Farming Without Farmers: Deskilling in Industrialized Poultry Farming

Social scientists and food studies scholars have shown an enduring interest in how food is produced in our largely industrialized food system. Slaughterhouses, kitchens, and grocery stores have been scrutinized in order to... [ view full abstract ]

Social scientists and food studies scholars have shown an enduring interest in how food is produced in our largely industrialized food system. Slaughterhouses, kitchens, and grocery stores have been scrutinized in order to better understand the social processes that underpin the movement of food from farm to plate. However, there has been little research about the organization of labor in industrialized, large-scale animal agricultural operations. These sites of production are mostly privately owned and hidden away from the prying eyes of researchers and journalists, who are often perceived as critics or activists by farmers and other agriculturalists. My research fills this gap with an analysis of ethnographic data collected over six months spent working on two industrial poultry farms that are contracted with one of the largest meat firms in the US. Utilizing agricultural labor scholarship on deskilling in regards to GMO cotton and pesticide application and Braverman’s theory of deskilling in the context of monopoly capitalism, I explore how the labor process of poultry farming has become deskilled, robbing farmers of autonomy, opportunity to agitate for better labor conditions, and ultimately eroding the intimate knowledge necessary to execute successful animal husbandry.