Mink farms are a lucrative global industry, with about 50 million minks being farmed worldwide. Fighting this industry poses similar challenges to fighting other forms of factory farming.
I think fighting mink farms is substantially easier than fighting factory farms given that (1) most people eat meat, but few people wear fur, and fur is a luxury good, (2) people seem to disapprove more of fur farming than meat eating (hence all those “if you’re ok eating meat, why not wear fur?” articles, also see here), (3) the fur industry is smaller than the animal food industry, and as a result likely less powerful (global fur revenue is, I reckon, ~2 OOM lower than global meat revenue), and (4) some places (e.g. California) have banned the sale of fur, whereas that’d be nearly unthinkable for factory farms right now.
The amount of places that have banned the fur trade is actually pretty high, so I’m guessing there could continue to be good traction with more resources. Here’s a good overview (source):
Keep in mind that most mink farming takes place in Denmark and Poland.
My gut reaction is this is a map of the formerly low hanging fruit, now picked. My understanding is that most fur consumption is in China and Russia. China was willing to take extreme measures to try and suppress COVID, so maybe they’d be willing to shut down their fur trade to prevent an H5N1 pandemic? I feel pessimistic but I’m not sure why.
Yeah, that’s where I’d look next. I also linked to a proposed mink farm ban in the USA, although it got shut down pretty hard by lawmakers with mink farms in their states.
My gut reaction is this is a map of the formerly low hanging fruit, now picked
Not necessarily. Netherlands used to be bigger mink fur producer than Poland before they banned fur farming completely. I think it was more about some opportunity that came up in the right time and not just low hanging fruit. Poland almost got the fur farming ban in 2020 but political chaos stopped it.
The strategy in Europe has been to introduce the bans country by country when the opportunity appears. Sometimes it means country like Netherlands with big fur industry and sometimes country like Slovakia where one fur farm operated. This strategy has the goal to achieve the European momentum to get the EU ban. It seems that we are on the path to that.
Fighting fur on the demand side does seem more tractable than on the supply side. As I say, I’m worried that banning mink farming would result in a move to less responsible countries. But if you can make fur symbolize not only animal cruelty but also being “pro-pandemic” and socially irresponsible, I say go for it—it clearly is both of those things. If I could wave a magic wand and end the fur industry for good, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
OK, on further exploration, I am way somewhat more optimistic about shutting down the industry than I was at first, and the paranoia and insularity of fur producers makes me much more pessimistic than before about engineered biosafety improvements at fur farms, at least in Western countries. I wouldn’t be surprised if the situation is quite a bit different in authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, where I bet there’s much less animal liberation activity and, in China at least, a lot more state capacity to crack down on biohazardous practices (although perhaps China would be willing to either ban the trade or use propaganda to sanction the wearing of fur).
Interesting post!
A very minor comment:
I think fighting mink farms is substantially easier than fighting factory farms given that (1) most people eat meat, but few people wear fur, and fur is a luxury good, (2) people seem to disapprove more of fur farming than meat eating (hence all those “if you’re ok eating meat, why not wear fur?” articles, also see here), (3) the fur industry is smaller than the animal food industry, and as a result likely less powerful (global fur revenue is, I reckon, ~2 OOM lower than global meat revenue), and (4) some places (e.g. California) have banned the sale of fur, whereas that’d be nearly unthinkable for factory farms right now.
The amount of places that have banned the fur trade is actually pretty high, so I’m guessing there could continue to be good traction with more resources. Here’s a good overview (source):
Keep in mind that most mink farming takes place in Denmark and Poland.
My gut reaction is this is a map of the formerly low hanging fruit, now picked. My understanding is that most fur consumption is in China and Russia. China was willing to take extreme measures to try and suppress COVID, so maybe they’d be willing to shut down their fur trade to prevent an H5N1 pandemic? I feel pessimistic but I’m not sure why.
Putting more pressure on governments to slow down producers in Poland and Denmark could also work.
Yeah, that’s where I’d look next. I also linked to a proposed mink farm ban in the USA, although it got shut down pretty hard by lawmakers with mink farms in their states.
Not necessarily. Netherlands used to be bigger mink fur producer than Poland before they banned fur farming completely. I think it was more about some opportunity that came up in the right time and not just low hanging fruit. Poland almost got the fur farming ban in 2020 but political chaos stopped it.
The strategy in Europe has been to introduce the bans country by country when the opportunity appears. Sometimes it means country like Netherlands with big fur industry and sometimes country like Slovakia where one fur farm operated. This strategy has the goal to achieve the European momentum to get the EU ban. It seems that we are on the path to that.
Fighting fur on the demand side does seem more tractable than on the supply side. As I say, I’m worried that banning mink farming would result in a move to less responsible countries. But if you can make fur symbolize not only animal cruelty but also being “pro-pandemic” and socially irresponsible, I say go for it—it clearly is both of those things. If I could wave a magic wand and end the fur industry for good, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
OK, on further exploration, I am
waysomewhat more optimistic about shutting down the industry than I was at first, and the paranoia and insularity of fur producers makes me much more pessimistic than before about engineered biosafety improvements at fur farms, at least in Western countries. I wouldn’t be surprised if the situation is quite a bit different in authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, where I bet there’s much less animal liberation activity and, in China at least, a lot more state capacity to crack down on biohazardous practices (although perhaps China would be willing to either ban the trade or use propaganda to sanction the wearing of fur).