The Farm Myth: Fantasy Farms, Factory Farming
A Meat and Dairy Industries Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Vita Sleigh, AnimalsAndSociety.org
March 2019

The farm myth is created and sustained in three main ways: Romanticization: The books romanticize the reality of farms in a way that is not accurate about the lives of farmed animals. This rosy view of farms can outlast childhood into adulthood, leaving the legacy exploitable by advertisements for animal products. Absence: The absence of suffering or death in the books constitutes deceit by omission. Myth: The ways that inaccuracies are presented as fact, and how this misrepresentation can seamlessly develop into outright lies.

That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals, Ruby Roth, 2009

“It is an indication of the extent to which people are now isolated from the animals they eat that children brought up on storybooks that lead them to think of a farm as a place …[of] …idyllic conditions might be able to live out their entire lives without ever being forced to revise this rosy image” (Singer 1975).

In the forty years since Singer wrote his landmark book Animal Liberation, a farm myth still persists: a fairy-tale image of farming which is firmly rooted in children’s books about farms. Animal rights organizations have improved quality of footage and technologies with which to show images of farming, dissemination of which has been greatly helped by the rise of social media. As more people understand the truth about factory farming and seek alternatives, rosy perceptions of so-called “high welfare,” “free range,” and “humane” farms are pressed on buyers through the farm myth imagery in advertisements and packaging.

Children’s books about farms may be for many children their first introduction to conceptualizing animals within a framework of anthropocentrism and objectification. The impact of children’s books about farms is long-lasting: it is a cultural myth which acts as one of many barriers to people finding out, or fully comprehending, the reality of how animals who are (ab)used for food live their lives. For these reasons it is imperative that illustrators, publishers, and writers make a commitment to championing children’s books that do not romanticize or sanitize the farming industry or objectify farmed animals.

The farm myth is created and sustained in three main ways:

1. Romanticization: The books romanticize the reality of farms in a way that is not accurate about the lives of farmed animals. This rosy view of farms can outlast childhood into adulthood, leaving the legacy exploitable by advertisements for animal products.
2. Absence: The absence of suffering or death in the books constitutes deceit by omission.
3. Myth: The ways that inaccuracies are presented as fact, and how this misrepresentation can seamlessly develop into outright lies.
   The four examples of books about farms have been chosen for the span in suggested reading ages (between four and ten years old). Due to practical limitations, all four examples are written in English and set in Western cultures.

You can read the entire ARTICLE HERE (pdf)

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