As Bill Keaggy demonstrates in his found shopping list Web project and subsequent book, Milk, Eggs, Vodka, a shopping list may be written on a variety of materials, be arranged in a number of orientations, and the writer may use differing textual attributes, such as size or underlining to show emphasis. The writer may use longhand, abbreviate, write neatly, scribble, and use an array of alternate spelling and naming conventions. For example, items may be listed based on knowledge of the location of products, they may be arranged on a list as a result of an inventory of a pantry or fridge, or they may be copied in the order they appear in a recipe. Whilst shopping, some may follow strictly the order of their list, crossing back and forth between aisles. Some may work through their list item-by-item, perhaps forward scanning to achieve greater economies of time and space. As a person shops, their memory may be stimulated by visual cues reminding them of products they need that may not be included on their list. For the vision impaired, this task is near impossible to complete without the assistance of a relative, friend, agency volunteer, or store employee. Such forms of assistance are often unsatisfactory, as delays may be caused due to the unavailability of an assistant, or the assistant having limited literacy, knowledge, or patience to adequately meet the shopper’s needs. Home delivery services, though readily available, impede personal independence (Nicholson et al.). Katie Ellis and Mike Kent argue that “an impairment becomes a disability due to the impact of prevailing ableist social structures” (3). It can be said, then, that supermarkets function as a disability producing space for the vision impaired shopper. For the vision impaired, a supermarket is a “hegemonic modern visual infrastructure” where, for example, merchandisers may reposition items regularly to induce customers to explore areas of the shop that they wouldn’t usually, a move which adds to the difficulty faced by those customers with impaired vision who work on the assumption that items remain as they usually are (Schillmeier 161).In addressing this issue, much emphasis has been placed on the potential of mobile communications technologies in affording vision impaired users greater mobility and flexibility (Jolley 27). However, as Gerard Goggin argues, the adoption of mobile communication technologies has not necessarily “gone hand in hand with new personal and collective possibilities” given the limited access to standard features, even if the device is text-to-speech enabled (98). Issues with Digital Rights Management (DRM) limit the way a device accesses and reproduces information, and confusion over whether audio rights are needed to convert text-to-speech, impede the accessibility of mobile communications technologies for vision impaired users (Ellis and Kent 136). Accessibility and functionality issues like these arise out of the needs, desires, and expectations of the visually impaired as a user group being considered as an afterthought as opposed to a significant factor in the early phases of design and prototyping (Goggin 89). Thus, the development of assistive technologies for the vision impaired has been left to third parties who must adopt their solutions to fit within certain technical parameters. It is valuable to consider what is involved in the task of shopping in order to appreciate the considerations that must be made in the design of shopping intended assistive technologies. Shopping generally consists of five sub-tasks: travelling to the store; finding items in-store; paying for and bagging items at the register; exiting the store and getting home; and, the often overlooked task of putting items away once at home. In this process supermarkets exhibit a “trichotomous spatial ontology” consisting of locomotor space that a shopper moves around the store, haptic space in the immediate vicinity of the shopper, and search space where individual products are located (Nicholson et al.). In completing these tasks, a shopper will constantly be moving through and switching between all three of these spaces. In the next section I examine how assistive technologies function in producing supermarkets as both enabling and disabling spaces for the vision impaired. Assistive Technologies for Vision Impaired ShoppersJason Farman (43) and Adriana de Douza e Silva both argue that in many ways spaces have always acted as information interfaces where data of all types can reside. Global Positioning System (GPS), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), and Quick Response (QR) codes all allow for practically every spatial encounter to be an encounter with information. Site-specific and location-aware technologies address the desire for meaningful representations of space for use in everyday situations by the vision impaired. Further, the possibility of an “always-on” connection to spatial information via a mobile phone with WiFi or 3G connections transforms spatial experience by “enfolding remote [and latent] contexts inside the present context” (de Souza e Silva). A range of GPS navigation systems adapted for vision-impaired users are currently on the market. Typically, these systems convert GPS information into text-to-speech instructions and are either standalone devices, such as the Trekker Breeze, or they use the compass, accelerometer, and 3G or WiFi functions found on most smart phones, such as Loadstone. Whilst both these products are adequate in guiding a vision-impaired user from their home to a supermarket, there are significant differences in their interfaces and data architectures. Trekker Breeze is a standalone hardware device that produces talking menus, maps, and GPS information. While its navigation functionality relies on a worldwide radio-navigation system that uses a constellation of 24 satellites to triangulate one’s position (May and LaPierre 263-64), its map and text-to-speech functionality relies on data on a DVD provided with the unit. Loadstone is an open source software system for Nokia devices that has been developed within the vision-impaired community. Loadstone is built on GNU General Public License (GPL) software and is developed from private and user based funding; this overcomes the issue of Trekker Breeze’s reliance on trading policies and pricing models of the few global vendors of satellite navigation data. Both products have significant shortcomings if viewed in the broader context of the five sub-tasks involved in shopping described above. Trekker Breeze and Loadstone require that additional devices be connected to it. In the case of Trekker Breeze it is a tactile keypad, and with Loadstone it is an aftermarket screen reader. To function optimally, Trekker Breeze requires that routes be pre-recorded and, according to a review conducted by the American Foundation for the Blind, it requires a 30-minute warm up time to properly orient itself. Both Trekker Breeze and Loadstone allow users to create and share Points of Interest (POI) databases showing the location of various places along a given route. Non-standard or duplicated user generated content in POI databases may, however, have a negative effect on usability (Ellis and Kent 2). Furthermore, GPS-based navigation systems are accurate to approximately ten metres, which means that users must rely on their own mobility skills when they are required to change direction or stop for traffic. This issue with GPS accuracy is more pronounced when a vision-impaired user is approaching a supermarket where they are likely to encounter environmental hazards with greater frequency and both pedestrian and vehicular traffic in greater density. Here the relations between space defined and spaces poorly defined or undefined by the GPS device interact to produce the supermarket surrounds as a disabling space (Galloway). Prototype Systems for Supermarket Navigation and Product SelectionIn the discussion to follow, I look at two prototype systems using QR codes and RFID that are designed to be used in-store by vision-impaired shoppers. Shop Talk is a proof of concept system developed by researchers at Utah State University that uses synthetic verbal route directions to assist vision impaired shoppers with supermarket navigation, product search, and selection (Nicholson et al.). Its hardware consists of a portable computational unit, a numeric keypad, a wireless barcode scanner and base station, headphones for the user to receive the synthetic speech instructions, a USB hub to connect all the components, and a backpack to carry them (with the exception of the barcode scanner) which has been slightly modified with a plastic stabiliser to assist in correct positioning. Shop Talk represents the supermarket environment using two data structures. The first is comprised of two elements: a topological map of locomotor space that allows for directional labels of “left,” “right,” and “forward,” to be added to the supermarket floor plan; and, for navigation of haptic space, the supermarket inventory management system, which is used to create verbal descriptions of product information. The second data structure is a Barcode Connectivity Matrix (BCM), which associates each shelf barcode with several pieces of information such as aisle, aisle side, section, shelf, position, Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode, product description, and price. Nicholson et al. suggest that one of their “most immediate objectives for future work is to migrate the system to a more conventional mobile platform” such as a smart phone (see Mobile Shopping). The Personalisable Interactions with Resources on AMI-Enabled Mobile Dynamic Environments (PRIAmIDE) research group at the University of Deusto is also approaching Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) by exploring the smart phone’s sensing, communication, computing, and storage potential. As part of their work, the prototype system, BlindShopping, was developed to address the issue of assisted shopping using entirely off-the-shelf technology with minimal environmental adjustments to navigate the store and search, browse and select products (López-de-Ipiña et al. 34). Blind Shopping’s architecture is based on three components. Firstly, a navigation system provides the user with synthetic verbal instructions to users via headphones connected to the smart phone device being used in order to guide them around the store. This requires a RFID reader to be attached to the tip of the user’s white cane and road-marking-like RFID tag lines to be distributed throughout the aisles. A smartphone application processes the RFID data that is received by the smart phone via Bluetooth generating the verbal navigation commands as a result. Products are recognised by pointing a QR code reader enabled smart phone at an embossed code located on a shelf. The system is managed by a Rich Internet Application (RIA) interface, which operates by Web browser, and is used to register the RFID tags situated in the aisles and the QR codes located on shelves (López-de-Ipiña and 37-38). A typical use-scenario for Blind Shopping involves a user activating the system by tracing an “L” on the screen or issuing the “Location” voice command, which activates the supermarket navigation system which then asks the user to either touch an RFID floor marking with their cane or scan a QR code on a nearby shelf to orient the system. The application then asks the user to dictate the product or category of product that they wish to locate. The smart phone maintains a continuous Bluetooth connection with the RFID reader to keep track of user location at all times. By drawing a “P” or issuing the “Product” voice command, a user can switch the device into product recognition mode where the smart phone camera is pointed at an embossed QR code on a shelf to retrieve information about a product such as manufacturer, name, weight, and price, via synthetic speech (López-de-Ipiña et al. 38-39). Despite both systems aiming to operate with as little environmental adjustment as possible, as well as minimise the extent to which a supermarket would need to allocate infrastructural, administrative, and human resources to implementing assistive technologies for vision impaired shoppers, there will undoubtedly be significant establishment and maintenance costs associated with the adoption of production versions of systems resembling either prototype described in this paper. As both systems rely on data obtained from a server by invoking Web services, supermarkets would need to provide in-store WiFi. Further, both systems’ dependence on store inventory data would mean that commercial versions of either of these systems are likely to be supermarket specific or exclusive given that there will be policies in place that forbid access to inventory systems, which contain pricing information to third parties. Secondly, an assumption in the design of both prototypes is that the shopping task ends with the user arriving at home; this overlooks the important task of being able to recognise products in order to put them away or to use at a later time.The BCM and QR product recognition components of both respective prototypic systems associates information to products in order to assist users in the product search and selection sub-tasks. However, information such as use-by dates, discount offers, country of manufacture, country of manufacturer’s origin, nutritional information, and the labelling of products as Halal, Kosher, containing alcohol, nuts, gluten, lactose, phenylalanine, and so on, create further challenges in how different data sources are managed within the devices’ software architecture. The reliance of both systems on existing smartphone technology is also problematic. Changes in the production and uptake of mobile communication devices, and the software that they operate on, occurs rapidly. Once the fit-out of a retail space with the necessary instrumentation in order to accommodate a particular system has occurred, this system is unlikely to be able to cater to the requirement for frequent upgrades, as built environments are less flexible in the upgrading of their technological infrastructure (Kellerman 148). This sets up a scenario where the supermarket may persist as a disabling space due to a gap between the functional capacities of applications designed for mobile communication devices and the environments in which they are to be used. Lists and Disabling Spatial PracticeThe development and provision of access to assistive technologies and the data they rely upon is a commercial issue (Ellis and Kent 7). The use of assistive technologies in supermarket-spaces that rely on the inter-functional coordination of multiple inventories may have the unintended effect of excluding people with disabilities from access to legitimate content (Ellis and Kent 7). With de Certeau, we can ask of supermarket-space “What spatial practices correspond, in the area where discipline is manipulated, to these apparatuses that produce a disciplinary space?" (96).In designing assistive technologies, such as those discussed in this paper, developers must strive to achieve integration across multiple data inventories. Software architectures must be optimised to overcome issues relating to intellectual property, cross platform access, standardisation, fidelity, potential duplication, and mass-storage. This need for “cross sectioning,” however, “merely adds to the muddle” (Lefebvre 8). This is a predicament that only intensifies as space and objects in space become increasingly “representable” (Galloway), and as the impetus for the project of spatial politics for the vision impaired moves beyond representation to centre on access and meaning-making.ConclusionSupermarkets act as sites of hegemony, resistance, difference, and transformation, where the vision impaired and their allies resist the “repressive socialization of impaired bodies” through their own social movements relating to environmental accessibility and the technology assisted spatial practice of shopping (Gleeson 129). It is undeniable that the prototype technologies described in this paper, and those like it, indeed do have a great deal of emancipatory potential. However, it should be understood that these devices produce representations of supermarket-space as a simulation within a framework that attempts to mimic the real, and these representations are pre-determined by the industrial, technological, and regulatory forces that govern their production (Lefebvre 8). Thus, the potential of assistive technologies is dependent upon a range of constraints relating to data accessibility, and the interaction of various kinds of lists across the geographic area that surrounds the supermarket, locomotor, haptic, and search spaces of the supermarket, the home-space, and the internal spaces of a shopper’s imaginary. These interactions are important in contributing to the reproduction of disability in supermarkets through the use of assistive shopping technologies. The ways by which people make and read shopping lists complicate the relations between supermarket-space as location data and product inventories versus that which is intuited and experienced by a shopper (Sutherland). Not only should we be creating inventories of supermarket locomotor, haptic, and search spaces, the attention of developers working in this area of assistive technologies should look beyond the challenges of spatial representation and move towards a focus on issues of interoperability and expanded access of spatial inventory databases and data within and beyond supermarket-space.ReferencesDe Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Print.De Souza e Silva, A. “From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile Technologies As Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces.” Space and Culture 9.3 (2006): 261-78.Ellis, Katie, and Mike Kent. Disability and New Media. New York: Routledge, 2011.Farman, Jason. Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media. New York: Routledge, 2012.Galloway, Alexander. “Are Some Things Unrepresentable?” Theory, Culture and Society 28 (2011): 85-102.Gleeson, Brendan. Geographies of Disability. London: Routledge, 1999.Goggin, Gerard. Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life. London: Routledge, 2006.Haber, Alex. “Mapping the Void in Perec’s Species of Spaces.” Tattered Fragments of the Map. Ed. Adam Katz and Brian Rosa. S.l.: Thelimitsoffun.org, 2009.Jolley, William M. When the Tide Comes in: Towards Accessible Telecommunications for People with Disabilities in Australia. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2003.Keaggy, Bill. Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found. Cincinnati, Ohio: HOW Books, 2007.Kellerman, Aharon. Personal Mobilities. London: Routledge, 2006.Kleege, Georgia. “Blindness and Visual Culture: An Eyewitness Account.” The Disability Studies Reader. 2nd edition. Ed. Lennard J. Davis. New York: Routledge, 2006. 391-98.Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1991.López-de-Ipiña, Diego, Tania Lorido, and Unai López. “Indoor Navigation and Product Recognition for Blind People Assisted Shopping.” Ambient Assisted Living. Ed. J. Bravo, R. Hervás, and V. Villarreal. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2011. 25-32. May, Michael, and Charles LaPierre. “Accessible Global Position System (GPS) and Related Orientation Technologies.” Assistive Technology for Visually Impaired and Blind People. Ed. Marion A. Hersh, and Michael A. Johnson. London: Springer-Verlag, 2008. 261-88. Nicholson, John, Vladimir Kulyukin, and Daniel Coster. “Shoptalk: Independent Blind Shopping Through Verbal Route Directions and Barcode Scans.” The Open Rehabilitation Journal 2.1 (2009): 11-23.Perec, Georges. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. Trans. and Ed. John Sturrock. London: Penguin Books, 1997.Schillmeier, Michael W. J. Rethinking Disability: Bodies, Senses, and Things. New York: Routledge, 2010.Sutherland, I. “Mobile Media and the Socio-Technical Protocols of the Supermarket.” Australian Journal of Communication. 36.1 (2009): 73-84.

Abstract:

On 19 January 1975, Australia’s first youth station 2JJ (Double Jay) launched itself onto the nation’s airwaves with a NASA-style countdown and You Only Like Me ‘Cause I’m Good in Bed by Australian band Skyhooks. Refused airtime by the commercial stations because of its explicit sexual content, this song was a clear signifier of the new station’s intent—to occupy a more radical territory on Australian radio. Indeed, Double Jay’s musical entrée into the highly restrictive local broadcasting environment of the time has gone on to symbolise both the station’s role in its early days as an enfant terrible of radio (Inglis 376), and its near 40 years as a voice for youth culture in Australia (Milesago, Double Jay). In this paper we explore the proposition that Double Jay functioned as an outlet for youth counterculture in Australia, and that it achieved this even with (and arguably because of) its credentials as a state-generated entity. This proposition is considered via brief analysis of the political and musical context leading to the establishment of Double Jay. We intend to demonstrate that although the station was deeply embedded in “the system” in material and cultural terms, it simultaneously existed in an “uneasy symbiosis” (Martin and Siehl 54) with this system because it consciously railed against the mainstream cultures from which it drew, providing a public and active vehicle for youth counterculture in Australia. The origins of Double Jay thus provide one example of the complicated relationship between culture and counterculture, and the multiple ways in which the two are inextricably linked. As a publicly-funded broadcasting station Double Jay was liberated from the industrial imperatives of Australia’s commercial stations which arguably drove their predisposition for formula. The absence of profit motive gave Double Jay’s organisers greater room to experiment with format and content, and thus the potential to create a genuine alternative in Australia broadcasting. As a youth station Double Jay was created to provide a minority with its own outlet. The Labor government committed to wrenching airspace from the very restrictive Australian broadcasting “system” (Wiltshire and Stokes 2) to provide minority voices with room to speak and to be heard. Youth was identified by the government as one such minority. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) contributed to this process by enabling young staffers to establish the semi-independent Contemporary Radio Unit (CRU) (Webb) and within this a youth station. Not only did this provide a focal point around which a youth collective could coalesce, but the distinct place and identity of Double Jay within the ABC offered its organisers the opportunity to ignore or indeed subvert some of the perceived strictures of the “mothership” that was the ABC, whether in organisational, content and/or stylistic terms. For these and other reasons Double Jay was arguably well positioned to counter the broadcasting cultures that existed alongside this station. It did so stylistically, and also in more fundamental ways, At the same time, however, it “pillaged the host body at random” (Webb) co-opting certain aspects of these cultures (people, scheduling, content, administration) which in turn implicated Double Jay in the material and cultural practices of those mainstream cultures against which it railed. Counterculture on the Airwaves: Space for Youth to Play? Before exploring these themes further, we should make clear that Double Jay’s legitimacy as a “counterculture” organisation is observably tenuous against the more extreme renderings of the concept. Theodore Roszak, for example, requires of counterculture something “so radically disaffiliated from the mainstream assumptions of our society that it scarcely looks to many as a culture at all” (5). Double Jay was a brainchild of the state: an outcome of the Whitlam Government’s efforts to open up the nation’s airwaves (Davis, Government; McClelland). Further, the supervision of this station was given to the publicly funded Australian national broadcaster, the ABC (Inglis). Any claim Double Jay has to counterculture status then is arguably located in less radical invocations of the term. Some definitions, for example, hold that counterculture contains value systems that run counter to culture, but these values are relational rather than divorced from each other. Kenneth Leech, for example, states that counterculture is "a way of life and philosophy which at central points is in conflict with the mainstream society” (Desmond et al. 245, our emphasis); E.D. Batzell defines counterculture as "a minority culture marked by a set of values, norms and behaviour patterns which contradict those of the dominant society" (116, our emphasis). Both definitions imply that counterculture requires the mainstream to make sense of what it is doing and why. In simple terms then, counterculture as the ‘other’ does not exist without its mainstream counterpoint. The particular values with which counterculture is in conflict are generated by “the system” (Heath and Potter 6)—a system that imbues “manufactured needs and mass-produced desires” (Frank 15) in the masses to encourage order, conformity and consumption. Counterculture seeks to challenge this “system” via individualist, expression-oriented values such as difference, diversity, change, egalitarianism, and spontaneity (Davis On Youth; Leary; Thompson and Coskuner‐Balli). It is these kinds of counterculture values that we demonstrate were embedded in the content, style and management practices within Double Jay. The Whitlam Years and the Birth of Double Jay Double Jay was borne of the Whitlam government’s brief but impactful period in office from 1972 to 1975, after 23 years of conservative government in Australia. Key to the Labor Party’s election platform was the principle of participatory democracy, the purpose of which was “breaking down apathy and maximising active citizen engagement” (Cunningham 123). Within this framework, the Labor Party committed to opening the airwaves, and reconfiguring the rhetoric of communication and media as a space of and for the people (Department of the Media 3). Labor planned to honour this commitment via sweeping reforms that would counter the heavily concentrated Australian media landscape through “the encouragement of diversification of ownership of commercial radio and television”—and in doing so enable “the expression of a plurality of viewpoints and cultures throughout the media” (Department of the Media 3). Minority groups in particular were to be privileged, while some in the Party even argued for voices that would actively agitate. Senator Jim McClelland, for one, declared, “We say that somewhere in the system there must be broadcasting which not only must not be afraid to be controversial but has a duty to be controversial” (Senate Standing Committee 4). One clear voice of controversy to emerge in the 1960s and resonate throughout the 1970s was the voice of youth (Gerster and Bassett; Langley). Indeed, counterculture is considered by some as synonymous with a particular strain of youth culture during this time (Roszak; Leech). The Labor Government acknowledged this hitherto unrecognised voice in its 1972 platform, with Minister for the Media Senator Doug McClelland claiming that his party would encourage the “whetting of the appetite” for “life and experimentation” of Australia’s youth – in particular through support for the arts (160). McClelland secured licenses for two “experimental-type” stations under the auspices of the ABC, with the youth station destined for Sydney via the ABC’s standby transmitter in Gore Hill (ABCB, 2). Just as the political context in early 1970s Australia provided the necessary conditions for the appearance of Double Jay, so too did the cultural context. Counterculture emerged in the UK, USA and Europe as a clear and potent force in the late 1960s (Roszak; Leech; Frank; Braunstein and Doyle). In Australia this manifested in the 1960s and 1970s in various ways, including political protest (Langley; Horne); battles for the liberalisation of censorship (Hope and Dickerson, Liberalisation; Chipp and Larkin); sex and drugs (Dawson); and the art film scene (Hope and Dickerson, Happiness; Thoms). Of particular interest here is the “lifestyle” aspect of counterculture, within which the value-expressions against the dominant culture manifest in cultural products and practices (Bloodworth 304; Leary ix), and more specifically, music. Many authors have suggested that music was pivotal to counterculture (Bloodworth 309; Leech 8), a key “social force” through which the values of counterculture were articulated (Whiteley 1). The youth music broadcasting scene in Australia was extremely narrow prior to Double Jay, monopolised by a handful of media proprietors who maintained a stranglehold over the youth music scene from the mid-50s. This dominance was in part fuelled by the rising profitability of pop music, driven by “the dreamy teenage market”, whose spending was purely discretionary (Doherty 52) and whose underdeveloped tastes made them “immune to any sophisticated disdain of run-of-the-mill” cultural products (Doherty 230-231). Over the course of the 1950s the commercial stations pursued this market by “skewing” their programs toward the youth demographic (Griffen-Foley 264). The growing popularity of pop music saw radio shift from a “multidimensional” to “mono-dimensional” medium according to rock journalist Bruce Elder, in which the “lowest-common-denominator formula of pop song-chat-commercial-pop-song” dominated the commercial music stations (12). Emblematic of this mono-dimensionalism was the appearance of the Top 40 Playlist in 1958 (Griffin-Foley 265), which might see as few as 10–15 songs in rotation in peak shifts. Elder claims that this trend became more pronounced over the course of the 1960s and peaked in 1970, with playlists that were controlled with almost mechanical precision [and] compiled according to American-devised market research methods which tended to reinforce repetition and familiarity at the expense of novelty and diversity. (12) Colin Vercoe, whose job was to sell the music catalogues of Festival Records to stations like 2UE, 2SER and SUW, says it was “an incredibly frustrating affair” to market new releases because of the rigid attachment by commercials to the “Top 40 of endless repeats” (Vercoe). While some air time was given to youth music beyond the Top 40, this happened mostly in non-peak shifts and on weekends. Bill Drake at 2SM (who was poached by Double Jay and allowed to reclaim his real name, Holger Brockmann) played non-Top 40 music in his Sunday afternoon programme The Album Show (Brockmann). A more notable exception was Chris Winter’s Room to Move on the ABC, considered by many as the predecessor of Double Jay. Introduced in 1971, Room to Move played all forms of contemporary music not represented by the commercial broadcasters, including whole albums and B sides. Rock music’s isolation to the fringes was exacerbated by the lack of musical sales outlets for rock and other forms of non-pop music, with much music sourced through catalogues, music magazines and word of mouth (Winter; Walker). In this context a small number of independent record stores, like Anthem Records in Sydney and Archie and Jugheads in Melbourne, appear in the early 1970s. Vercoe claims that the commercial record companies relentlessly pursued the closure of these independents on the grounds they were illegal entities: The record companies hated them and they did everything they could do close them down. When (the companies) bought the catalogue to overseas music, they bought the rights. And they thought these record stores were impinging on their rights. It was clear that a niche market existed for rock and alternative forms of music. Keith Glass and David Pepperell from Archie and Jugheads realised this when stock sold out in the first week of trade. Pepperell notes, “We had some feeling we were doing something new relating to people our own age but little idea of the forces we were about to unleash”. Challenging the “System” from the Inside At the same time as interested individuals clamoured to buy from independent record stores, the nation’s first youth radio station was being instituted within the ABC. In October 1974, three young staffers—Marius Webb, Ron Moss and Chris Winter— with the requisite youth credentials were briefed by ABC executives to build a youth-style station for launch in January 1975. According to Winter “All they said was 'We want you to set up a station for young people' and that was it!”, leaving the three with a conceptual carte blanche–although assumedly within the working parameters of the ABC (Webb). A Contemporary Radio Unit (CRU) was formed in order to meet the requirements of the ABC while also creating a clear distinction between the youth station and the ABC. According to Webb “the CRU gave us a lot of latitude […] we didn’t have to go to other ABC Departments to do things”. The CRU was conscious from the outset of positioning itself against the mainstream practices of both the commercial stations and the ABC. The publicly funded status of Double Jay freed it from the shackles of profit motive that enslaved the commercial stations, in turn liberating its turntables from baser capitalist imperatives. The two coordinators Ron Moss and Marius Webb also bypassed the conventions of typecasting the announcer line-up (as was practice in both commercial and ABC radio), seeking instead people with charisma, individual style and youth appeal. Webb told the Sydney Morning Herald that Double Jay’s announcers were “not required to have a frontal lobotomy before they go on air.” In line with the individual- and expression-oriented character of the counterculture lifestyle, it was made clear that “real people” with “individuality and personality” would fill the airwaves of Double Jay (Nicklin 9). The only formula to which the station held was to avoid (almost) all formula – a mantra enhanced by the purchase in the station’s early days of thousands of albums and singles from 10 or so years of back catalogues (Robinson). This library provided presenters with the capacity to circumvent any need for repetition. According to Winter the DJs “just played whatever we wanted”, from B sides to whole albums of music, most of which had never made it onto Australian radio. The station also adapted the ABC tradition of recording live classical music, but instead recorded open-air rock concerts and pub gigs. A recording van built from second-hand ABC equipment captured the grit of Sydney’s live music scene for Double Jay, and in so doing undercut the polished sounds of its commercial counterparts (Walker). Double Jay’s counterculture tendencies further extended to its management style. The station’s more political agitators, led by Webb, sought to subvert the traditional top-down organisational model in favour of a more egalitarian one, including a battle with the ABC to remove the bureaucratic distinction between technical staff and presenters and replace this with the single category “producer/presenter” (Cheney, Webb, Davis 41). The coordinators also actively subverted their own positions as coordinators by holding leaderless meetings open to all Double Jay employees – meetings that were infamously long and fraught, but also remembered as symbolic of the station’s vibe at that time (Frolows, Matchett). While Double Jay assumed the ABC’s focus on music, news and comedy, at times it politicised the content contra to the ABC’s non-partisan policy, ignored ABC policy and practice, and more frequently pushed its contents over the edges of what was considered propriety and taste. These trends were already present in pockets of the ABC prior to Double Jay: in current affairs programmes like This Day Tonight and Four Corners (Harding 49); and in overtly leftist figures like Alan Ashbolt (Bowman), who it should be noted had a profound influence over Webb and other Double Jay staff (Webb). However, such an approach to radio still remained on the edges of the ABC. As one example of Double Jay’s singularity, Webb made clear that the ABC’s “gentleman’s agreement” with the Federation of Australian Commercial Broadcasters to ban certain content from airplay would not apply to Double Jay because the station would not “impose any censorship on our people” – a fact demonstrated by the station’s launch song (Nicklin 9). The station’s “people” in turn made the most of this freedom with the production of programmes like Gayle Austin’s Horny Radio p*rn Show, the Naked Vicar Show, the adventures of Colonel Chuck Chunder of the Space Patrol, and the Sunday afternoon comic improvisations of Nude Radio from the team that made Aunty Jack. This openness also made its way into the news team, most famously in its second month on air with the production of The Ins and Outs of Love, a candid documentary of the sexual proclivities and encounters of Sydney’s youth. Conservative ABC staffer Clement Semmler described the programme as containing such “disgustingly explicit accounts of the sexual behaviour of young teenagers” that it “aroused almost universal obloquy from listeners and the press” (35). The playlist, announcers, comedy sketches, news reporting and management style of Double Jay represented direct challenges to the entrenched media culture of Australia in the mid 1970s. The Australian National Commission for UNESCO noted at the time that Double Jay was “variously described as political, subversive, offensive, p*rnographic, radical, revolutionary and obscene” (7). While these terms were understandable given the station’s commitment to experiment and innovation, the “vital point” about Double Jay was that it “transmitted an electronic reflection of change”: What the station did was to zero in on the kind of questioning of traditional values now inherent in a significant section of the under 30s population. It played their music, talked in their jargon, pandered to their whims, tastes, prejudices and societal conflicts both intrinsic and extrinsic. (48) Conclusion From the outset, Double Jay was locked in an “uneasy symbiosis” with mainstream culture. On the one hand, the station was established by federal government and its infrastructure was provided by state funds. It also drew on elements of mainstream broadcasting in multiple ways. However, at the same time, it was a voice for and active agent of counterculture, representing through its content, form and style those values that were considered to challenge the ‘system,’ in turn creating an outlet for the expression of hitherto un-broadcast “ways of thinking and being” (Leary). As Henry Rosenbloom, press secretary to then Labor Minister Dr Moss Cass wrote, Double Jay had the potential to free its audience “from an automatic acceptance of the artificial rhythms of urban and suburban life. In a very real sense, JJ [was] a deconditioning agent” (Inglis 375-6). While Double Jay drew deeply from mainstream culture, its skilful and playful manipulation of this culture enabled it to both reflect and incite youth-based counterculture in Australia in the 1970s. References Australian Broadcasting Control Board. Development of National Broadcasting and Television Services. ABCB: Sydney, 1976. Batzell, E.D. “Counter-Culture.” Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought. Eds. Williams Outhwaite and Tom Bottomore. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. 116-119. Bloodworth, John David. “Communication in the Youth Counterculture: Music as Expression.” Central States Speech Journal 26.4 (1975): 304-309. Bowman, David. “Radical Giant of Australian Broadcasting: Allan Ashbolt, Lion of the ABC, 1921-2005.” Sydney Morning Herald 15 June 2005. 15 Sep. 2013 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/news/Obituaries/Radical-giant-of-Australian-broadcasting/2005/06/14/1118645805607.html›. Braunstein, Peter, and Michael William Doyle. Eds. Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and '70s New York: Taylor and Francis, 2002. Brockman, Holger. Personal interview. 8 December 2013. Cheney, Roz. Personal interview. 10 July 2013. Chipp, Don, and John Larkin. Don Chipp: The Third Man. Adelaide: Rigby, 2008. Cunningham, Frank. Theories of Democracy: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002. Davis, Fred. On Youth Subcultures: The Hippie Variant. New York: General Learning Press, 1971. Davis, Glyn. "Government Decision‐Making and the ABC: The 2JJ Case." Politics 19.2 (1984): 34-42. Dawson, Jonathan. "JJJ: Radical Radio?." Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 6.1 (1992): 37-44. Department of the Media. Submission by the Department of the Media to the Independent Inquiry into Frequency Modulation Broadcasting. Sydney: Australian Government Publishers, 1974. Desmond, John, Pierre McDonagh, and Stephanie O'Donohoe. “Counter-Culture and Consumer Society.” Consumption Markets & Culture 4.3 (2000): 241-279. Doherty, Thomas. Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988. Elder, Bruce. Sound Experiment. Unpublished manuscript, 1988. Australian National Commission for UNESCO. Extract from Seminar on Entertainment and Society, Report on Research Project. 1976. Frolows, Arnold. Personal interview. 10 July 2013. Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Gerster, Robin, and Jan Bassett. Seizures of Youth: The Sixties and Australia. Melbourne: Hyland House, 1991. Griffen-Foley, Bridget. Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009. Harding, Richard. Outside Interference: The Politics of Australian Broadcasting. Melbourne: Sun Books, 1979. Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter. Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Hope, Cathy, and Adam Dickerson. “The Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, and the Liberalisation of Film Censorship in Australia”. Screening the Past 35 (2012). 12 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.screeningthepast.com/2012/12/the-sydney-and-melbourne-film-festivals-and-the-liberalisation-of-film-censorship-in-australia/›. Hope, Cathy, and Adam Dickerson. “Is Happiness Festival-Shaped Any Longer? The Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals and the Growth of Australian Film Culture 1973-1977”. Screening the Past 38 (2013). 12 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.screeningthepast.com/2013/12/‘is-happiness-festival-shaped-any-longer’-the-melbourne-and-sydney-film-festivals-and-the-growth-of-australian-film-culture-1973-1977/›. Horne, Donald. Time of Hope: Australia 1966-72. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1980. Inglis, Ken. This Is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-1983. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983. Langley, Greg. A Decade of Dissent: Vietnam and the Conflict on the Australian Homefront. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992. Leary, Timothy. “Foreword.” Counterculture through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. Eds. Ken Goffman and Dan Joy. New York: Villard, 2007. ix-xiv. Leech, Kenneth. Youthquake: The Growth of a Counter-Culture through Two Decades. London: Sheldon Press, 1973. Martin, J., and C. Siehl. "Organizational Culture and Counterculture: An Uneasy Symbiosis. Organizational Dynamics, 12.2 (1983): 52-64. Martin, Peter. Personal interview. 10 July 2014. Matchett, Stuart. Personal interview. 10 July 2013. McClelland, Douglas. “The Arts and Media.” Towards a New Australia under a Labor Government. Ed. John McLaren. Victoria: Cheshire Publishing, 1972. McClelland, Douglas. Personal interview. 25 August 2010. Milesago. “Double Jay: The First Year”. n.d. 8 Oct. 2012 ‹http://www.milesago.com/radio/2jj.htm›. Milesago. “Part 5: 1971-72 - Sundown and 'Archie & Jughead's”. n.d. Keith Glass – A Life in Music. 12 Oct. 2012 ‹http://www.milesago.com/Features/keithglass5.htm›. Nicklin, Lenore. “Rock (without the Roll) around the Clock.” Sydney Morning Herald 18 Jan. 1975: 9. Robinson, Ted. Personal interview. 11 December 2013. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. New York: Anchor, 1969. Semmler, Clement. The ABC - Aunt Sally and Sacred Cow. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1981. Senate Standing Committee on Education, Science and the Arts and Jim McClelland. Second Progress Report on the Reference, All Aspects of Television and Broadcasting, Including Australian Content of Television Programmes. Canberra: Australian Senate, 1973. Thompson, Craig J., and Gokcen Coskuner‐Balli. "Countervailing Market Responses to Corporate Co‐optation and the Ideological Recruitment of Consumption Communities." Journal of Consumer Research 34.2 (2007): 135-152. Thoms, Albie. “The Australian Avant-garde.” An Australian Film Reader. Eds. Albert Moran and Tom O’Regan. Sydney: Currency Press, 1985. 279–280. Vercoe, Colin. Personal interview. 11 Feb. 2014. Walker, Keith. Personal interview. 11 July 2013. Webb, Marius. Personal interview. 5 Feb. 2013. Whiteley, Sheila. The Space between the Notes: Rock and the Counter-Culture. London: Routledge, 1992. Wiltshire, Kenneth, and Charles Stokes. Government Regulation and the Electronic Commercial Media. Monograph M43. Melbourne: Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 1976. Winter, Chris. Personal interview. 16 Mar. 2013.

Abstract:

Introduction Many destinations promote culinary encounters. Foods and beverages, and especially how these will taste in situ, are being marketed as niche travel motivators and used in destination brand building across the globe. While initial usage of the term culinary tourism focused on experiencing exotic cultures of foreign destinations by sampling unfamiliar food and drinks, the term has expanded to embrace a range of leisure travel experiences where the aim is to locate and taste local specialities as part of a pleasurable, and hopefully notable, culinary encounter (Wolf). Long’s foundational work was central in developing the idea of culinary tourism as an active endeavor, suggesting that via consumption, individuals construct unique experiences. Ignatov and Smith’s literature review-inspired definition confirms the nature of activity as participatory, and adds consuming food production skills—from observing agriculture and local processors to visiting food markets and attending cooking schools—to culinary purchases. Despite importing almost all of its foodstuffs and beverages, including some of its water, Singapore is an acknowledged global leader in culinary tourism. Horng and Tsai note that culinary tourism conceptually implies that a transferal of “local or special knowledge and information that represent local culture and identities” (41) occurs via these experiences. This article adds the act of reading to these participatory activities and suggests that, because food writing forms an important component of Singapore’s suite of culinary tourism offerings, taste contributes to the cultural experience offered to both visitors and locals. While Singapore foodways have attracted significant scholarship (see, for instance, work by Bishop; Duruz; Huat & Rajah; Tarulevicz, Eating), Singapore food writing, like many artefacts of popular culture, has attracted less notice. Yet, this writing is an increasingly visible component of cultural production of, and about, Singapore, and performs a range of functions for locals, tourists and visitors before they arrive. Although many languages are spoken in Singapore, English is the national language (Alsagoff) and this study focuses on food writing in English. Background Tourism comprises a major part of Singapore’s economy, with recent figures detailing that food and beverage sales contribute over 10 per cent of this revenue, with spend on culinary tours and cookery classes, home wares such as tea-sets and cookbooks, food magazines and food memoirs additional to this (Singapore Government). This may be related to the fact that Singapore not only promotes food as a tourist attraction, but also actively promotes itself as an exceptional culinary destination. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) includes food in its general information brochures and websites, and its print, television and cinema commercials (Huat and Rajah). It also mounts information-rich campaigns both abroad and inside Singapore. The 2007 ‘Singapore Seasons’ campaign, for instance, promoted Singaporean cuisine alongside films, design, books and other cultural products in London, New York and Beijing. Touring cities identified as key tourist markets in 2011, the ‘Singapore Takeout’ pop-up restaurant brought the taste of Singaporean foods into closer focus. Singaporean chefs worked with high profile locals in its kitchen in a custom-fabricated shipping container to create and demonstrate Singaporean dishes, attracting public and media interest. In country, the STB similarly actively promotes the tastes of Singaporean foods, hosting the annual World Gourmet Summit (Chaney and Ryan) and Pacific Food Expo, both attracting international culinary professionals to work alongside local leaders. The Singapore Food Festival each July is marketed to both locals and visitors. In these ways, the STB, as well as providing events for visitors, is actively urging Singaporeans to proud of their food culture and heritage, so that each Singaporean becomes a proactive ambassador of their cuisine. Singapore Food Writing Popular print guidebooks and online guides to Singapore pay significantly more attention to Singaporean food than they do for many other destinations. Sections on food in such publications discuss at relative length the taste of Singaporean food (always delicious) as well as how varied, authentic, hygienic and suited-to-all-budgets it is. These texts also recommend hawker stalls and food courts alongside cafés and restaurants (Henderson et al.), and a range of other culinary experiences such as city and farm food tours and cookery classes. This writing describes not only what can be seen or learned during these experiences, but also what foods can be sampled, and how these might taste. This focus on taste is reflected in the printed materials that greet the in-bound tourist at the airport. On a visit in October 2013, arrival banners featuring mouth-watering images of local specialities such as chicken rice and chilli crab marked the route from arrival to immigration and baggage collection. Even advertising for a bank was illustrated with photographs of luscious-looking fruits. The free maps and guidebooks available featured food-focused tours and restaurant locations, and there were also substantial free booklets dedicated solely to discussing local delicacies and their flavours, plus recommended locations to sample them. A website and free mobile app were available that contain practical information about dishes, ingredients, cookery methods, and places to eat, as well as historical and cultural information. These resources are also freely distributed to many hotels and popular tourist destinations. Alongside organising food walks, bus tours and cookery classes, the STB also recommends the work of a number of Singaporean food writers—principally prominent Singapore food bloggers, reviewers and a number of memoirists—as authentic guides to what are described as unique Singaporean flavours. The strategies at the heart of this promotion are linking advertising to useful information. At a number of food centres, for instance, STB information panels provide details about both specific dishes and Singapore’s food culture more generally (Henderson et al.). This focus is apparent at many tourist destinations, many of which are also popular local attractions. In historic Fort Canning Park, for instance, there is a recreation of Raffles’ experimental garden, established in 1822, where he grew the nutmeg, clove and other plants that were intended to form the foundation for spice plantations but were largely unsuccessful (Reisz). Today, information panels not only indicate the food plants’ names and how to grow them, but also their culinary and medicinal uses, recipes featuring them and the related food memories of famous Singaporeans. The Singapore Botanic Gardens similarly houses the Ginger Garden displaying several hundred species of ginger and information, and an Eco(-nomic/logical) Garden featuring many food plants and their stories. In Chinatown, panels mounted outside prominent heritage brands (often still quite small shops) add content to the shopping experience. A number of museums profile Singapore’s food culture in more depth. The National Museum of Singapore has a permanent Living History gallery that focuses on Singapore’s street food from the 1950s to 1970s. This display includes food-related artefacts, interactive aromatic displays of spices, films of dishes being made and eaten, and oral histories about food vendors, all supported by text panels and booklets. Here food is used to convey messages about the value of Singapore’s ethnic diversity and cross-cultural exchanges. Versions of some of these dishes can then be sampled in the museum café (Time Out Singapore). The Peranakan Museum—which profiles the unique hybrid culture of the descendants of the Chinese and South Indian traders who married local Malay women—shares this focus, with reconstructed kitchens and dining rooms, exhibits of cooking and eating utensils and displays on food’s ceremonial role in weddings and funerals all supported with significant textual information. The Chinatown Heritage Centre not only recreates food preparation areas as a vivid indicator of poor Chinese immigrants’ living conditions, but also houses The National Restaurant of Singapore, which translates this research directly into meals that recreate the heritage kopi tiam (traditional coffee shop) cuisine of Singapore in the 1930s, purposefully bringing taste into the service of education, as its descriptive menu states, “educationally delighting the palate” (Chinatown Heritage Centre). These museums recognise that shopping is a core tourist activity in Singapore (Chang; Yeung et al.). Their gift- and bookshops cater to the culinary tourist by featuring quality culinary products for sale (including, for instance, teapots and cups, teas, spices and traditional sweets, and other foods) many of which are accompanied by informative tags or brochures. At the centre of these curated, purchasable collections are a range written materials: culinary magazines, cookbooks, food histories and memoirs, as well as postcards and stationery printed with recipes. Food Magazines Locally produced food magazines cater to a range of readerships and serve to extend the culinary experience both in, and outside, Singapore. These include high-end gourmet, luxury lifestyle publications like venerable monthly Wine & Dine: The Art of Good Living, which, in in print for almost thirty years, targets an affluent readership (Wine & Dine). The magazine runs features on local dining, gourmet products and trends, as well as international epicurean locations and products. Beautifully illustrated recipes also feature, as the magazine declares, “we’ve recognised that sharing more recipes should be in the DNA of Wine & Dine’s editorial” (Wine & Dine). Appetite magazine, launched in 2006, targets the “new and emerging generation of gourmets—foodies with a discerning and cosmopolitan outlook, broad horizons and a insatiable appetite” (Edipresse Asia) and is reminiscent in much of its styling of New Zealand’s award-winning Cuisine magazine. Its focus is to present a fresh approach to both cooking at home and dining out, as readers are invited to “Whip up the perfect soufflé or feast with us at the finest restaurants in Singapore and around the region” (Edipresse Asia). Chefs from leading local restaurants are interviewed, and the voices of “fellow foodies and industry watchers” offer an “insider track” on food-related news: “what’s good and what’s new” (Edipresse Asia). In between these publications sits Epicure: Life’s Refinements, which features local dishes, chefs, and restaurants as well as an overseas travel section and a food memories column by a featured author. Locally available ingredients are also highlighted, such as abalone (Cheng) and an interesting range of mushrooms (Epicure). While there is a focus on an epicurean experience, this is presented slightly more casually than in Wine & Dine. Food & Travel focuses more on home cookery, but each issue also includes reviews of Singapore restaurants. The bimonthly bilingual (Chinese and English) Gourmet Living features recipes alongside a notable focus on food culture—with food history columns, restaurant reviews and profiles of celebrated chefs. An extensive range of imported international food magazines are also available, with those from nearby Malaysia and Indonesia regularly including articles on Singapore. Cookbooks These magazines all include reviews of cookery books including Singaporean examples – and some feature other food writing such as food histories, memoirs and blogs. These reviews draw attention to how many Singaporean cookbooks include a focus on food history alongside recipes. Cookery teacher Yee Soo Leong’s 1976 Singaporean Cooking was an early example of cookbook as heritage preservation. This 1976 book takes an unusual view of ‘Singaporean’ flavours. Beginning with sweet foods—Nonya/Singaporean and western cakes, biscuits, pies, pastries, bread, desserts and icings—it also focuses on both Singaporean and Western dishes. This text is also unusual as there are only 6 lines of direct authorial address in the author’s acknowledgements section. Expatriate food writer Wendy Hutton’s Singapore Food, first published in 1979, reprinted many times after and revised in 2007, has long been recognised as one of the most authoritative titles on Singapore’s food heritage. Providing an socio-historical map of Singapore’s culinary traditions, some one third of the first edition was devoted to information about Singaporean multi-cultural food history, including detailed profiles of a number of home cooks alongside its recipes. Published in 1980, Kenneth Mitchell’s A Taste of Singapore is clearly aimed at a foreign readership, noting the variety of foods available due to the racial origins of its inhabitants. The more modest, but equally educational in intent, Hawkers Flavour: A Guide to Hawkers Gourmet in Malaysia and Singapore (in its fourth printing in 1998) contains a detailed introductory essay outlining local food culture, favourite foods and drinks and times these might be served, festivals and festive foods, Indian, Indian Muslim, Chinese, Nyonya (Chinese-Malay), Malay and Halal foods and customs, followed with a selection of recipes from each. More contemporary examples of such information-rich cookbooks, such as those published in the frequently reprinted Periplus Mini Cookbook series, are sold at tourist attractions. Each of these modestly priced, 64-page, mouthwateringly illustrated booklets offer framing information, such as about a specific food culture as in the Nonya kitchen in Nonya Favourites (Boi), and explanatory glossaries of ingredients, as in Homestyle Malay Cooking (Jelani). Most recipes include a boxed paragraph detailing cookery or ingredient information that adds cultural nuance, as well as trying to describe tastes that the (obviously foreign) intended reader may not have encountered. Malaysian-born Violet Oon, who has been called the Julia Child of Singapore (Bergman), writes for both local and visiting readers. The FOOD Paper, published monthly for a decade from January 1987 was, she has stated, then “Singapore’s only monthly publication dedicated to the CSF—Certified Singapore Foodie” (Oon, Violet Oon Cooks 7). Under its auspices, Oon promoted her version of Singaporean cuisine to both locals and visitors, as well as running cookery classes and culinary events, hosting her own television cooking series on the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, and touring internationally for the STB as a ‘Singapore Food Ambassador’ (Ahmad; Kraal). Taking this representation of flavor further, Oon has also produced a branded range of curry powders, spices, and biscuits, and set up a number of food outlets. Her first cookbook, World Peranakan Cookbook, was published in 1978. Her Singapore: 101 Meals of 1986 was commissioned by the STB, then known as the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. Violet Oon Cooks, a compilation of recipes from The FOOD Paper, published in 1992, attracted a range of major international as well as Singaporean food sponsors, and her Timeless Recipes, published in 1997, similarly aimed to show how manufactured products could be incorporated into classic Singaporean dishes cooked at home. In 1998, Oon produced A Singapore Family Cookbook featuring 100 dishes. Many were from Nonya cuisine and her following books continued to focus on preserving heritage Singaporean recipes, as do a number of other nationally-cuisine focused collections such as Joyceline Tully and Christopher Tan’s Heritage Feasts: A Collection of Singapore Family Recipes. Sylvia Tan’s Singapore Heritage Food: Yesterday’s Recipes for Today’s Cooks, published in 2004, provides “a tentative account of Singapore’s food history” (5). It does this by mapping the various taste profiles of six thematically-arranged chronologically-overlapping sections, from the heritage of British colonialism, to the uptake of American and Russia foods in the Snackbar era of the 1960s and the use of convenience flavoring ingredients such as curry pastes, sauces, dried and frozen supermarket products from the 1970s. Other Volumes Other food-themed volumes focus on specific historical periods. Cecilia Leong-Salobir’s Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire discusses the “unique hybrid” (1) cuisine of British expatriates in Singapore from 1858 to 1963. In 2009, the National Museum of Singapore produced the moving Wong Hong Suen’s Wartime Kitchen: Food and Eating in Singapore 1942–1950. This details the resilience and adaptability of both diners and cooks during the Japanese Occupation and in post-war Singapore, when shortages stimulated creativity. There is a centenary history of the Cold Storage company which shipped frozen foods all over south east Asia (Boon) and location-based studies such as Annette Tan’s Savour Chinatown: Stories Memories & Recipes. Tan interviewed hawkers, chefs and restaurant owners, working from this information to write both the book’s recipes and reflect on Chinatown’s culinary history. Food culture also features in (although it is not the main focus) more general book-length studies such as educational texts such as Chew Yen f*ck’s The Magic of Singapore and Melanie Guile’s Culture in Singapore (2000). Works that navigate both spaces (of Singaporean culture more generally and its foodways) such Lily Kong’s Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food, provide an consistent narrative of food in Singapore, stressing its multicultural flavours that can be enjoyed from eateries ranging from hawker stalls to high-end restaurants that, interestingly, that agrees with that promulgated in the food writing discussed above. Food Memoirs and Blogs Many of these narratives include personal material, drawing on the author’s own food experiences and taste memories. This approach is fully developed in the food memoir, a growing sub-genre of Singapore food writing. While memoirs by expatriate Singaporeans such as Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family, produced by major publisher Hyperion in New York, has attracted considerable international attention, it presents a story of Singapore cuisine that agrees with such locally produced texts as television chef and food writer Terry Tan’s Stir-fried and Not Shaken: A Nostalgic Trip Down Singapore’s Memory Lane and the food memoir of the Singaporean chef credited with introducing fine Malay dining to Singapore, Aziza Ali’s Sambal Days, Kampong Cuisine, published in Singapore in 2013 with the support of the National Heritage Board. All these memoirs are currently available in Singapore in both bookshops and a number of museums and other attractions. While underscoring the historical and cultural value of these foods, all describe the unique flavours of Singaporean cuisine and its deliciousness. A number of prominent Singapore food bloggers are featured in general guidebooks and promoted by the STB as useful resources to dining out in Singapore. One of the most prominent of these is Leslie Tay, a medical doctor and “passionate foodie” (Knipp) whose awardwinning ieatŸishootŸipost is currently attracting some 90,000 unique visitors every month and has had over 20,000 million hits since its launch in 2006. An online diary of Tay’s visits to hundreds of Singaporean hawker stalls, it includes descriptions and photographs of meals consumed, creating accumulative oral culinary histories of these dishes and those who prepared them. These narratives have been reorganised and reshaped in Tay’s first book The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries, where each chapter tells the story of one particular dish, including recommended hawker stalls where it can be enjoyed. Ladyironchef.com is a popular food and travel site that began as a blog in 2007. An edited collection of reviews of eateries and travel information, many by the editor himself, the site features lists of, for example, the best cafes (LadyIronChef “Best Cafes”), eateries at the airport (LadyIronChef “Guide to Dining”), and hawker stalls (Lim). While attesting to the cultural value of these foods, many articles also discuss flavour, as in Lim’s musings on: ‘how good can chicken on rice taste? … The glistening grains of rice perfumed by fresh chicken stock and a whiff of ginger is so good you can even eat it on its own’. Conclusion Recent Singapore food publishing reflects this focus on taste. Tay’s publisher, Epigram, growing Singaporean food list includes the recently released Heritage Cookbooks Series. This highlights specialist Singaporean recipes and cookery techniques, with the stated aim of preserving tastes and foodways that continue to influence Singaporean food culture today. Volumes published to date on Peranakan, South Indian, Cantonese, Eurasian, and Teochew (from the Chaoshan region in the east of China’s Guangdong province) cuisines offer both cultural and practical guides to the quintessential dishes and flavours of each cuisine, featuring simple family dishes alongside more elaborate special occasion meals. In common with the food writing discussed above, the books in this series, although dealing with very different styles of cookery, contribute to an overall impression of the taste of Singapore food that is highly consistent and extremely persuasive. This food writing narrates that Singapore has a delicious as well as distinctive and interesting food culture that plays a significant role in Singaporean life both currently and historically. It also posits that this food culture is, at the same time, easily accessible and also worthy of detailed consideration and discussion. In this way, this food writing makes a contribution to both local and visitors’ appreciation of Singaporean food culture. References Ahmad, Nureza. “Violet Oon.” Singapore Infopedia: An Electronic Encyclopedia on Singapore’s History, Culture, People and Events (2004). 22 Nov. 2013 ‹http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_459_2005-01-14.html?s=Violet%20Oon›.Ali, Aziza. Sambal Days, Kampong Cuisine. Singapore: Ate Ideas, 2013. Alsagoff, Lubna. “English in Singapore: Culture, capital and identity in linguistic variation”. World Englishes 29.3 (2010): 336–48.Bergman, Justin. “Restaurant Report: Violet Oon’s Kitchen in Singapore.” New York Times (13 March 2013). 21 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/travel/violet-oons-kitchen-singapore-restaurant-report.html?_r=0›. Bishop, Peter. “Eating in the Contact Zone: Singapore Foodscape and Cosmopolitan Timespace.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 25.5 (2011): 637–652. Boi, Lee Geok. Nonya Favourites. Singapore: Periplus Editions, 2001. Boon, Goh Chor. Serving Singapore: A Hundred Years of Cold Storage 1903-2003. Singapore: Cold Storage Pty. Ltd., 2003. Chaney, Stephen, and Chris Ryan. “Analyzing the Evolution of Singapore’s World Gourmet Summit: An Example of Gastronomic Tourism.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 31.2 (2012): 309–18. Chang, T. C. “Local Uniqueness in the Global Village: Heritage Tourism in Singapore.” The Professional Geographer 51.1 (1999): 91–103. Cheng, Tiong Li. “Royal Repast.” Epicure: Life’s Refinements January (2012): 94–6. Chinatown Heritage Centre. National Restaurant of Singapore. (12 Nov. 2012). 21 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.yoursingapore.com›.Duruz, Jean. “Living in Singapore, Travelling to Hong Kong, Remembering Australia …: Intersections of Food and Place.” Journal of Australian Studies 87 (2006): 101–15. -----. “From Malacca to Adelaide: Fragments Towards a Biography of Cooking, Yearning and Laksa.” Food and Foodways in Asia: Resource, Tradition and Cooking. Eds. Sidney C.H. Cheung, and Tan Chee-Beng. London: Routledge, 2007: 183–200. -----. “Tastes of Hybrid Belonging: Following the Laksa Trail in Katong, Singapore.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 25.5 (2011): 605–18. Edipresse Asia Appetite (2013). 22 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.edipresseasia.com/magazines.php?MagID=SGAPPETITE›. Epicure. “Mushroom Goodness.” Epicure: Life’s Refinements January (2012): 72–4. Epicure: Life’s Refinements. (2013) 1 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.epicureasia.com›. Food & Travel. Singapore: Regent Media. 1 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.regentmedia.sg/publications_food&travel.shtml›. f*ck, Chew Yen. The Magic of Singapore. London: New Holland, 2000. Guile, Melanie. Culture in Singapore. Port Melbourne: Heinemann/Harcourt Education Australia, 2003. Hawkers Flavour: A Guide to Hawkers Gourmet in Malaysia and Singapore. Kuala Lumpur: S. Abdul Majeed & Co., 1998. Henderson, Joan C., Ong Si Yun, Priscilla Poon, and Xu Biwei. “Hawker Centres as Tourist Attractions: The Case of Singapore.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 31.3 (2012): 849–55. Horng, Jeou-Shyan, and Chen-Tsang (Simon) Tsai. “Culinary Tourism Strategic Development: An Asia‐Pacific Perspective.” International Journal of Tourism Research 14 (2011): 40–55. Huat, Chua Beng, and Ananda Rajah. “Hybridity, Ethnicity and Food in Singapore.” Changing Chinese Foodways in Asia. Eds. David Y. H. Wu, and Chee Beng Tan. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2001: 161–98. Hutton, Wendy. Singapore Food. Singapore: Martin Cavendish, 1989/2007. Ignatov, Elena, and Stephen Smith. “Segmenting Canadian Culinary Tourists.” Current Issues in Tourism 9.3 (2006): 235–55. Jelani, Rohani. Homestyle Malay Cooking. Singapore: Periplus Editions, 2003. Knipp, Peter A. “Foreword: An Amazing Labour of Love.” The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries. Leslie Tay. Singapore: Epigram Books, 2010. viii–ix. Kong, Lily. Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food. Singapore: National Environment Agency, 2007 Kraal, David. “One and Only Violet Oon.” The Straits Times 20 January (1999). 1 Nov 2012 ‹http://www.straitstimes.com› LadyIronChef. “Best Cafes in Singapore.” ladyironchef.com (31 Mar. 2011). 21 Feb. 2014 ‹http://www.ladyironchef.com/2011/03/best-cafes-singapore› -----. “Guide to Dining at Changi Airport: 20 Places to Eat.” ladyironchef.com (10 Mar. 2014) 10 Mar. 2014 ‹http://www.ladyironchef.com/author/ladyironchef› Leong-Salobir, Cecilia. Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire. Abingdon UK: Routledge, 2011. Lim, Sarah. “10 of the Best Singapore Hawker Food.” (14 Oct. 2013). 21 Feb. 2014 ‹http://www.ladyironchef.com/2013/10/best-singapore-hawker-food›. Long, Lucy M. “Culinary Tourism: A Folkloristic Perspective of Eating and Otherness.” Southern Folklore 55.2 (1998): 181–204. Mitchell, Kenneth, ed. A Taste of Singapore. Hong Kong: Four Corners Publishing Co. (Far East) Ltd. in association with South China Morning Post, 1980. Oon, Violet. World Peranakan Cookbook. Singapore: Times Periodicals, 1978. -----. Singapore: 101 Meals. Singapore: Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, 1986. -----. Violet Oon Cooks. Singapore: Ultra Violet, 1992. -----. Timeless Recipes. Singapore: International Enterprise Singapore, 1997. -----. A Singapore Family Cookbook. Singapore: Pen International, 1998. Reisz, Emma. “City as Garden: Shared Space in the Urban Botanic Gardens of Singapore and Malaysia, 1786–2000.” Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes. Eds. Ryan Bishop, John Phillips, and Yeo Wei Wei. New York: Routledge, 2003: 123–48. Singapore Government. Singapore Annual Report on Tourism Statistics. Singapore: Singapore Government, 2012. Suen, Wong Hong. Wartime Kitchen: Food and Eating in Singapore 1942-1950. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet & National Museum of Singapore, 2009. Tan, Annette. Savour Chinatown: Stories, Memories & Recipes. Singapore: Ate Ideas, 2012. Tan, Cheryl Lu-Lien. A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family. New York: Hyperion, 2011. Tan, Sylvia. Singapore Heritage Food: Yesterday’s Recipes for Today’s Cooks. Singapore: Landmark Books, 2004. Tan, Terry. Stir-Fried and Not Shaken: A Nostalgic Trip Down Singapore’s Memory Lane. Singapore: Monsoon, 2009. Tarulevicz, Nicole. Eating Her Curries and Kway: A Cultural History of Food in Singapore. Champaign, IL: U of Illinois P, 2013. Tay, Leslie. ieat·ishoot·ipost [blog] (2013) 21 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.ieatishootipost.sg›. ---. The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries. Singapore: Epigram Books, 2010. Time Out Singapore. “Food for Thought (National Museum).” Time Out Singapore 8 July (2013). 11 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.timeoutsingapore.com/restaurants/asian/food-for-thought-national-museum›. Tully, Joyceline, and Tan, Christopher. Heritage Feasts: A Collection of Singapore Family Recipes. Singapore: Miele/Ate Media, 2010. Wine & Dine: The Art of Good Living (Nov. 2013). 19 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.wineanddine.com.sg›. Wine & Dine. “About Us: The Living Legacy.” Wine & Dine (Nov. 2013). 19 Nov. 2013 ‹http://www.wineanddine.com.sg/about-us› Wolf, E. “Culinary Tourism: A Tasty Economic Proposition.” (2002) 23 Nov. 2011 ‹http://www.culinary tourism.org›.Yeong, Yee Soo. Singapore Cooking. Singapore: Eastern Universities P, c.1976. Yeung, Sylvester, James Wong, and Edmond Ko. “Preferred Shopping Destination: Hong Kong Versus Singapore.” International Journal of Tourism Research 6.2 (2004): 85–96. Acknowledgements Research to complete this article was supported by Central Queensland University, Australia, under its Outside Studies Program (OSPRO) and Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC). An earlier version of part of this article was presented at the 2nd Australasian Regional Food Networks and Cultures Conference, in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, Australia, 11–14 November 2012. The delegates of that conference and expert reviewers of this article offered some excellent suggestions regarding strengthening this article and their advice was much appreciated. All errors are, of course, my own.

Abstract:

Every act of art is able to reveal, balance and revive the relations between a territory and its inhabitants (François Davin, Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue)Introducing the Understory Art in Nature TrailIn February 2015, a colossal wildfire destroyed 98,300 hectares of farm and bushland surrounding the town of Northcliffe, located 365 km south of Perth, Western Australia (WA). As the largest fire in the recorded history of the southwest region (Southern Forest Arts, After the Burn 8), the disaster attracted national attention however the extraordinary contribution of local knowledge in saving a town considered by authorities to be “undefendable” (Kennedy) is yet to be widely appreciated. In accounting for a creative scene that survived the conflagration, this case study sees culture mobilised as a socioeconomic resource for conservation and the healing of community spirit.Northcliffe (population 850) sits on a coastal plain that hosts majestic old-growth forest and lush bushland. In 2006, Southern Forest Arts (SFA) dedicated a Southern Forest Sculpture Walk for creative professionals to develop artworks along a 1.2 km walk trail through pristine native forest. It was re-branded “Understory—Art in Nature” in 2009; then “Understory Art in Nature Trail” in 2015, the understory vegetation layer beneath the canopy being symbolic of Northcliffe’s deeply layered caché of memories, including “the awe, love, fear, and even the hatred that these trees have provoked among the settlers” (Davin in SFA Catalogue). In the words of the SFA Trailguide, “Every place (no matter how small) has ‘understories’—secrets, songs, dreams—that help us connect with the spirit of place.”In the view of forest arts ecologist Kumi Kato, “It is a sense of place that underlies the commitment to a place’s conservation by its community, broadly embracing those who identify with the place for various reasons, both geographical and conceptual” (149). In bioregional terms such communities form a terrain of consciousness (Berg and Dasmann 218), extending responsibility for conservation across cultures, time and space (Kato 150). A sustainable thematic of place must also include livelihood as the third party between culture and nature that establishes the relationship between them (Giblett 240). With these concepts in mind I gauge creative impact on forest as place, and, in turn, (altered) forest’s impact on people. My abstraction of physical place is inclusive of humankind moving in dialogic engagement with forest. A mapping of Understory’s creative activities sheds light on how artists express physical environments in situated creative practices, clusters, and networks. These, it is argued, constitute unique types of community operating within (and beyond) a foundational scene of inspiration and mystification that is metaphorically “rising from the ashes.” In transcending disconnectedness between humankind and landscape, Understory may be understood to both culturalise nature (as an aesthetic system), and naturalise culture (as an ecologically modelled system), to build on a trope introduced by Feld (199). Arguably when the bush is cultured in this way it attracts consumers who may otherwise disconnect from nature.The trail (henceforth Understory) broaches the histories of human relations with Northcliffe’s natural systems of place. Sub-groups of the Noongar nation have inhabited the southwest for an estimated 50,000 years and their association with the Northcliffe region extends back at least 6,000 years (SFA Catalogue; see also Crawford and Crawford). An indigenous sense of the spirit of forest is manifest in Understory sculpture, literature, and—for the purpose of this article—the compilation CD Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests (henceforth Canopy, Figure 1).As a cultural and environmental construction of place, Canopy sustains the land with acts of seeing, listening to, and interpreting nature; of remembering indigenous people in the forest; and of recalling the hardships of the early settlers. I acknowledge SFA coordinator and Understory custodian Fiona Sinclair for authorising this investigation; Peter Hill for conservation conversations; Robyn Johnston for her Canopy CD sleeve notes; Della Rae Morrison for permissions; and David Pye for discussions. Figure 1. Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests (CD, 2006). Cover image by Raku Pitt, 2002. Courtesy Southern Forest Arts, Northcliffe, WA.Forest Ecology, Emotion, and ActionEstablished in 1924, Northcliffe’s ill-founded Group Settlement Scheme resulted in frontier hardship and heartbreak, and deforestation of the southwest region for little economic return. An historic forest controversy (1992-2001) attracted media to Northcliffe when protesters attempting to disrupt logging chained themselves to tree trunks and suspended themselves from branches. The signing of the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement in 1999 was followed, in 2001, by deregulation of the dairy industry and a sharp decline in area population.Moved by the gravity of this situation, Fiona Sinclair won her pitch to the Manjimup Council for a sound alternative industry for Northcliffe with projections of jobs: a forest where artists could work collectively and sustainably to reveal the beauty of natural dimensions. A 12-acre pocket of allocated Crown Land adjacent to the town was leased as an A-Class Reserve vested for Education and Recreation, for which SFA secured unified community ownership and grants. Conservation protocols stipulated that no biomass could be removed from the forest and that predominantly raw, natural materials were to be used (F. Sinclair and P. Hill, personal interview, 26 Sep. 2014). With forest as prescribed image (wider than the bounded chunk of earth), Sinclair invited the artists to consider the themes of spirituality, creativity, history, dichotomy, and sensory as a basis for work that was to be “fresh, intimate, and grounded in place.” Her brief encouraged artists to work with humanity and imagination to counteract residual community divisiveness and resentment. Sinclair describes this form of implicit environmentalism as an “around the back” approach that avoids lapsing into political commentary or judgement: “The trail is a love letter from those of us who live here to our visitors, to connect with grace” (F. Sinclair, telephone interview, 6 Apr. 2014). Renewing community connections to local place is essential if our lives and societies are to become more sustainable (Pedelty 128). To define Northcliffe’s new community phase, artists respected differing associations between people and forest. A structure on a karri tree by Indigenous artist Norma MacDonald presents an Aboriginal man standing tall and proud on a rock to become one with the tree and the forest: as it was for thousands of years before European settlement (MacDonald in SFA Catalogue). As Feld observes, “It is the stabilizing persistence of place as a container of experiences that contributes so powerfully to its intrinsic memorability” (201).Adhering to the philosophy that nature should not be used or abused for the sake of art, the works resonate with the biorhythms of the forest, e.g. functional seats and shelters and a cascading retainer that directs rainwater back to the resident fauna. Some sculptures function as receivers for picking up wavelengths of ancient forest. Forest Folk lurk around the understory, while mysterious stone art represents a life-shaping force of planet history. To represent the reality of bushfire, Natalie Williamson’s sculpture wraps itself around a burnt-out stump. The work plays with scale as small native sundew flowers are enlarged and a subtle beauty, easily overlooked, becomes apparent (Figure 2). The sculptor hopes that “spiders will spin their webs about it, incorporating it into the landscape” (SFA Catalogue).Figure 2. Sundew. Sculpture by Natalie Williamson, 2006. Understory Art in Nature Trail, Northcliffe, WA. Image by the author, 2014.Memory is naturally place-oriented or at least place-supported (Feld 201). Topaesthesia (sense of place) denotes movement that connects our biography with our route. This is resonant for the experience of regional character, including the tactile, olfactory, gustatory, visual, and auditory qualities of a place (Ryan 307). By walking, we are in a dialogue with the environment; both literally and figuratively, we re-situate ourselves into our story (Schine 100). For example, during a summer exploration of the trail (5 Jan. 2014), I intuited a personal attachment based on my grandfather’s small bush home being razed by fire, and his struggle to support seven children.Understory’s survival depends on vigilant controlled (cool) burns around its perimeter (Figure 3), organised by volunteer Peter Hill. These burns also hone the forest. On 27 Sept. 2014, the charred vegetation spoke a spring language of opportunity for nature to reassert itself as seedpods burst and continue the cycle; while an autumn walk (17 Mar. 2016) yielded a fresh view of forest colour, patterning, light, shade, and sound.Figure 3. Understory Art in Nature Trail. Map Created by Fiona Sinclair for Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue (2006). Courtesy Southern Forest Arts, Northcliffe, WA.Understory and the Melody of CanopyForest resilience is celebrated in five MP3 audio tours produced for visitors to dialogue with the trail in sensory contexts of music, poetry, sculptures and stories that name or interpret the setting. The trail starts in heathland and includes three creek crossings. A zone of acacias gives way to stands of the southwest signature trees karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor), jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata), and marri (Corymbia calophylla). Following a sheoak grove, a riverine environment re-enters heathland. Birds, insects, mammals, and reptiles reside around and between the sculptures, rendering the earth-embedded art a fusion of human and natural orders (concept after Relph 141). On Audio Tour 3, Songs for the Southern Forests, the musician-composers reflect on their regionally focused items, each having been birthed according to a personal musical concept (the manner in which an individual artist holds the totality of a composition in cultural context). Arguably the music in question, its composers, performers, audiences, and settings, all have a role to play in defining the processes and effects of forest arts ecology. Local musician Ann Rice billeted a cluster of musicians (mostly from Perth) at her Windy Harbour shack. The energy of the production experience was palpable as all participated in on-site forest workshops, and supported each other’s items as a musical collective (A. Rice, telephone interview, 2 Oct. 2014). Collaborating under producer Lee Buddle’s direction, they orchestrated rich timbres (tone colours) to evoke different musical atmospheres (Table 1). Composer/Performer Title of TrackInstrumentation1. Ann RiceMy Placevocals/guitars/accordion 2. David PyeCicadan Rhythmsangklung/violin/cello/woodblocks/temple blocks/clarinet/tapes 3. Mel RobinsonSheltervocal/cello/double bass 4. DjivaNgank Boodjakvocals/acoustic, electric and slide guitars/drums/percussion 5. Cathie TraversLamentaccordion/vocals/guitar/piano/violin/drums/programming 6. Brendon Humphries and Kevin SmithWhen the Wind First Blewvocals/guitars/dobro/drums/piano/percussion 7. Libby HammerThe Gladevocal/guitar/soprano sax/cello/double bass/drums 8. Pete and Dave JeavonsSanctuaryguitars/percussion/talking drum/cowbell/soprano sax 9. Tomás FordWhite Hazevocal/programming/guitar 10. David HyamsAwakening /Shaking the Tree /When the Light Comes guitar/mandolin/dobro/bodhran/rainstick/cello/accordion/flute 11. Bernard CarneyThe Destiny Waltzvocal/guitar/accordion/drums/recording of The Destiny Waltz 12. Joel BarkerSomething for Everyonevocal/guitars/percussion Table 1. Music Composed for Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests.Source: CD sleeve and http://www.understory.com.au/art.php. Composing out of their own strengths, the musicians transformed the geographic region into a living myth. As Pedelty has observed of similar musicians, “their sounds resonate because they so profoundly reflect our living sense of place” (83-84). The remainder of this essay evidences the capacity of indigenous song, art music, electronica, folk, and jazz-blues to celebrate, historicise, or re-imagine place. Firstly, two items represent the phenomenological approach of site-specific sensitivity to acoustic, biological, and cultural presence/loss, including the materiality of forest as a living process.“Singing Up the Land”In Aboriginal Australia “there is no place that has not been imaginatively grasped through song, dance and design, no place where traditional owners cannot see the imprint of sacred creation” (Rose 18). Canopy’s part-Noongar language song thus repositions the ancient Murrum-Noongar people within their life-sustaining natural habitat and spiritual landscape.Noongar Yorga woman Della Rae Morrison of the Bibbulmun and Wilman nations co-founded The Western Australian Nuclear Free Alliance to campaign against the uranium mining industry threatening Ngank Boodjak (her country, “Mother Earth”) (D.R. Morrison, e-mail, 15 July 2014). In 2004, Morrison formed the duo Djiva (meaning seed power or life force) with Jessie Lloyd, a Murri woman of the Guugu Yimidhirr Nation from North Queensland. After discerning the fundamental qualities of the Understory site, Djiva created the song Ngank Boodjak: “This was inspired by walking the trail […] feeling the energy of the land and the beautiful trees and hearing the birds. When I find a spot that I love, I try to feel out the lay-lines, which feel like vortexes of energy coming out of the ground; it’s pretty amazing” (Morrison in SFA Canopy sleeve) Stanza 1 points to the possibilities of being more fully “in country”:Ssh!Ni dabarkarn kooliny, ngank boodja kookoorninyListen, walk slowly, beautiful Mother EarthThe inclusion of indigenous language powerfully implements an indigenous interpretation of forest: “My elders believe that when we leave this life from our physical bodies that our spirit is earthbound and is living in the rocks or the trees and if you listen carefully you might hear their voices and maybe you will get some answers to your questions” (Morrison in SFA Catalogue).Cicadan Rhythms, by composer David Pye, echoes forest as a lively “more-than-human” world. Pye took his cue from the ambient pulsing of male cicadas communicating in plenum (full assembly) by means of airborne sound. The species were sounding together in tempo with individual rhythm patterns that interlocked to create one fantastic rhythm (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Composer David Pye). The cicada chorus (the loudest known lovesong in the insect world) is the unique summer soundmark (term coined by Truax Handbook, Website) of the southern forests. Pye chased various cicadas through Understory until he was able to notate the rhythms of some individuals in a patch of low-lying scrub.To simulate cicada clicking, the composer set pointillist patterns for Indonesian anklung (joint bamboo tubes suspended within a frame to produce notes when the frame is shaken or tapped). Using instruments made of wood to enhance the rich forest imagery, Pye created all parts using sampled instrumental sounds placed against layers of pre-recorded ambient sounds (D. Pye, telephone interview, 3 Sept. 2014). He takes the listener through a “geographical linear representation” of the trail: “I walked around it with a stopwatch and noted how long it took to get through each section of the forest, and that became the musical timing of the various parts of the work” (Pye in SFA Canopy sleeve). That Understory is a place where reciprocity between nature and culture thrives is, likewise, evident in the remaining tracks.Musicalising Forest History and EnvironmentThree tracks distinguish Canopy as an integrative site for memory. Bernard Carney’s waltz honours the Group Settlers who battled insurmountable terrain without any idea of their destiny, men who, having migrated with a promise of owning their own dairy farms, had to clear trees bare-handedly and build furniture from kerosene tins and gelignite cases. Carney illuminates the culture of Saturday night dancing in the schoolroom to popular tunes like The Destiny Waltz (performed on the Titanic in 1912). His original song fades to strains of the Victor Military Band (1914), to “pay tribute to the era where the inspiration of the song came from” (Carney in SFA Canopy sleeve). Likewise Cathie Travers’s Lament is an evocation of remote settler history that creates a “feeling of being in another location, other timezone, almost like an endless loop” (Travers in SFA Canopy sleeve).An instrumental medley by David Hyams opens with Awakening: the morning sun streaming through tall trees, and the nostalgic sound of an accordion waltz. Shaking the Tree, an Irish jig, recalls humankind’s struggle with forest and the forces of nature. A final title, When the Light Comes, defers to the saying by conservationist John Muir that “The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes the heart of the people is always right” (quoted by Hyams in SFA Canopy sleeve). Local musician Joel Barker wrote Something for Everyone to personify the old-growth karri as a king with a crown, with “wisdom in his bones.”Kevin Smith’s father was born in Northcliffe in 1924. He and Brendon Humphries fantasise the untouchability of a maiden (pre-human) moment in a forest in their song, When the Wind First Blew. In Libby Hammer’s The Glade (a lover’s lament), instrumental timbres project their own affective languages. The jazz singer intended the accompanying double bass to speak resonantly of old-growth forest; the cello to express suppleness and renewal; a soprano saxophone to impersonate a bird; and the drums to imitate the insect community’s polyrhythmic undercurrent (after Hammer in SFA Canopy sleeve).A hybrid aural environment of synthetic and natural forest sounds contrasts collision with harmony in Sanctuary. The Jeavons Brothers sampled rustling wind on nearby Mt Chudalup to absorb into the track’s opening, and crafted a snare groove for the quirky eco-jazz/trip-hop by banging logs together, and banging rocks against logs. This imaginative use of percussive found objects enhanced their portrayal of forest as “a living, breathing entity.”In dealing with recent history in My Place, Ann Rice cameos a happy childhood growing up on a southwest farm, “damming creeks, climbing trees, breaking bones and skinning knees.” The rich string harmonies of Mel Robinson’s Shelter sculpt the shifting environment of a brewing storm, while White Haze by Tomás Ford describes a smoky controlled burn as “a kind of metaphor for the beautiful mystical healing nature of Northcliffe”: Someone’s burning off the scrubSomeone’s making sure it’s safeSomeone’s whiting out the fearSomeone’s letting me breathe clearAs Sinclair illuminates in a post-fire interview with Sharon Kennedy (Website):When your map, your personal map of life involves a place, and then you think that that place might be gone…” Fiona doesn't finish the sentence. “We all had to face the fact that our little place might disappear." Ultimately, only one house was lost. Pasture and fences, sheds and forest are gone. Yet, says Fiona, “We still have our town. As part of SFA’s ongoing commission, forest rhythm workshops explore different sound properties of potential materials for installing sound sculptures mimicking the surrounding flora and fauna. In 2015, SFA mounted After the Burn (a touring photographic exhibition) and Out of the Ashes (paintings and woodwork featuring ash, charcoal, and resin) (SFA, After the Burn 116). The forthcoming community project Rising From the Ashes will commemorate the fire and allow residents to connect and create as they heal and move forward—ten years on from the foundation of Understory.ConclusionThe Understory Art in Nature Trail stimulates curiosity. It clearly illustrates links between place-based social, economic and material conditions and creative practices and products within a forest that has both given shelter and “done people in.” The trail is an experimental field, a transformative locus in which dedicated physical space frees artists to culturalise forest through varied aesthetic modalities. Conversely, forest possesses agency for naturalising art as a symbol of place. Djiva’s song Ngank Boodjak “sings up the land” to revitalise the timelessness of prior occupation, while David Pye’s Cicadan Rhythms foregrounds the seasonal cycle of entomological music.In drawing out the richness and significance of place, the ecologically inspired album Canopy suggests that the community identity of a forested place may be informed by cultural, economic, geographical, and historical factors as well as endemic flora and fauna. Finally, the musical representation of place is not contingent upon blatant forms of environmentalism. The portrayals of Northcliffe respectfully associate Western Australian people and forests, yet as a place, the town has become an enduring icon for the plight of the Universal Old-growth Forest in all its natural glory, diverse human uses, and (real or perceived) abuses.ReferencesAustralian Broadcasting Commission. “Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests.” Into the Music. Prod. Robyn Johnston. Radio National, 5 May 2007. 12 Aug. 2014 <http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/intothemusic/canopy-songs-for-the-southern-forests/3396338>.———. “Composer David Pye.” Interview with Andrew Ford. The Music Show, Radio National, 12 Sep. 2009. 30 Jan. 2015 <http://canadapodcasts.ca/podcasts/MusicShowThe/1225021>.Berg, Peter, and Raymond Dasmann. “Reinhabiting California.” Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California. Ed. Peter Berg. San Francisco: Planet Drum, 1978. 217-20.Crawford, Patricia, and Ian Crawford. Contested Country: A History of the Northcliffe Area, Western Australia. Perth: UWA P, 2003.Feld, Steven. 2001. “Lift-Up-Over Sounding.” The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts. Ed. David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2001. 193-206.Giblett, Rod. People and Places of Nature and Culture. Bristol: Intellect, 2011.Kato, Kumi. “Addressing Global Responsibility for Conservation through Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Kodama Forest, a Forest of Tree Spirits.” The Environmentalist 28.2 (2008): 148-54. 15 Apr. 2014 <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-007-9051-6#page-1>.Kennedy, Sharon. “Local Knowledge Builds Vital Support Networks in Emergencies.” ABC South West WA, 10 Mar. 2015. 26 Mar. 2015 <http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/03/09/4193981.htm?site=southwestwa>.Morrison, Della Rae. E-mail. 15 July 2014.Pedelty, Mark. Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2012.Pye, David. Telephone interview. 3 Sep. 2014.Relph, Edward. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion, 1976.Rice, Ann. Telephone interview. 2 Oct. 2014.Rose, Deborah Bird. Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission, 1996.Ryan, John C. Green Sense: The Aesthetics of Plants, Place and Language. Oxford: Trueheart Academic, 2012.Schine, Jennifer. “Movement, Memory and the Senses in Soundscape Studies.” Canadian Acoustics: Journal of the Canadian Acoustical Association 38.3 (2010): 100-01. 12 Apr. 2016 <http://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/2264>.Sinclair, Fiona. Telephone interview. 6 Apr. 2014.Sinclair, Fiona, and Peter Hill. Personal Interview. 26 Sep. 2014.Southern Forest Arts. Canopy: Songs for the Southern Forests. CD coordinated by Fiona Sinclair. Recorded and produced by Lee Buddle. Sleeve notes by Robyn Johnston. West Perth: Sound Mine Studios, 2006.———. Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Catalogue. Northcliffe, WA, 2006. Unpaginated booklet.———. Understory—Art in Nature. 2009. 12 Apr. 2016 <http://www.understory.com.au/>.———. Trailguide. Understory. Presented by Southern Forest Arts, n.d.———. After the Burn: Stories, Poems and Photos Shared by the Local Community in Response to the 2015 Northcliffe and Windy Harbour Bushfire. 2nd ed. Ed. Fiona Sinclair. Northcliffe, WA., 2016.Truax, Barry, ed. Handbook for Acoustic Ecology. 2nd ed. Cambridge Street Publishing, 1999. 10 Apr. 2016 <http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Soundmark.html>.

Abstract:

As the name suggests, the humanities is largely a study of the human condition, in which history sits as a discipline concerned with the past. Environmental history is a new field that brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to consider the changing relationships between humans and the environment over time. Critiques of anthropocentrism that place humans at the centre of the universe or make assessments through an exclusive human perspective provide a challenge to scholars to rethink our traditional biases against the nonhuman world. The movement towards nonhumanism or posthumanism, however, does not seem to have had much of an impression on history as a discipline. What would a nonhumanist history look like if we re-centred the historical narrative around pigs? There are histories of pigs as food (see for example, The Cambridge History of Food which has a chapter on “Hogs”). There are food histories that feature pork in terms of its relationship to multiethnic identity (such as Donna Gabaccia’s We Are What We Eat) and examples made of pigs to promote ethical eating (Singer). Pigs are central to arguments about dietary rules and what motivates them (Soler; Dolander). Ancient pig DNA has also been employed in studies on human migration and colonisation (Larson et al.; Durham University). Pigs are also widely used in a range of products that would surprise many of us. In 2008, Christien Meindertsma spent three years researching the products made from a single pig. Among some of the more unexpected results were: ammunition, medicine, photographic paper, heart valves, brakes, chewing gum, porcelain, cosmetics, cigarettes, hair conditioner and even bio diesel. Likewise, Fergus Henderson, who coined the term ‘nose to tail eating’, uses a pig on the front cover of the book of that name to suggest the extraordinary and numerous potential of pigs’ bodies. However, my intention here is not to pursue a discussion of how parts of their bodies are used, rather to consider a reorientation of the historical narrative to place pigs at the centre of stories of our co-evolution, in order to see what their history might say about humans and our relationships with them. This is underpinned by recognition of the inter-relationality of humans and animals. The relationships between wild boar and pigs with humans has been long and diverse. In a book exploring 10,000 years of interaction, Anton Ervynck and Peter Rowley-Conwy argue that pigs have been central to complex cultural developments in human societies and they played an important role in human migration patterns. The book is firmly grounded within the disciplines of zoology, anthropology and archaeology and contributes to an understanding of the complex and changing relationship humans have historically shared with wild boar and domestic pigs. Naturalist Lyall Watson also explores human/pig relationships in The Whole Hog. The insights these approaches offer for the discipline of history are valuable (although overlooked) but, more importantly, such scholarship also challenges a humanist perspective that credits humans exclusively with historical change and suggests, moreover, that we did it alone. Pigs occupy a special place in this history because of their likeness to humans, revealed in their use in transplant technology, as well as because of the iconic and paradoxical status they occupy in our lives. As Ervynck and Rowley-Conwy explain, “On the one hand, they are praised for their fecundity, their intelligence, and their ability to eat almost anything, but on the other hand, they are unfairly derided for their apparent slovenliness, unclean ways, and gluttonous behaviour” (1). Scientist Niamh O’Connell was struck by the human parallels in the complex social structures which rule the lives of pigs and people when she began a research project on pig behaviour at the Agricultural Research Institute at Hillsborough in County Down (Cassidy). According to O’Connell, pigs adopt different philosophies and lifestyle strategies to get the most out of their life. “What is interesting from a human perspective is that low-ranking animals tend to adopt one of two strategies,” she says. “You have got the animals who accept their station in life and then you have got the other ones that are continually trying to climb, and as a consequence, their life is very stressed” (qtd. in Cassidy). The closeness of pigs to humans is the justification for their use in numerous experiments. In the so-called ‘pig test’, code named ‘Priscilla’, for instance, over 700 pigs dressed in military uniforms were used to study the effects of nuclear testing at the Nevada (USA) test site in the 1950s. In When Species Meet, Donna Haraway draws attention to the ambiguities and contradictions promoted by the divide between animals and humans, and between nature and culture. There is an ethical and critical dimension to this critique of human exceptionalism—the view that “humanity alone is not [connected to the] spatial and temporal web of interspecies dependencies” (11). There is also that danger that any examination of our interdependencies may just satisfy a humanist preoccupation with self-reflection and self-reproduction. Given that pigs cannot speak, will they just become the raw material to reproduce the world in human’s own image? As Haraway explains: “Productionism is about man the tool-maker and -user, whose highest technical production is himself […] Blinded by the sun, in thrall to the father, reproduced in the sacred image of the same, his rewards is that he is self-born, an auto telic copy. That is the mythos of enlightenment and transcendence” (67). Jared Diamond acknowledges the mutualistic relationship between pigs and humans in Guns, Germs and Steel and the complex co-evolutionary path between humans and domesticated animals but his account is human-centric. Human’s relationships with pigs helped to shape human history and power relations and they spread across the world with human expansion. But questioning their utility as food and their enslavement to this cause was not part of the account. Pigs have no voice in the histories we write of them and so they can appear as passive objects in their own pasts. Traces of their pasts are available in humanity’s use of them in, for example, the sties built for them and the cooking implements used to prepare meals from them. Relics include bones and viruses, DNA sequences and land use patterns. Historians are used to dealing with subjects that cannot speak back, but they have usually left ample evidence of what they have said. In the process of writing, historians attempt to perform the miracle, as Curthoys and Docker have suggested, of restoration; bringing the people and places that existed in the past back to life (7). Writing about pigs should also attempt to bring the animal to life, to understand not just their past but also our own culture. In putting forward the idea of an alternative history that starts with pigs, I am aware of both the limits to such a proposal, and that most people’s only contact with pigs is through the meat they buy at the supermarket. Calls for a ban on intensive pig farming (RSPCA, ABC, AACT) might indeed have shocked people who imagine their dinner comes from the type of family farm featured in the movie Babe. Baby pigs in factory farms would have been killed a long time before the film’s sheep dog show (usually at 3 to 4 months of age). In fact, because baby pigs do grow so fast, 48 different pigs were used to film the role of the central character in Babe. While Babe himself may not have been aware of the relationship pigs generally have to humans, the other animals were very cognisant of their function. People eat pigs, even if they change the name of the form it takes in order to do so:Cat: You know, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m not sure if you realize how much the other animals are laughing at you for this sheep dog business. Babe: Why would they do that? Cat: Well, they say that you’ve forgotten that you’re a pig. Isn't that silly? Babe: What do you mean? Cat: You know, why pigs are here. Babe: Why are any of us here? Cat: Well, the cow’s here to be milked, the dogs are here to help the Boss's husband with the sheep, and I’m here to be beautiful and affectionate to the boss. Babe: Yes? Cat: [sighs softly] The fact is that pigs don’t have a purpose, just like ducks don’t have a purpose. Babe: [confused] Uh, I—I don’t, uh ... Cat: Alright, for your own sake, I’ll be blunt. Why do the Bosses keep ducks? To eat them. So why do the Bosses keep a pig? The fact is that animals don’t seem to have a purpose really do have a purpose. The Bosses have to eat. It’s probably the most noble purpose of all, when you come to think about it. Babe: They eat pigs? Cat: Pork, they call it—or bacon. They only call them pigs when they’re alive (Noonan). Babe’s transformation into a working pig to round up the sheep makes him more useful. Ferdinand the duck tried to do the same thing by crowing but was replaced by an alarm clock. This is a common theme in children’s stories, recalling Charlotte’s campaign to praise Wilbur the pig in order to persuade the farmer to let him live in E. B. White’s much loved children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web. Wilbur is “some pig”, “terrific”, “radiant” and “humble”. In 1948, four years before Charlotte’s Web, White had published an essay “Death of a Pig”, in which he fails to save a sick pig that he had bought in order to fatten up and butcher. Babe tried to present an alternative reality from a pig’s perspective, but the little pig was only spared because he was more useful alive than dead. We could all ask the question why are any of us here, but humans do not have to contemplate being eaten to justify their existence. The reputation pigs have for being filthy animals encourages distaste. In another movie, Pulp Fiction, Vincent opts for flavour, but Jules’ denial of pig’s personalities condemns them to insignificance:Vincent: Want some bacon? Jules: No man, I don’t eat pork. Vincent: Are you Jewish? Jules: Nah, I ain’t Jewish, I just don’t dig on swine, that’s all. Vincent: Why not? Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don’t eat filthy animals. Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood. Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherf*cker. Pigs sleep and root in sh*t. That’s a filthy animal. I ain’t eat nothin’ that ain’t got sense enough to disregard its own feces [sic]. Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces. Jules: I don’t eat dog either. Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? Jules: I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way. Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true? Jules: Well we’d have to be talkin’ about one charming motherf*ckin’ pig. I mean he’d have to be ten times more charmin’ than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I’m sayin’? In the 1960s television show Green Acres, Arnold was an exceptional pig who was allowed to do whatever he wanted. He was talented enough to write his own name and play the piano and his attempts at painting earned him the nickname “Porky Picasso”. These talents reflected values that are appreciated, and so he was. The term “pig” is, however, chiefly used a term of abuse, however, embodying traits we abhor—gluttony, obstinence, squealing, foraging, rooting, wallowing. Making a pig of yourself is rarely honoured. Making a pig of the humanities, however, could be a different story. As a historian I love to forage, although I use white gloves rather than a snout. I have rubbed my face and body on tree trunks in the service of forestry history and when the temperature rises I also enjoy wallowing, rolling from side to side rather than drawing a conclusion. More than this, however, pigs provide a valid means of understanding key historical transitions that define modern society. Significant themes in modern history—production, religion, the body, science, power, the national state, colonialism, gender, consumption, migration, memory—can all be understood through a history of our relationships with pigs. Pigs play an important role in everyday life, but their relationship to the economic, social, political and cultural matters discussed in general history texts—industrialisation, the growth of nation states, colonialism, feminism and so on—are generally ignored. However “natural” this place of pigs may seem, culture and tradition profoundly shape their history and their own contribution to those forces has been largely absent in history. What, then, would the contours of such a history that considered the intermeshing of humans and pigs look like? The intermeshing of pigs in early human history Agricultural economies based on domestic animals began independently in different parts of the world, facilitating increases in population and migration. Evidence for long-term genetic continuity between modern and ancient Chinese domestic pigs has been established by DNA sequences. Larson et al. have made an argument for five additional independent domestications of indigenous wild boar populations: in India, South East Asia and Taiwan, which they use to develop a picture of both pig evolution and the development and spread of early farmers in the Far East. Domestication itself involves transformation into something useful to animals. In the process, humans became transformed. The importance of the Fertile Crescent in human history has been well established. The area is attributed as the site for a series of developments that have defined human history—urbanisation, writing, empires, and civilisation. Those developments have been supported by innovations in food production and animal husbandry. Pig, goats, sheep and cows were all domesticated very early in the Fertile Crescent and remain four of the world’s most important domesticated mammals (Diamond 141). Another study of ancient pig DNA has concluded that the earliest domesticated pigs in Europe, believed to be descended from European wild boar, were introduced from the Middle East. The research, by archaeologists at Durham University, sheds new light on the colonisation of Europe by early farmers, who brought their animals with them. Keith Dobney explains:Many archaeologists believe that farming spread through the diffusion of ideas and cultural exchange, not with the direct migration of people. However, the discovery and analysis of ancient Middle Eastern pig remains across Europe reveals that although cultural exchange did happen, Europe was definitely colonised by Middle Eastern farmers. A combination of rising population and possible climate change in the ‘fertile crescent’, which put pressure on land and resources, made them look for new places to settle, plant their crops and breed their animals and so they rapidly spread west into Europe (ctd in ScienceDaily). Middle Eastern farmers colonised Europe with pigs and in the process transformed human history. Identity as a porcine theme Religious restrictions on the consumption of pigs come from the same area. Such restrictions exist in Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut) and in Muslim dietary laws (Halal). The basis of dietary laws has been the subject of much scholarship (Soler). Economic and health and hygiene factors have been used to explain the development of dietary laws historically. The significance of dietary laws, however, and the importance attached to them can be related to other purposes in defining and expressing religious and cultural identity. Dietary laws and their observance may have been an important factor in sustaining Jewish identity despite the dispersal of Jews in foreign lands since biblical times. In those situations, where a person eats in the home of someone who does not keep kosher, the lack of knowledge about your host’s ingredients and the food preparation techniques make it very difficult to keep kosher. Dietary laws require a certain amount of discipline and self-control, and the ability to make distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, pure and defiled, the sacred and the profane, in everyday life, thus elevating eating into a religious act. Alternatively, people who eat anything are often subject to moral judgments that may also lead to social stigmatisation and discrimination. One of the most powerful and persuasive discourses influencing current thinking about health and bodies is the construction of an ‘obesity epidemic’, critiqued by a range of authors (see for example, Wright & Harwood). As omnivores who appear indiscriminate when it comes to food, pigs provide an image of uncontrolled eating, made visible by the body as a “virtual confessor”, to use Elizabeth Grosz’s term. In Fat Pig, a production by the Sydney Theatre Company in 2006, women are reduced to being either fat pigs or shrieking shallow women. Fatuosity, a blog by PhD student Jackie Wykes drawing on her research on fat and sexual subjectivity, provides a review of the play to describe the misogyny involved: “It leaves no options for women—you can either be a lovely person but a fat pig who will end up alone; or you can be a shrill bitch but beautiful, and end up with an equally obnoxious and shallow male counterpart”. The elision of the divide between women and pigs enacted by such imagery also creates openings for new modes of analysis and new practices of intervention that further challenge humanist histories. Such interventions need to make visible other power relations embedded in assumptions about identity politics. Following the lead of feminists and postcolonial theorists who have challenged the binary oppositions central to western ideology and hierarchical power relations, critical animal theorists have also called into question the essentialist and dualist assumptions underpinning our views of animals (Best). A pig history of the humanities might restore the central role that pigs have played in human history and evolution, beyond their exploitation as food. Humans have constructed their story of the nature of pigs to suit themselves in terms that are specieist, racist, patriarchal and colonialist, and failed to grasp the connections between the oppression of humans and other animals. The past and the ways it is constructed through history reflect and shape contemporary conditions. In this sense, the past has a powerful impact on the present, and the way this is re-told, therefore, also needs to be situated, historicised and problematicised. The examination of history and society from the standpoint of (nonhuman) animals offers new insights on our relationships in the past, but it might also provide an alternative history that restores their agency and contributes to a different kind of future. As the editor of Critical Animals Studies, Steve Best describes it: “This approach, as I define it, considers the interaction between human and nonhuman animals—past, present, and future—and the need for profound changes in the way humans define themselves and relate to other sentient species and to the natural world as a whole.” References ABC. “Changes to Pig Farming Proposed.” ABC News Online 22 May 2010. 10 Aug. 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/22/2906519.htm Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania. “Australia’s Intensive Pig Industry: The Intensive Pig Industry in Australia Has Much to Hide.” 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.aact.org.au/pig_industry.htm Babe. Dir. Chris Noonan. Universal Pictures, 1995. Best, Steven. “The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: Putting Theory into Action and Animal Liberation into Higher Education.” Journal for Critical Animal Studies 7.1 (2009): 9-53. Cassidy, Martin. “How Close are Pushy Pigs to Humans?”. BBC News Online 2005. 10 Sep. 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4482674.stmCurthoys, A., and Docker, J. “Time Eternity, Truth, and Death: History as Allegory.” Humanities Research 1 (1999) 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.anu.edu.au/hrc/publications/hr/hr_1_1999.phpDiamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Dolader, Miguel-Àngel Motis. “Mediterranean Jewish Diet and Traditions in the Middle Ages”. Food: A Culinary History. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. Trans. Clarissa Botsford, Arthus Golhammer, Charles Lambert, Frances M. López-Morillas and Sylvia Stevens. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 224-44. Durham University. “Chinese Pigs ‘Direct Descendants’ of First Domesticated Breeds.” ScienceDaily 20 Apr. 2010. 29 Aug. 2010 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100419150947.htm Gabaccia, Donna R. We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Haraway, D. “The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others.” The Haraway Reader. New York: Routledge, 2005. 63-124. Haraway, D. When Species Meet: Posthumanities. 3rd ed. London: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Henderson, Fergus. Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking. London: Bloomsbury, 2004. Kiple, Kenneth F., Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas. Cambridge History of Food. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Larson, G., Ranran Liu, Xingbo Zhao, Jing Yuan, Dorian Fuller, Loukas Barton, Keith Dobney, Qipeng Fan, Zhiliang Gu, Xiao-Hui Liu, Yunbing Luo, Peng Lv, Leif Andersson, and Ning Li. “Patterns of East Asian Pig Domestication, Migration, and Turnover Revealed by Modern and Ancient DNA.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, United States 19 Apr. 2010. 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0912264107/DCSupplemental Meindertsma, Christien. “PIG 05049. Kunsthal in Rotterdam.” 2008. 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.christienmeindertsma.com/index.php?/books/pig-05049Naess, A. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement.” Inquiry 16 (1973): 95-100. Needman, T. Fat Pig. Sydney Theatre Company. Oct. 2006. Noonan, Chris [director]. “Babe (1995) Memorable Quotes”. 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112431/quotes Plumwood, V. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge, 1993. Pulp Fiction. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Miramax, 1994. RSPCA Tasmania. “RSPCA Calls for Ban on Intensive Pig Farming.” 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.rspcatas.org.au/press-centre/rspca-calls-for-a-ban-on-intensive-pig-farming ScienceDaily. “Ancient Pig DNA Study Sheds New Light on Colonization of Europe by Early Farmers” 4 Sep. 2007. 10 Sep. 2010 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070903204822.htm Singer, Peter. “Down on the Family Farm ... or What Happened to Your Dinner When it was Still an Animal.” Animal Liberation 2nd ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1990. 95-158. Soler, Jean. “Biblical Reasons: The Dietary Rules of the Ancient Hebrews.” Food: A Culinary History. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. Trans. Clarissa Botsford, Arthus Golhammer, Charles Lambert, Frances M. López-Morillas and Sylvia Stevens. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 46-54. Watson, Lyall. The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs. London: Profile, 2004. White, E. B. Essays of E. B. White. London: HarperCollins, 1979. White, E. B. Charlotte’s Web. London: HarperCollins, 2004. Wright, J., and V. Harwood. Eds. Biopolitics and the ‘Obesity Epidemic’. New York: Routledge, 2009. Wykes, J. Fatuosity 2010. 29 Aug. 2010 http://www.fatuosity.net

Abstract:

Hors d’oeuvre The popularity of cookbooks and culinary television shows in the last few years has been the origin of all sorts of new phenomena, such as literature crossing the bridge from cookbooks to such subgenres as food memoirs and culinary travelogues, or the discovery of new food cultures and food vocabulary. We can now cook the Basque menestra following the recipe of the famous blogger and cookbook author, Aran Goayaga, or try our hand at the Chinese soup tangyuan from Leslie Li’s Daughter of Heaven regardless of where we live. But how well does food translate across languages and cultures? I know what to expect from menestra as I am familiar with the Italian minestrone, which was introduced into the western dialects of Slovene as mineštra. But when reading about tangyuan, there is no mental image, much less a taste imprint, accompanying the word. Language and food are closely linked, if for nothing else, for the fact that the mouth is instrumental in both. For language, the oral cavity is the means of expression, for food it is the means for reception and tasting. It is like an intersection where language and food meet. When we reminisce about a favourite childhood dish or food, we can virtually taste it only by saying the word. The senses, supported by emotions, are a powerful tool, a reliable memory. It is for this reason that sometimes emotions are more easily expressed through food than with words, such as Tita’s longing and desperation in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. It is perhaps because of this inability to truly verbalise the wonder and deliciousness of food that when translating food between different languages and cultures, meanings and tastes can become unclear or lost. Appetiser In less exact culinary genres, such as food memoirs, difficult translations can be tackled by using approximate and roundabout descriptions. “Metaphors are very plentiful, evocative, and useful in food memoirs. They are often created to explain exotic foods and culinary practices in terms that are more familiar to [...] readers” (Waxman 373). Similarly, in an interview about multiculturalism and identity, Homi Bhabha suggests that “all forms of culture are in some ways related to each other” and thus translatable (Rutherford 209–10). However, Bhabha is also referring to metaphors, myths, and symbols. Food, however, is a very particular ingredient of culture that cannot be always expressed with metaphors when translated. Cookbooks require an exact terminology; metaphors are of little help when a soufflé collapses or steaks end up overdone. Yet despite cultural, ethnic, religious, and other differences, there are certain concepts, such as beauty, that can be almost universally appreciated. Kant’s notion of “common sense“ explains what enables us to comprehend and appreciate beauty. By this universal communicability Kant “means that humans all must have a kind of sensing ability which operates the same way” (Burnham). This sensing ability could easily be expanded onto the beauty (and deliciousness) of food. After all, just as everyone can appreciate the magnificence of a Renoir, they can enjoy the satisfying mix of spices and herbs in a steak tartare, regardless of their mother tongue. And yet, when food is transformed into a written recipe and the language becomes a barrier, the opportunity for misunderstanding becomes greater. Walter Benjamin maintains that in translation, “the transfer can never be total [...] Even when all the surface content has been extracted and transmitted, the primary concern of the genuine translator remains elusive. Unlike the words of the original, it is not translatable, because the relationship between content and language is quite different in the original and the translation” (19). Furthermore, translation “implies adapting the meaning of a proposition, enabling it to pass from one code to another” (Bourriaud 30). If translation means adaptation, then in the process we lose the nuances of dishes that differ from one village to the next, not to mention from one nation to another at the other end of the world. And with this, we can lose subtle “insights into cultures” (Waxman 364). Brett Jocelyn Epstein, a translator and editor of a number of cookbooks, enumerates several issues that cause trouble when translating culinary texts, among them the availability of ingredients, different cuts of meats, measurements, and the kitchen equipment. While all are of equal importance for the translation of a text, let us focus on the difficulties that can arise when translating the ingredients that can sometimes be essential for a dish but difficult to find in a foreign country. Epstein emphasizes that simply substituting an ingredient with a more easily obtainable one is not an appropriate solution if this is repeated throughout a cookbook for recipe after recipe, ingredient after ingredient. There are limits to the changes a translator can make in a text; limits that turn one dish into an entirely new fare with a host of new ingredients. Instead, Epstein suggests keeping the original ingredients, but adding a list of possible substitutes. National Dish Let us have a look at an edible example. In France, crème fraîche is a naturally fermented thick cream, but the version sold in the UK is fermented by adding sour cream, buttermilk, or yoghurt. In North Wales it is known as “croghurt“ (a portmanteau word for “cream and yoghurt“) (Ayto 103). Crème fraîche, although slightly sour with pH of about 4.5, is not sour cream, but in many countries sour cream is used as a substitute because the French version is unobtainable. On the contrary, in Italy, it is near impossible to find sour cream. There is no tradition of using it in Italian cuisine, and it is mostly immigrants from other countries, such as Ukrainians, Poles, or Slovenians, who use it in their cooking. Panna acida or panna agra, as sour cream is known in Italy, is being imported and only sold in selected shops. As another example, the Swedes use filmjölk and gräddfil which are most often translated as yoghurt and cultivated buttermilk respectively, although these translations are mere approximations. Filmjölk may resemble yoghurt in consistency but it is fermented by different bacteria that give it a less sour taste. Gräddfil is a little thicker than yoghurt and also not as sour. Then there are kefir, piimä, kumis, lassi, ayran, and clabber, to mention just a few related, but different, products. How do such untranslatable ingredients affect the final outcome? Crêpes with fruit and sour cream are not quite the same as with crème fraîche; sour cream lacks the creaminess of the crème and has a tangier taste. Worse still, sour cream can curdle when added to a soup and heated, while crème fraîche does not. It is evident then, that culinary translation affects more than just words. This is not, however, only a matter for chefs and cooks to consider; it is also an issue when an author wants to share traditional dishes with readers of other nationalities and especially when the core ingredients of their (or their country’s) signature dishes are not available globally. I am not here referring only to such unusual ingredients as the honeypot ants used in bush tucker. Some foods, despite the logistics accessibility of every nook and cranny of our world, are sometimes still difficult or impossible to obtain outside their place of origin simply for the lack of a high enough demand. Is it, then, better to stick to the original ingredients and keep the integrity of the recipe, or is it better to adapt the dish to another culture or let it exist between cultures? Would we rather our recipe remain a “wannabe dish” because readers are unable to find the ingredients for it, or would we prefer for them to enjoy an approximation of our creation? Linguist, anthropologist, and renowned chef, Rick Bayless, tackles the translation of food the same way he would translate languages. He introduced countless Mexican dishes into the North American cuisine through his award-winning Mexican restaurants, cookbooks, and his television show Mexico–One Plate at a Time. He looks at the issue of translation not solely from the point of view of the original cuisine, but also from the perspective of the target audience. “You have to really understand both cultures. Not just the words, not just the ingredients or the dishes out of context, but you have to understand it on a much broader perspective” (Translating Food). He is trying to present traditional Mexican dishes in a way that will make them “understandable“ in the American context. Bayless maintains that “people will cook a dish exactly the way it's done in the host culture,” but that makes it “this sort of relic that’s not understandable” in the target culture’s context. Or as German writer and poet, Rudolf Pannwitz, stated, “our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English” (qtd. in Benjamin 22). The more ingredients, the more complex the situation becomes, and sometimes a dish is near impossible to translate because of its cultural specificity. Mostly, such names of dishes are kept in the original, like polenta, sushi, or the already mentioned tangyuan. But particularly smaller nations, with subsequently smaller languages, feel the need to make their dishes more recognisable. For example, certain Slovenian dishes, such as idrijski žlikrofi, are registered as a traditional speciality (TSG) at the European Commission but even as such they often have poor recognisability. The same is true of other typical Slovenian dishes; while well known and appreciated at home, they are often quite unknown outside the country’s borders. Consequently, to reach higher recognisability, we often over-translate. Fig. 1. The Making of idrijski žlikrofi. 2013. The Author. An example of this is a Slovenian dessert whose established name in English is the “Prekmurian layer cake“ (a layered cake with apples, poppy seeds, cottage cheese and walnuts from the Prekmurje region, a region across the river Mura). However, it happens quite often that you will receive a decidedly different translation if you ask a waiter in a restaurant or people on the street what prekmurska gibanica is. Someone at some point literally translated it as the “over Mura moving cake“ (gibanica contains the morpheme gib- meaning “movement, motion“, hence “moving cake“, although it has nothing to do with moving). The wrong translation is probably mentioned more often than the correct one and it is so nonsensical that it has been preserved as a running joke, while some still think it is a correct translation. Another quandary for the translator is the existence of words that denote different dishes in one language. Within hundred kilometres of my hometown, the name fancelj refers to three different culinary delights. We use it to denote an omelette-like dish of beaten eggs with yarrow, lemon balm or other herbs occasionally added to it. In the upper Soča valley, it is known to denote doughnuts. Further to the south, fancelj stands for deep-fried buns similar to what the French call pets-de-nonne (literally “nun’s farts“). Similarly, in Swedish, the terms kaka and tårta quite often overlap in their usage and thus cause confusion when being translated into English (as cake and torte, and sometimes even as cookie, depending on the type of pastry in the original recipe). If one is not familiar with such dialectal distinctions or cultural peculiarities, it is difficult to avoid mistranslations. Such delicate translations also include the Turkish coffee that becomes Greek coffee in Greek bars, French toast that is called pain perdu in France, or Russian salad, called salade russe by the French, but French salad by Slovenians (and salat oliv’e by the Russians). Furthermore, if you order à la mode in France, you will be served beef braised with vegetables. In the US, however, you can only order à la mode for dessert as it means an apple pie or similar dessert served with ice cream (Ayto). These examples are often due to disagreements and misconceptions about who created a certain dish, and wrong usage can cause resentment among the (presumably) wronged parties. Sometimes, delicious bits of information get lost in translation. A Slovenian dialectal word knedelj is usually translated into English as dumpling, a neat and straightforward translation. But in the original word knedelj that was borrowed from the German knödel, related to kneten (Snoj 209), one can detect traces of Proto-Germanic knedanan that developed through Old Saxon knedan into Old English cnedan and today’s knead (Online Etymology Dictionary). The two words, one English and the other dialectal Slovene, originate in the same ancient expression. But I suppose only linguists would find this information worth mulling over for a few seconds before tucking into a wholesome serving of plum dumplings. Considering the aforementioned difficulties of culinary translation, it is not surprising that certain words are often simply left in the original. This is especially true of Italian dishes, such as types of pasta, or certain Asian fares (for more on translating Chinese dishes see Mu 2010). Consequently, many are now familiar with calzone, bento, farfalle, sashimi, zucchini, and zabaglione (the latter of which is also known as sabayon, zabaione, and zabajone). Even once the words find their place in their adoptive language and the users become wholly familiarised with their meaning and thus the problem of translation is avoided, another difficulty arises—that of adapting the word (morphologically) to the new language. Pine nuts in American English are also called pignoli, a word borrowed from Italian. There seems to be considerable confusion as to the plural form of the word in its English usage. Pignoli, originally a plural form of pignolo, “hovers between singular and plural in English”, where subsequently two other plural forms have appeared—pignolia and pignolis (Ayto 277). Dessert For readers, getting to know about other cultures’s foods and their preparation can be very enriching for gaining an understanding of both those particular cultures and, in turn, their own (Waxman), but for writers and translators of cookbooks, food memoirs, culinary travelogues, and other such culturally and culinary specific genres (and especially those from smaller countries), translating food expressions can be challenging. There is no simple rule that helps translate every expression or ingredient. Translations must be carried out on a case-to-case basis, sometimes compromising the food, sometimes the translation. Similarly, as more and more people become nomads in the 21st century, immigrating for economic or political reasons, family, or simply for fun, in the same way food too is becoming a “portable practice” (Bourriaud 33) that crosses boundaries, cultures, and languages. Due to this, food is taking on a new role; its functions “both unifying and divisive” (Waxman 366). The culinary translator’s task should be to translate in such a way that the divisive effect is minimised as much as possible and yet the text retains its cultural flavour. This is difficult, and requires knowledge of both the source and target languages and cultures, but ultimately it can be done. Food and language are like a pair of tango dancers—caught in a passionate embrace, but bickering constantly nonetheless, their tastes too dissimilar. Or, as Isabel Allende suggests, to seduce a lover one needs both food and words: “language is also aphrodisiac in regard to food; commenting on the dishes, their flavours and perfumes, is a sensual exercise for which we have a vast vocabulary filled with wit, metaphors, references, humour, word games, and subtleties” (106). But to seduce with words, we must first taste the food. Perhaps translators and authors of culinary texts are not all accomplished cooks, but it is of great help if they can prepare and taste the dishes and ingredients that they are attempting to adapt to new cultures and environments. References Allende, Isabel. Aphrodite, A Memoir of the Senses. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998. Ayto, John. The Diner’s Dictionary: Word Origins of Food & Drink. UK: Oxford UP, 2012. Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator.” The Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 2004. 15–25. Bourriaud, Nicolas. The Radicant. New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2010. Burnham, Douglas. “Kant’s Aesthetics.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 30 Jun. 2005. 7 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantaest›. Epstein, Brett Jocelyn. “What’s Cooking: Translating Food.” Translation Journal, 13.3 (2009). 11 Mar. 2013 ‹http://www.bokorlang.com/journal/49cooking.htm›. Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. USA: Transworld Publishers, 1989. Goayaga, Aran. Small Plates & Sweet Treats: My Family’s Journey to Gluten-free Cooking. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2012. Li, Leslie. Daughter of Heaven: A Memoir of Earthly Recipes. New York: Arcade, 2005. Mu, John Congjun. “English Translation of Chinese Dish Names.” Translation Journal 14.4 (Oct. 2010). 8 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.translationjournal.net/journal/54dishes.htm›. Online Etymology Dictionary. 12 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=knead&allowed_in_frame=0›. Rutherford, Jonathan. “The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha.” Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. Ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990. 207–221. Snoj, Marko. Slovenski etimološki slovar. Ljubljana: Modrijan založba, 2009. “Translating Food.” Visual Thesaurus 23 May 2007. 11 Mar. 2013 ‹https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wc/translating-food›. Waxman, Barbara Frey. “Food Memoirs: What They Are, Why They Are Popular, and Why They Belong in the Literature Classroom.” College English 70.4 (2008): 363–82.

Abstract:

In Ireland today, we eat more pigmeat per capita, approximately 32.4 kilograms, than any other meat, yet you very seldom if ever see a pig (C.S.O.). Fat and flavour are two words that are synonymous with pig meat, yet scientists have spent the last thirty years cross breeding to produce leaner, low-fat pigs. Today’s pig professionals prefer to use the term “pig finishing” as opposed to the more traditional “pig fattening” (Tuite). The pig evokes many themes in relation to cuisine. Charles Lamb (1775-1834), in his essay Dissertation upon Roast Pig, cites Confucius in attributing the accidental discovery of the art of roasting to the humble pig. The pig has been singled out by many cultures as a food to be avoided or even abhorred, and Harris (1997) illustrates the environmental effect this avoidance can have by contrasting the landscape of Christian Albania with that of Muslim Albania.This paper will focus on the pig in Irish cuisine and culture from ancient times to the present day. The inspiration for this paper comes from a folklore tale about how Saint Martin created the pig from a piece of fat. The story is one of a number recorded by Seán Ó Conaill, the famous Kerry storyteller and goes as follows:From St Martin’s fat they were made. He was travelling around, and one night he came to a house and yard. At that time there were only cattle; there were no pigs or piglets. He asked the man of the house if there was anything to eat the chaff and the grain. The man replied there were only the cattle. St Martin said it was a great pity to have that much chaff going to waste. At night when they were going to bed, he handed a piece of fat to the servant-girl and told her to put it under a tub, and not to look at it at all until he would give her the word next day. The girl did so, but she kept a bit of the fat and put it under a keeler to find out what it would be.When St Martin rose next day he asked her to go and lift up the tub. She lifted it up, and there under it were a sow and twelve piglets. It was a great wonder to them, as they had never before seen pig or piglet.The girl then went to the keeler and lifted it, and it was full of mice and rats! As soon as the keeler was lifted, they went running about the house searching for any hole that they could go into. When St Martin saw them, he pulled off one of his mittens and threw it at them and made a cat with that throw. And that is why the cat ever since goes after mice and rats (Ó Conaill).The place of the pig has long been established in Irish literature, and longer still in Irish topography. The word torc, a boar, like the word muc, a pig, is a common element of placenames, from Kanturk (boar’s head) in West Cork to Ros Muc (headland of pigs) in West Galway. The Irish pig had its place in literature well established long before George Orwell’s English pig, Major, headed the dictatorship in Animal Farm. It was a wild boar that killed the hero Diarmaid in the Fenian tale The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne, on top of Ben Bulben in County Sligo (Mac Con Iomaire). In Ancient and Medieval Ireland, wild boars were hunted with great fervour, and the prime cuts were reserved for the warrior classes, and certain other individuals. At a feast, a leg of pork was traditionally reserved for a king, a haunch for a queen, and a boar’s head for a charioteer. The champion warrior was given the best portion of meat (Curath Mhir or Champions’ Share), and fights often took place to decide who should receive it. Gantz (1981) describes how in the ninth century tale The story of Mac Dathó’s Pig, Cet mac Matach, got supremacy over the men of Ireland: “Moreover he flaunted his valour on high above the valour of the host, and took a knife in his hand and sat down beside the pig. “Let someone be found now among the men of Ireland”, said he, “to endure battle with me, or leave the pig for me to divide!”It did not take long before the wild pigs were domesticated. Whereas cattle might be kept for milk and sheep for wool, the only reason for pig rearing was as a source of food. Until the late medieval period, the “domesticated” pigs were fattened on woodland mast, the fruit of the beech, oak, chestnut and whitethorn, giving their flesh a delicious flavour. So important was this resource that it is acknowledged by an entry in the Annals of Clonmacnoise for the year 1038: “There was such an abundance of ackornes this yeare that it fattened the pigges [runts] of pigges” (Sexton 45). In another mythological tale, two pig keepers, one called ‘friuch’ after the boars bristle (pig keeper to the king of Munster) and the other called ‘rucht’ after its grunt (pig keeper to the king of Connacht), were such good friends that the one from the north would bring his pigs south when there was a mast of oak and beech nuts in Munster. If the mast fell in Connacht, the pig-keeper from the south would travel northward. Competitive jealousy sparked by troublemakers led to the pig keepers casting spells on each other’s herds to the effect that no matter what mast they ate they would not grow fat. Both pig keepers were practised in the pagan arts and could form themselves into any shape, and having been dismissed by their kings for the leanness of their pig herds due to the spells, they eventually formed themselves into the two famous bulls that feature in the Irish Epic The Táin (Kinsella).In the witty and satirical twelfth century text, The Vision of Mac Conglinne (Aisling Mhic Conglinne), many references are made to the various types of pig meat. Bacon, hams, sausages and puddings are often mentioned, and the gate to the fortress in the visionary land of plenty is described thus: “there was a gate of tallow to it, whereon was a bolt of sausage” (Jackson).Although pigs were always popular in Ireland, the emergence of the potato resulted in an increase in both human and pig populations. The Irish were the first Europeans to seriously consider the potato as a staple food. By 1663 it was widely accepted in Ireland as an important food plant and by 1770 it was known as the Irish Potato (Mac Con Iomaire and Gallagher). The potato transformed Ireland from an under populated island of one million in the 1590s to 8.2 million in 1840, making it the most densely populated country in Europe. Two centuries of genetic evolution resulted in potato yields growing from two tons per acre in 1670 to ten tons per acre in 1800. A constant supply of potato, which was not seen as a commercial crop, ensured that even the smallest holding could keep a few pigs on a potato-rich diet. Pat Tuite, an expert on pigs with Teagasc, the Irish Agricultural and Food Development Authority, reminded me that the potatoes were cooked for the pigs and that they also enjoyed whey, the by product of both butter and cheese making (Tuite). The agronomist, Arthur Young, while travelling through Ireland, commented in 1770 that in the town of Mitchelstown in County Cork “there seemed to be more pigs than human beings”. So plentiful were pigs at this time that on the eve of the Great Famine in 1841 the pig population was calculated to be 1,412,813 (Sexton 46). Some of the pigs were kept for home consumption but the rest were a valuable source of income and were shown great respect as the gentleman who paid the rent. Until the early twentieth century most Irish rural households kept some pigs.Pork was popular and was the main meat eaten at all feasts in the main houses; indeed a feast was considered incomplete without a whole roasted pig. In the poorer holdings, fresh pork was highly prized, as it was only available when a pig of their own was killed. Most of the pig was salted, placed in the brine barrel for a period or placed up the chimney for smoking.Certain superstitions were observed concerning the time of killing. Pigs were traditionally killed only in months that contained the letter “r”, since the heat of the summer months caused the meat to turn foul. In some counties it was believed that pigs should be killed under the full moon (Mahon 58). The main breed of pig from the medieval period was the Razor Back or Greyhound Pig, which was very efficient in converting organic waste into meat (Fitzgerald). The killing of the pig was an important ritual and a social occasion in rural Ireland, for it meant full and plenty for all. Neighbours, who came to help, brought a handful of salt for the curing, and when the work was done each would get a share of the puddings and the fresh pork. There were a number of days where it was traditional to kill a pig, the Michaelmas feast (29 September), Saint Martins Day (11 November) and St Patrick’s Day (17 March). Olive Sharkey gives a vivid description of the killing of the barrow pig in rural Ireland during the 1930s. A barrow pig is a male pig castrated before puberty:The local slaughterer (búistéir) a man experienced in the rustic art of pig killing, was approached to do the job, though some farmers killed their own pigs. When the búistéirarrived the whole family gathered round to watch the killing. His first job was to plunge the knife in the pig’s heart via the throat, using a special knife. The screeching during this performance was something awful, but the animal died instantly once the heart had been reached, usually to a round of applause from the onlookers. The animal was then draped across a pig-gib, a sort of bench, and had the fine hairs on its body scraped off. To make this a simple job the animal was immersed in hot water a number of times until the bristles were softened and easy to remove. If a few bristles were accidentally missed the bacon was known as ‘hairy bacon’!During the killing of the pig it was imperative to draw a good flow of blood to ensure good quality meat. This blood was collected in a bucket for the making of puddings. The carcass would then be hung from a hook in the shed with a basin under its head to catch the drip, and a potato was often placed in the pig’s mouth to aid the dripping process. After a few days the carcass would be dissected. Sharkey recalls that her father maintained that each pound weight in the pig’s head corresponded to a stone weight in the body. The body was washed and then each piece that was to be preserved was carefully salted and placed neatly in a barrel and hermetically sealed. It was customary in parts of the midlands to add brown sugar to the barrel at this stage, while in other areas juniper berries were placed in the fire when hanging the hams and flitches (sides of bacon), wrapped in brown paper, in the chimney for smoking (Sharkey 166). While the killing was predominantly men’s work, it was the women who took most responsibility for the curing and smoking. Puddings have always been popular in Irish cuisine. The pig’s intestines were washed well and soaked in a stream, and a mixture of onions, lard, spices, oatmeal and flour were mixed with the blood and the mixture was stuffed into the casing and boiled for about an hour, cooled and the puddings were divided amongst the neighbours.The pig was so palatable that the famous gastronomic writer Grimod de la Reyniere once claimed that the only piece you couldn’t eat was the “oink”. Sharkey remembers her father remarking that had they been able to catch the squeak they would have made tin whistles out of it! No part went to waste; the blood and offal were used, the trotters were known as crubeens (from crúb, hoof), and were boiled and eaten with cabbage. In Galway the knee joint was popular and known as the glúiníns (from glún, knee). The head was roasted whole or often boiled and pressed and prepared as Brawn. The chitterlings (small intestines) were meticulously prepared by continuous washing in cool water and the picking out of undigested food and faeces. Chitterlings were once a popular bar food in Dublin. Pig hair was used for paintbrushes and the bladder was occasionally inflated, using a goose quill, to be used as a football by the children. Meindertsma (2007) provides a pictorial review of the vast array of products derived from a single pig. These range from ammunition and porcelain to chewing gum.From around the mid-eighteenth century, commercial salting of pork and bacon grew rapidly in Ireland. 1820 saw Henry Denny begin operation in Waterford where he both developed and patented several production techniques for bacon. Bacon curing became a very important industry in Munster culminating in the setting up of four large factories. Irish bacon was the brand leader and the Irish companies exported their expertise. Denny set up a plant in Denmark in 1894 and introduced the Irish techniques to the Danish industry, while O’Mara’s set up bacon curing facilities in Russia in 1891 (Cowan and Sexton). Ireland developed an extensive export trade in bacon to England, and hams were delivered to markets in Paris, India, North and South America. The “sandwich method” of curing, or “dry cure”, was used up until 1862 when the method of injecting strong brine into the meat by means of a pickling pump was adopted by Irish bacon-curers. 1887 saw the formation of the Bacon Curers’ Pig Improvement Association and they managed to introduce a new breed, the Large White Ulster into most regions by the turn of the century. This breed was suitable for the production of “Wiltshire” bacon. Cork, Waterford Dublin and Belfast were important centres for bacon but it was Limerick that dominated the industry and a Department of Agriculture document from 1902 suggests that the famous “Limerick cure” may have originated by chance:1880 […] Limerick producers were short of money […] they produced what was considered meat in a half-cured condition. The unintentional cure proved extremely popular and others followed suit. By the turn of the century the mild cure procedure was brought to such perfection that meat could [… be] sent to tropical climates for consumption within a reasonable time (Cowan and Sexton).Failure to modernise led to the decline of bacon production in Limerick in the 1960s and all four factories closed down. The Irish pig market was protected prior to joining the European Union. There were no imports, and exports were subsidised by the Pigs and Bacon Commission. The Department of Agriculture started pig testing in the early 1960s and imported breeds from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. The two main breeds were Large White and Landrace. Most farms kept pigs before joining the EU but after 1972, farmers were encouraged to rationalise and specialise. Grants were made available for facilities that would keep 3,000 pigs and these grants kick started the development of large units.Pig keeping and production were not only rural occupations; Irish towns and cities also had their fair share. Pigs could easily be kept on swill from hotels, restaurants, not to mention the by-product and leftovers of the brewing and baking industries. Ed Hick, a fourth generation pork butcher from south County Dublin, recalls buying pigs from a local coal man and bus driver and other locals for whom it was a tradition to keep pigs on the side. They would keep some six or eight pigs at a time and feed them on swill collected locally. Legislation concerning the feeding of swill introduced in 1985 (S.I.153) and an amendment in 1987 (S.I.133) required all swill to be heat-treated and resulted in most small operators going out of business. Other EU directives led to the shutting down of thousands of slaughterhouses across Europe. Small producers like Hick who slaughtered at most 25 pigs a week in their family slaughterhouse, states that it was not any one rule but a series of them that forced them to close. It was not uncommon for three inspectors, a veterinarian, a meat inspector and a hygiene inspector, to supervise himself and his brother at work. Ed Hick describes the situation thus; “if we had taken them on in a game of football, we would have lost! We were seen as a huge waste of veterinary time and manpower”.Sausages and rashers have long been popular in Dublin and are the main ingredients in the city’s most famous dish “Dublin Coddle.” Coddle is similar to an Irish stew except that it uses pork rashers and sausage instead of lamb. It was, traditionally, a Saturday night dish when the men came home from the public houses. Terry fa*gan has a book on Dublin Folklore called Monto: Murder, Madams and Black Coddle. The black coddle resulted from soot falling down the chimney into the cauldron. James Joyce describes Denny’s sausages with relish in Ulysses, and like many other Irish emigrants, he would welcome visitors from home only if they brought Irish sausages and Irish whiskey with them. Even today, every family has its favourite brand of sausages: Byrne’s, Olhausens, Granby’s, Hafner’s, Denny’s Gold Medal, Kearns and Superquinn are among the most popular. Ironically the same James Joyce, who put Dublin pork kidneys on the world table in Ulysses, was later to call his native Ireland “the old sow that eats her own farrow” (184-5).The last thirty years have seen a concerted effort to breed pigs that have less fat content and leaner meat. There are no pure breeds of Landrace or Large White in production today for they have been crossbred for litter size, fat content and leanness (Tuite). Many experts feel that they have become too lean, to the detriment of flavour and that the meat can tend to split when cooked. Pig production is now a complicated science and tighter margins have led to only large-scale operations being financially viable (Whittemore). The average size of herd has grown from 29 animals in 1973, to 846 animals in 1997, and the highest numbers are found in counties Cork and Cavan (Lafferty et al.). The main players in today’s pig production/processing are the large Irish Agribusiness Multinationals Glanbia, Kerry Foods and Dairygold. Tuite (2002) expressed worries among the industry that there may be no pig production in Ireland in twenty years time, with production moving to Eastern Europe where feed and labour are cheaper. When it comes to traceability, in the light of the Foot and Mouth, BSE and Dioxin scares, many feel that things were much better in the old days, when butchers like Ed Hick slaughtered animals that were reared locally and then sold them back to local consumers. Hick has recently killed pigs for friends who have begun keeping them for home consumption. This slaughtering remains legal as long as the meat is not offered for sale.Although bacon and cabbage, and the full Irish breakfast with rashers, sausages and puddings, are considered to be some of Ireland’s most well known traditional dishes, there has been a growth in modern interpretations of traditional pork and bacon dishes in the repertoires of the seemingly ever growing number of talented Irish chefs. Michael Clifford popularised Clonakilty Black Pudding as a starter in his Cork restaurant Clifford’s in the late 1980s, and its use has become widespread since, as a starter or main course often partnered with either caramelised apples or red onion marmalade. Crubeens (pigs trotters) have been modernised “a la Pierre Kaufman” by a number of Irish chefs, who bone them out and stuff them with sweetbreads. Kevin Thornton, the first Irish chef to be awarded two Michelin stars, has roasted suckling pig as one of his signature dishes. Richard Corrigan is keeping the Irish flag flying in London in his Michelin starred Soho restaurant, Lindsay House, where traditional pork and bacon dishes from his childhood are creatively re-interpreted with simplicity and taste.Pork, ham and bacon are, without doubt, the most traditional of all Irish foods, featuring in the diet since prehistoric times. Although these meats remain the most consumed per capita in post “Celtic Tiger” Ireland, there are a number of threats facing the country’s pig industry. Large-scale indoor production necessitates the use of antibiotics. European legislation and economic factors have contributed in the demise of the traditional art of pork butchery. Scientific advancements have resulted in leaner low-fat pigs, many argue, to the detriment of flavour. Alas, all is not lost. There is a growth in consumer demand for quality local food, and some producers like J. Hick & Sons, and Prue & David Rudd and Family are leading the way. The Rudds process and distribute branded antibiotic-free pig related products with the mission of “re-inventing the tastes of bygone days with the quality of modern day standards”. Few could argue with the late Irish writer John B. Keane (72): “When this kind of bacon is boiling with its old colleague, white cabbage, there is a gurgle from the pot that would tear the heart out of any hungry man”.ReferencesCowan, Cathal and Regina Sexton. Ireland's Traditional Foods: An Exploration of Irish Local & Typical Foods & Drinks. Dublin: Teagasc, 1997.C.S.O. Central Statistics Office. Figures on per capita meat consumption for 2009, 2010. Ireland. http://www.cso.ie.Fitzgerald, Oisin. "The Irish 'Greyhound' Pig: an extinct indigenous breed of Pig." History Ireland13.4 (2005): 20-23.Gantz, Jeffrey Early Irish Myths and Sagas. New York: Penguin, 1981.Harris, Marvin. "The Abominable Pig." Food and Culture: A Reader. Eds. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York: Routledge, 1997. 67-79.Hick, Edward. Personal Communication with master butcher Ed Hick. 15 Apr. 2002.Hick, Edward. Personal Communication concerning pig killing. 5 Sep. 2010.Jackson, K. H. Ed. Aislinge Meic Con Glinne, Dublin: Institute of Advanced Studies, 1990.Joyce, James. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, London: Granada, 1977.Keane, John B. Strong Tea. Cork: Mercier Press, 1963.Kinsella, Thomas. The Táin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.Lafferty, S., Commins, P. and Walsh, J. A. Irish Agriculture in Transition: A Census Atlas of Agriculture in the Republic of Ireland. Dublin: Teagasc, 1999.Mac Con Iomaire, Liam. Ireland of the Proverb. Dublin: Town House, 1988.Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín and Pádraic Óg Gallagher. "The Potato in Irish Cuisine and Culture."Journal of Culinary Science and Technology 7.2-3 (2009): 1-16.Mahon, Bríd. Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink. Cork:Mercier, 1998.Meindertsma, Christien. PIG 05049 2007. 10 Aug. 2010 http://www.christienmeindertsma.com.Ó Conaill, Seán. Seán Ó Conaill's Book. Bailie Átha Cliath: Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1981.Sexton, Regina. A Little History of Irish Food. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1998.Sharkey, Olive. Old Days Old Ways: An Illustrated Folk History of Ireland. Dublin: The O'Brien Press, 1985.S.I. 153, 1985 (Irish Legislation) http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1985/en/si/0153.htmlS.I. 133, 1987 (Irish Legislation) http://www.irishstatuebook.ie/1987/en/si/0133.htmlTuite, Pat. Personal Communication with Pat Tuite, Chief Pig Advisor, Teagasc. 3 May 2002.Whittemore, Colin T. and Ilias Kyriazakis. Whitmore's Science and Practice of Pig Production 3rdEdition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.