The fence protects the crop by declaring one appetite legitimate and another a problem.

A fence draws a line between two hungers and grants only one of them standing. Both the crop and the animal are pursuing exactly the same thing, and what makes one legitimate is ownership, which nothing outside human arrangements recognises. The barrier enforces a claim that the world does not otherwise contain.

This is not an argument against fences, which are often necessary. It is a reason to be honest about what they are. When you defend a boundary, you are asserting a claim rather than describing a natural fact, and knowing that keeps you from treating everyone on the other side as though they were doing something obviously wrong.