About 20 years ago I was commissioned to edit a book based on the papers from the Compassion in World Farming’s (CIWF) 1998 conference ‘An Agriculture for the New Millennium – Animal Welfare, Poverty and Globalisation’. The result was The Meat Business: Devouring a Hungry Planet, published in paperback in 1999. I was surprised to receive a hardback copy of the book a few months ago, reissued I assume as the publisher saw the growing interest in meat, health, livestock’s role in greenhouse gas emissions and thought reprinting it in hardback and as an e-book to be timely.
Joyce D’Silva was my co-editor and then director of CIWF. Today she is CIWF’s emeritus ambassador. I thought I’d catch up with her to discuss how their work has developed over the years, its impact on how animals are kept and are treated as sentient beings. She also discusses health, climate change and what the impacts new approaches to eating are having as well as CIWF’s work on supporting regenerative agriculture in which livestock are treated humanely. We met in at the Royal Festival Hall in November where I recorded this interview.
You can find CIWF’s many research papers on sustainable and humane farming here.
Geoff Tansey blog 