Global InformationCommodity status of animals information
The commodity status of animals is the legal status as property of most non-human animals, particularly farmed animals, working animals and animals in sport, and their use as objects of trade.[1][2][3][n 1] In the United States, free-roaming animals (ferae naturae) are (broadly) held in trust by the state; only if captured can be claimed as personal property.[a][6]
Animals regarded as commodities may be bought, sold, given away, bequeathed, killed, and used as commodity producers: producers of meat, eggs, milk, fur, wool, skin and offspring, among other things.[7][8] The exchange value of the animal does not depend on quality of life.[9]
The commodity status of livestock is evident in auction yards, where they are tagged with a barcode and traded according to certain qualities, including age, weight, sex and breeding history.[10][11][n 2]
In commodity markets, animals and animal products are classified as soft commodities, along with goods such as coffee and sugar, because they are grown, as opposed to hard commodities, such as gold and copper, which are mined.[12][n 3]
Researchers identify viewing animals as commodities by humans as a manifestation of speciesism.[14] The vegan and animal rights movements, chiefly the abolitionist approach, of the twentieth century calls for eliminating the commodity or property status of animals.
- ^ Rhoda Wilkie, "Animals as Sentient Commodities" Archived 2016-02-13 at the Wayback Machine, in Linda Kalof (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Oxford University Press (forthcoming; Wilkie's article, August 2015). doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.16
Rhoda Wilkie, "Sentient Commodities: The Ambiguous Status of Livestock," Livestock/Deadstock: Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2010, pp. 115–128; 176–177.
Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker, "The Problem with Commodifying Animals," in Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker (ed.), Strangers to Nature: Animal Lives and Human Ethics, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012, pp. 157–175. ISBN 978-0-7391-4549-4.
That companion animals are commodities, Lori Gruen, Ethics and Animals, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 156.
- ^ Rosemary-Claire Collard, Jessica Dempsey, "Life for Sale? The Politics of Lively Commodities", Environment and Planning, 45(11), November 2013. doi:10.1068/a45692
- ^ "United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database" Archived 2016-01-13 at the Wayback Machine, UN ComTrade.
"Health standards: commodity-based approach" Archived 2016-02-13 at the Wayback Machine, OiE, World Organization for Animal Health.
- ^ David N. Cassuto, "Owning What You Eat: The Discourse of Food," in J. Ronald Engel, Laura Westra, Klaus Bosselman (eds.), Democracy, Ecological Integrity and International Law, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, p. 314; also see pp. 306–320.
- ^ Samantha Hillyard, The Sociology of Rural Life, Berg, 2007, p. 70.
- ^ Joan E. Shaffner, An Introduction to Animals and the Law, Palgrace Macmillan, 2001, pp. 19–20.
- ^ a b Rosemary-Claire Collard, Kathryn Gillespie, "Introduction," in Kathryn Gillespie, Rosemary-Claire Collard (eds.), Critical Animal Geographies, London: Routledge, 2015, p. 2.
- ^ Francione 2004, p. 116.
- ^ Cassuto 2009, p. 314.
- ^ Wilkie 2010, pp. 73ff, 79–81.
- ^ Kathryn Gillespie, "Nonhuman animal resistance and the improprieties of live property," in Irus Braverman (ed.), Animals, Biopolitics, Law, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2015, pp. 117–118; also see the section "The Animal-as-Commodity," p. 121ff.
- ^ Patrick Maul, Investing in Commodities, Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag GmbH, 2011, p. 8, table c.
- ^ Commodity Exchange Act, U.S. Code § 1a - Definitions, Cornell University Law School.
- ^ Brügger, Paula (2020). The Capitalist Commodification of Animals. Chapter: Animals and Nature: The Co-modification of the Sentient Biosphere (Research in Political Economy, Vol. 35) (1 (Brett Clark, Tamar Diana Wilson, eds.) ed.). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited. pp. 33–58. ISBN 978-1-83982-681-8.
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