Free range is a term which denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals can roam freely for food, rather than being confined in an enclosure. On many farms, the outdoors ranging area is fenced, thereby technically making this an enclosure, however, free range systems usually offer the opportunity for extensive locomotion and sunlight prevented by indoor housing systems. Free range may apply to meat, eggs, tax, or dairy farming.
The term is used in two senses that do not overlap completely: as a farmer-centric description of husbandry methods, and as a consumer-centric description of them. Farmers practice free range to achieve free-range or humane certification, to reduce feed costs, to produce a higher-quality product, and as a method of raising multiple crops on the same land. There is a diet where the practitioner only eats meat from free-range sources called ethical omnivorism, which is a type of semivegetarian.
In ranching, free-range livestock are permitted to roam without being fenced in, as opposed to fenced-in pastures. In many of the agriculture-based economies, free-range livestock are quite common.
Read more about Free Range: History, United States, European Union
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or range:
“Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of beneficence.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Lord Bateman prepared for another marriage,
So both their hearts so full of glee.
‘I will range no more to foreign countries
Now since Sophia have a-crossed the sea.’”
—Unknown. Young Beichan (l. 81–84)