In a country like India, with a long history of Ahimsa, respect for life and so vegetarianism, the battle for vegetarianism is being waged by religious and moral groups as well as environmentalists and doctors who appreciate the benefits of the vegetarian approach. In Britain the surge to vegetarianism has been very marked in the last twenty years so that now vegetarians are no longer seen as strange or odd but part of the mainstream. Vegetarian meals are available in all parts of the country and young people are moving towards vegetarianism. Supermarkets display a good range of vegetarian products, making shopping much easier, and drawing the attention of meat eaters to the wide variety of good healthy and humane feeds which vegetarians eat. Such developments are increasingly being mirrored in other countries.
Modern technology has a great deal to answer for in relation to human treatment of animals.
Recently, the rise in biotechnology and genetic engineering has led to new ways of using animals for human purposes, and morality seems to be little considered when thinking of the ways in which species can be engineered to enable humans to more fully exploit them. If humans have rights over animals, it can equally be argued they have responsibilities. This means they need to consider the animal, its welfare and its good. Unfortunately, the present situation suggests these issues are given little, if any, attention by the vast majority of people. The only issues which concern them is maximising the economic return from the animals.