Animal FarmingAfter the Age of the Carnivore: How Changing the Diet Could Transform the LandscapeLara Biesser and Ella Willemse

In Switzerland, most of the animal meat is consumed as ready-to-cook cutlet, steak, minced meat, or chicken breast, among others, from the supermarket. The access to such processed foods is possible thanks to the introduction of mechanisation and automatisation in animal farming and slaughtering in the 20th century. Alongside this industrialisation, the production of meat became increasingly invisible to the consumer’s eye.

Animal husbandry is a tradition in many countries of the world and in certain areas it still represents the essential basis of nutrition, with each country having its own practices and rituals. In Switzerland, the cow is traditionally the most important farm animal. It can almost be considered a national symbol, representing not only the diversity of dairy products, but also the mountainous landscapes in which it lives.

The Zürcher Oberland, a region located in the southeast of the Canton of Zurich, is a multifaceted landscape, with crop cultivation on the lower parts and animal husbandry in the pre-alpine zones, according to the land’s conditions. Zones with potential for crop cultivation are merely used for pastures. Do the climatic conditions not allow for this type of agriculture or is it economically justified?

The agricultural sector in Switzerland, heavily dependant on subsidies, is in crisis. While the subsidies aim at maintaining the self-sufficiency rate and the conserving a bucolic landscape, other values are left out, such as animal welfare. How could a shift in our everyday diet make a change?

Reducing meat consumption can enable the emergence of new and diverse landscapes and practices based on coexistence and collaboration between human and non-human communities.