Milking Welfare: Agricultural Technology and Subject Formation on the Industrial Dairy Farm

Abstract

Agricultural intensification and animal welfare are being pursued simultaneously in the dairy industry through a range of technologies, including sensors, machine learning, robotics, biotechnology, and more. Through this process, the subjective experiences of cows (e.g., pain, pleasure, comfort, fear, stress) become included in the commodification of dairy products in the market. I aim to understand how the use of these technologies in relation to the subjective experiences of cows shapes industrial modes of production. I examine scholarship, government publications, and journalism regarding welfare and technology in the dairy industry to identify how production is being structured by welfare technology, and how this is impacting relationships of power between cows and humans. I draw a theoretical foundation from Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy of biopolitics to conceptualize cows as political subjects in relation to humans through the conferring of rights to welfare and the demanding of duties of productivity. I argue that, rather than limiting or reducing violence on the farm, the operationalization of these technologies changes the experience of industrial modes of production by cows and consumers, and reorients the conditions for the exploitation and disciplining of cows to perpetuate these practices in the industry.