Factory farming
Try to think of the last piece of meat you ate. Now think of the animal it came from and where that animal lived.
Are you thinking of a green pasture stretching for miles? A cool patch of mud next to a big red barn?
Unfortunately, you’ll have to think again.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “Factory farming now accounts for more than 99 percent of all farmed animals raised and slaughtered in the U.S.” Many people have a misunderstanding of what exactly a factory farm is, so let’s look at that now.
Factory farming refers to the process of raising animals in confinement at high stocking density in an effort to produce the highest output at the lowest costs. This translates to filling a farm to the max with animals to produce as much cheap meat and animal by-products as possible by operating as a factory. A variety of artificial methods, such as supplements and growth hormones, are employed to maintain animal health and improve production. Factory farming also requires the preemptive use of antibiotics and pesticides to alleviate the spread of disease, which is amplified by the crowded living conditions. Animals, typically cows, pigs, turkey, or chickens, often live in barren, unnatural conditions with little or no room to exercise and behave naturally or even to turn around, resulting in diseases such as lameness, digestive problems, and osteoporosis. Sometimes, physical restraints are even used on animals to control movement and prevent actions regarded as undesirable.
The size of these operations is hard to image. Cattle farms generally contain thousands of cows in one place and many egg-laying chicken houses hold one million or more chickens. Extreme selective breeding is also employed to produce animals that are more suited to living in confined conditions and are able to provide a higher yield. This leads to major health problems such as skeletal disease in chickens and mastitis in dairy cows. Animals are even mutilated to adapt them to factory farming conditions; this includes de-beaking (the cutting off of chickens’ and turkey’s beaks) and docking (amputating cows’ and pigs’ tails).
Sadly, this isn’t the end of it. According to Leland Swenson, the president of the U.S. National Farmer’s Union, four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs, and 50 percent of chickens in the United States. This system is a massive consolidation of power that is then used against small farmers, making it impossible for them to compete. Having the ownership of all aspects of the production process - including breeding, feed production, slaughter, packaging, and distribution–diminishes the corporations’ accountability for and publicity of their irresponsible practices. Factory farms also pay ridiculously low wages for dangerous work, commonly to illegal immigrants and underage workers, in part because they are less likely to report the numerous injuries they endure (saving the corporation money) and the terrible conditions they work and the animals live in (saving them having to explain themselves to the public).
The low price tags that we see in the supermarkets don’t reflect the actual cost of the factory farmed product. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars go to cleaning up the pollution that goes hand-in-hand with factory farms, to paying the medical costs for those living near such pollution, and to government subsidies for large industrial farms.
These sorts of practices are possible because the farms employ very powerful lobbyists who can sway governmental agencies, leaving them free to pollute, to employ undocumented workers, and to locate their business just about anywhere. In my opinion, factory farms and the huge corporations that own them are at the root of the current environmental, ethical, economical, and health issues that the United States is battling today, and the only way to stop them is to stop buying from them.
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The size of these operations is hard to image. Cattle farms generally contain thousands of cows in one place and many egg-laying chicken houses hold one million or more chickens. Extreme selective breeding is also employed to produce animals that are more suited to living in confined conditions and are able to provide a higher yield. This leads to major health problems such as skeletal disease in chickens and mastitis in dairy cows. Animals are even mutilated to adapt them to factory farming conditions; this includes de-beaking (the cutting off of chickens’ and turkey’s beaks) and docking (amputating cows’ and pigs’ tails).
Sadly, this isn’t the end of it. According to Leland Swenson, the president of the U.S. National Farmer’s Union, four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs, and 50 percent of chickens in the United States. This system is a massive consolidation of power that is then used against small farmers, making it impossible for them to compete. Having the ownership of all aspects of the production process - including breeding, feed production, slaughter, packaging, and distribution–diminishes the corporations’ accountability for and publicity of their irresponsible practices. Factory farms also pay ridiculously low wages for dangerous work, commonly to illegal immigrants and underage workers, in part because they are less likely to report the numerous injuries they endure (saving the corporation money) and the terrible conditions they work and the animals live in (saving them having to explain themselves to the public).
The low price tags that we see in the supermarkets don’t reflect the actual cost of the factory farmed product. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars go to cleaning up the pollution that goes hand-in-hand with factory farms, to paying the medical costs for those living near such pollution, and to government subsidies for large industrial farms.
These sorts of practices are possible because the farms employ very powerful lobbyists who can sway governmental agencies, leaving them free to pollute, to employ undocumented workers, and to locate their business just about anywhere. In my opinion, factory farms and the huge corporations that own them are at the root of the current environmental, ethical, economical, and health issues that the United States is battling today, and the only way to stop them is to stop buying from them.
Source
The factory farming system of modern agriculture strives to produce the most meat, milk, and eggs as quickly and cheaply as possible, and in the smallest amount of space possible.
Cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, rabbits, and other animals are kept in small cages or stalls, often unable to turn around.
They are deprived of exercise so that all their bodies’ energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk for human consumption. They are fed drugs to fatten them faster and are genetically altered to grow faster or to produce much more milk or eggs than they would naturally.
Because crowding creates a prime atmosphere for disease, animals on factory farms are fed and sprayed with huge amounts of pesticides and antibiotics, which remain in their bodies and are passed on to the people who eat them, creating serious human health hazards.
The animals are also fed growth hormones to speed their growth so that they can be slaughtered more quickly. Under normal circumstances it takes a calf over two years to reach full maturity. With growth hormones it takes half that time and the hormones and antibiotics that have been fed to the animals are then passed on to the consumer in the meat they buy. This is causing early physical maturity in children and lowering people’s immune resistance.
In addition to growth hormones, the animals are fed a high-carbohydrate diet of genetically modified soy, corn, and other grains for the purpose of producing plumper and more tender meat. Because this is not the animals’ natural diet, they experience difficulty with digestion and excrete excessive quantities of methane gas, which moves into the upper atmosphere adding to the greenhouse gases. It is currently estimated that almost 50% of greenhouse gas is methane.
The feces of grain-fed animals also contains high levels of e-coli, a deadly bacteria that contaminates soil and water run-off. The contamination can spread to fruit and vegetable crops, which we have already seen in the forced recalls of products like peanuts and spinach. If you ever hear about food products being recalled due to e-coli contamination, you can be sure there is a factory farm behind it.
As it happens, meat-processing is one of the most dangerous jobs one can do. Because of this, many meat processing plants are manned by illegal immigrants and workers who have no other options. These workers are exposed to toxins in the raw meat, and in the feces that runs from the intestines of the slaughtered animals.
So although the packages in the meat section of the supermarket look pristine and appealing, they are full of hormones, antibiotics and traces of excrement – not very appetizing.
11 facts
about animals & factory farms
- A factory farm is a large-scale industrial operation that houses thousands of animals raised for food—such as chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs—and treats them with hormones and antibiotics to prevent disease and maximize their growth and food output.
- Feeding animals antibiotics on a consistent basis may cause the humans that consume them to lose some of their ability to fight certain strains of bacteria.
- The beaks of chickens, turkeys and ducks are often removed in factory farms to reduce the excessive feather pecking and cannibalism seen among stressed, overcrowded birds.
- Animals are often force bred to produce young at unnaturally accelerated rates, causing them exhaustion and stress.
- Animals headed for slaughter who become too sick or injured to walk unassisted are forced onto slaughter trucks, often with a bulldozer.
- Confining so many animals in one place produces much more waste than the surrounding land can handle. As a result, factory farms are associated with various environmental hazards, such as water, land and air pollution.
- People who live in close proximity to factory farms often complain of high incidents of illness.
- To make foie gras, a popular French delicacy, birds are fed large quantities of food via a pipe that is inserted into the esophagus. This can lead to enlargement of the animal's liver and possible rupturing of the internal organs, infection and a painful death.
- From birth to slaughter at five months, calves used to produce "formula-fed" or "white" veal are confined to two-foot-wide crates and chained to inhibit movement. The lack of exercise retards muscle development, resulting in pale, tender meat.
- Egg-laying hens are sometimes starved for up to 14 days, exposed to changing light patterns and given no water in order to shock their bodies into molting, a usually natural process by which worn feathers are replaced. It’s common for 5-10% of hens to die during the forced molting process.
- After one or two years of producing eggs at an unnaturally high rate, female fowl are classified as "spent hens.” No longer financially profitable for factory farmers, they are slaughtered.
Meat production has more than trebled since the 1960s from 71 million tonnes to over 280 million tonnes in 2008 (FAO).
A kilogram of factory farmed beef takes the equivalent of 90 bathtubs of water to produce, much of it drawn from rivers and aquifers.
There are 26 million laying hens currently producing eggs in the UK; around 55% of these are kept in battery cages.
There are over 240 million cows used to produce milk in the world, including over 24 million in the EU27, nine million in the USA and around two million in the UK.
Two out of every three farm animals in the world are now factory farmed.
A typical stocking density in the UK and Europe for broiler chickens is equivalent to around 17–20 birds per square metre by six weeks of age, i.e. a space allowance of less than one A4 sheet of paper per chicken.
Overuse of antibiotics in animals is causing more strains of drug-resistant bacteria, which is affecting the treatment of various life-threatening diseases in humans.
Commercial laying hens are slaughtered after only 12 months of laying, when their productivity begins to decline. Their ancestors – the jungle fowl – naturally live for around 10 years.
Livestock consumes a third of the global grain harvest.
Two hundred cows can produce as much manure as a town of 10,000 people.
Worldwide, about 60 billion farm animals are now slaughtered for food each year.
Over 70% of globally threatened wild birds are said to be impacted by agricultural activities.
An area of land equivalent to the size of the European Union is used to grow feed for farm animals.
A gestation crate – or sow stall – confines a sow during her 114 day pregnancy. It is so small that she cannot even turn around. Sow stalls are illegal in the UK and their use will be restricted to the first 4 weeks of pregnancy in the EU from 2013.
Factory farmed chickens are bred to reach a weight of 2.2 kilograms in just seven weeks, this is well beyond their natural limits and causes great suffering.
There are more animals factory farmed in the world now than at any other time in history.
Worldwide, aquaculture has increased at an average rate of 9.2% per year since 1970, compared with 1.4% for capture fisheries and 2.8% for agricultural livestock production. Around 40% of all fish directly consumed by humans is now farmed
A chicken shed holding 100,000 broiler chickens for meat can emit up to 77 kilos of polluting dust every day.
On average, to produce 1kg of animal protein requires nearly 6kg of protein in the form of feed grains.
Mortality rates of farmed fish are often very high compared with other farmed animals. For example, mortality of salmon reared in sea cages in Scotland is around 21%. Such high mortality rates would not be considered acceptable in other branches of farming.
Globally, the current livestock industry overall contributes to 18 per cent of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions – more than the entire contribution of human transport. (this amount has been corrected by the UN since this publication and is estimated to be much much higher - see video above)
Chickens will naturally live for 6 or more years. After 12 months, the hen’s productivity will start to decline. This is when most commercial laying hens are slaughtered.
Growth-enhanced transgenic Atlantic salmon have been produced that can grow 3-6 times faster than ordinary salmon.
Every year, an area of forest equivalent to half the UK is cleared, largely to grow animal feed and for cattle ranching.
A typical supermarket chicken today contains nearly three times more fat, and about a third less protein than 40 years ago.
Whereas a suckler cow would naturally produce around 4 litres of milk per day, a dairy cow will produce around 22 litres per day for a period of 10 months.
Around 30% of the nitrogen that pollutes water in the EU and US is from livestock, more than 70% in China.
Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout are often starved for several days, sometimes for two weeks or more, before slaughter to empty the gut. Such prolonged periods of starvation are unacceptable from a welfare viewpoint. Starvation or feed reduction is also sometimes used to adapt production levels to the market situation. The purpose is to keep the fish off the market when market prices are low in the hope that prices will rise before the fish have to be sold.
About two-thirds of chickens on sale in the UK have been found to be contaminated with the food poisoning bug, campylobacter.
Dairy cows typically live to their third lactation before being culled. Naturally, a cow can live for 20 years.
Farm animals are more prone to campylobacter infection when stressed.
For the production of foie-gras, force-feeding increases the size of the liver by up to ten times and the fat content of the liver exceeds 50%.
Piglets born into factory farms are often castrated; have their tails docked and their teeth clipped, usually without any form of anaesthesia.
In 2009 the UK slaughtered around 800 million chickens, resulting in around 1.2 million tonnes of chicken meat. The average poultry meat consumption in the UK is just less than 30 kg per person per year, with a total consumption of around 1.6 million tonnes (2008)
In order to continue to produce milk, dairy cows must calve yearly and will typically become pregnant again three months after calving.
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European Union and United Nations
calls for a global shift to a vegan diet
to survive hunger, poverty and climate change
Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change, UN report says (06/2010)
A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.
As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.
It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."
Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: "Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."
The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.
The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth, they said.
Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel, said: "Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides."
Both energy and agriculture need to be "decoupled" from economic growth because environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income, the report found.
Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UNEP, said: "Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent challenge of poverty alleviation."
The panel, which drew on numerous studies including the Millennium ecosystem assessment, cites the following pressures on the environment as priorities for governments around the world: climate change, habitat change, wasteful use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers, over-exploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure to particulate matter.
Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, says the report, which has been launched to coincide with UN World Environment day on Saturday.
Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said that food production would have to increase globally by 70% by 2050 to feed the world's surging population. The panel says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.
Prof Hertwich, who is also the director of the industrial ecology programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that developing countries – where much of this population growth will take place – must not follow the western world's pattern of increasing consumption: "Developing countries should not follow our model. But it's up to us to develop the technologies in, say, renewable energy or irrigation methods."
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