For agriculture to obtain at the scale of a technologically-extended political community (articulating the institutional conditions under which a population that has industrialized its food production can do so without extracting from its non-human participants or from the biosphere infrastructure on which all participation depends) the framework sets out a structural-necessity inventory specific to agriculture as biosphere-interface infrastructure. Strike any one and the remainder cannot do the work; what agricultural architecture has to deliver to count as agricultural architecture rather than as managed extraction from animals and ecosystems is all of them at once.

*Welfare-science-tracking protection scaled to capacity for suffering.* The [§7.8](<7.8 Life.md>) derivation lands here as constraint. Where welfare science has converged on the capacity for suffering in a species (mammals, birds, cephalopods, and fish at the strongest-evidence end), agricultural protection has to scale with the evidence. The framework neither flattens the gradient (treating all life as morally equivalent) nor imposes the human-versus-everything-else binary (treating non-human animals as having no morally relevant capacities). The condition is empirical-evidence-aware welfare scaling, calibrated to what the welfare-science literatures (Mellor 2017 Five Domains; Broom 1991; Fraser 2008; Mendl, Burman, and Paul 2010; EFSA 2005) currently establish and updated as those literatures develop.

*Externality internalization architecture.* Agricultural production externalities (greenhouse-gas emissions, watershed contamination, antimicrobial-resistance pressure, soil depletion, pollinator harm, labor-condition externalities) are constrained to be internalized through some mechanism (carbon pricing on agricultural emissions; watershed regulation; antibiotic-use restrictions; labor protection enforcement; soil-conservation requirements). Under unconstrained profit-maximization, agricultural externalities are externalized onto ecosystems, neighbors, public-health systems, and downstream populations to the extent the political-economic order permits. The pattern is structural (Pigou 1920; Coase 1960). Internalization architecture is required as a structural condition; specific mechanisms remain open.

*Anti-concentration at every link of the food chain.* The framework precludes agricultural concentration at scales that produce structural extraction at every link: land-ownership, seed-supply, processing, distribution, retail. The empirical record on concentration patterns (Howard 2016; the four-firm meatpacking ratios; the ABCD grain-trading concentration; seed-industry consolidation post Bayer–Monsanto and ChemChina–Syngenta) documents what the framework's structural-extraction account predicts: rents extracted at every concentrated link; political resistance to anti-concentration reform; downstream effects on food-system resilience. Specific anti-trust thresholds, land-tenure architectures, and seed-supply protections are underdetermined; the structural preclusion holds.

*Species-typical-maturity standard at end-of-life.* The framework's animal-welfare commitment derives a maturity-not-youth standard for end-of-life timing. Industrial-economic-optimum-youth killing ages (broiler chickens at 6–7 weeks against heritage-breed maturity at 5–6 months; beef cattle at 12–24 months against pre-industrial typical 3–5 years; pigs at 6 months against heritage and pasture systems at 9–18 months) are precluded. The condition is biological-maturity-tracking timing: animals reach reproductive maturity, form social bonds, complete reproductive cycles, and accumulate substantial experiential life before end-of-life. The cost multiple (roughly 3–5 times current industrial systems) is consistent with traditional animal husbandry across most pre-industrial cultures.

*Humane end-of-life trajectory as a comprehensive constraint.* The suffering-minimization commitment extends across the entire end-of-life trajectory, not solely the moment unconsciousness is induced. The structural condition covers transport conditions before killing (EU Council Regulation 1099/2009 is the regulatory baseline); handling and lairage at the facility (Grandin's facility-design work — curved chutes, non-slip flooring, reduced visual stressors — is the canonical reference); stunning protocols verified to produce reliable loss of consciousness before bleeding-out (captive bolt for cattle, electrical stunning for pigs and poultry, controlled-atmosphere stunning); the killing itself performed only on confirmed-unconscious animals; and the avoidance of conspecific-distress effects in animals capable of registering the distress of their herd or flock. Methods that minimize per-individual suffering (Wolbachia for mosquito suppression; AQUI-S sedation for fish; reproductive-suppression for population-control where licensed) are preferred where multiple methods achieve the functional outcome.

*Ecological-infrastructure maintenance.* The intergenerational stewardship obligation derived in [§9.5](<9.5 Environment.md>) lands at the agricultural-production interface as constraint on soil-microbiome integrity, pollinator-population maintenance, freshwater-system protection, atmospheric-and-seasonal stability, and genetic-diversity reserves. Agricultural systems that draw dividends from this infrastructure faster than it can maintain itself are structurally extractive on the framework's own terms. Monoculture-vulnerability patterns (the Irish Potato Famine; the 1970 Southern Corn Leaf Blight; the Panama Disease threat to Cavendish bananas; current wheat-rust and rice-blast concerns) are predicted failures of the constraint. The condition is calibration to the biosphere's actual replenishment rates, not preclusion of agricultural use.

*Producer-level-constraint preservation of consumer bodily autonomy.* The framework's agricultural constraints run at the production-system level, not at the consumer dietary-choice level. The framework does not derive any particular individual diet (veganism, vegetarianism, omnivory) and does not derive a positive obligation to consume animal products. Consumer-level diet falls under [§9.10](<9.10 Healthcare.md>) bodily-autonomy protection; the structural-extraction preclusion runs on production practices, not on what individuals eat from welfare-aware production systems. This condition distinguishes the framework's animal-welfare position from abolitionist positions that derive consumer-level obligations; the framework grounds welfare in the empirical record on capacity for suffering and runs the constraint at the structural-production interface where suffering is generated.

Together, these seven conditions are what agriculture as biosphere-interface infrastructure structurally requires: each one load-bearing, substantive agricultural architecture appearing only when all are in place. What [§9.6.3](<9.6.3 What is Predicted.md>) does next is generate predictions from those conditions.


---

← [9.6.1 What is Disputed](<9.6.1 What is Disputed.md>) | [9.6.3 What is Predicted](<9.6.3 What is Predicted.md>) →
