Insular Cowscapes

The Azores is an archipelago known for its Edenic landscapes, strongly symbolised by cows grazing in vast pasturelands. These ‘natural’ scenarios, however, obfuscate technologies of ecological restoration resulting from cattle exploitation, which seem to be in a clear collision with the perception of the Azorean scenery as ‘a good way of life’. Impelled by the focus of this Footprint issue, I recently visited two farms in São Miguel Island: a medium-size dairy farm and an intensive beef farm. Through this field inquiry, in this article I intend to problematise the fabrication of productive farming landscapes or, rather, the production of cowscapes. The current livestock political vision appears as twofold: a restorative ideal, promoting the ‘return to’ a supposed bucolic state; and the synchronization of livestock activities through the reconfiguration of the terrain, machines, animals and work. The triad efficiency-optimisation-specialisation might be symptomatic of the current path in the archipelago, within which extensive farming translates into an increased farmland footprint. After all, more efficiency requires more pastureland. Ultimately, the contemporary Azorean cowscapes perpetuate the loss of resilience in global food systems, and the island is only the beginning of the evidentiary trail.