What’s Wrong With Factory Farms

What is a Factory Farm? Factory farming is a system of large-scale industrialized and intensive agriculture, that is focused on profit with animals kept indoors and restricted in mobility. Factory Farming, also known as CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations). In Factory Farms, Cows, Pigs, Calves, Turkeys, Chickens, Geese, Ducks, and many others are raised in order to produce flesh, milk, and eggs. Factory farming pollutes the environment , affects animals, public health, especially those who live close to such farms. Nowadays, there are many debates about factory farming.

Types of Factory Farms Beef Cattle: 500+ head Dairy Cattle: 500+ head Hogs: 1,000 head Boiler chickens: 500,000 sold annually Egg laying chickens: 100,000

Factory Farming Is Getting Big Factory farming is a fast growing industry that compromises almost 99% of all farmed animals raised and slaughtered in the U.S. There are more than 20,000 factory farms in the U.S. The question is: Should animals be raised on small family farms or produced in large factories that deliver animals in large quantities? Many experts say that family farms have to be the main source, because they are they only ones who care about the Air, Water, and Soil. Factory farming drives rural farmers out of business, threatens the quality of life, as well as individuals and their families who have to live near these farms.

Stressful Living Conditions Animal’s suffering is not taken into consideration by consumers and producers of meat, dairy products, and eggs. Producers do not want to stop killing animals or even change their methods or personal approach to this problem, searching for high profits. They live in stressful situations that make them suffer all their lives, such as small and crowded enclosures and cages. Many people are aware of this fact, but they do not consider that animals can suffer the same way humans can.

Pollution Factory farming pollutes the environment, affects animals, public health, especially those who live close to such farms. Even people thousand of mile away from these facilities are not immune to their impacts. Livestock and poultry on the largest farms in 2012 produced 396 million tons of manure. Factory farm manure is stored in lagoons and ultimately applied, untreated, to farm fields as fertilizer. Factory farms produce so much waste in one place that it must be applied to land in quantities that exceed the soil’s ability to incorporate it. Small, diversified farms have always used manure as fertilizer without polluting water.

How did we get to this point? The rise of factory farming is no accident. It is the result of public policy designed to benefit big meat packers and food processors that dominate the critical steps between farm and consumer. Industrial farms cause smaller farms to go out of business by mass producing food. Their method is efficiency is they key to production, despite the use of unnatural chemicals, genetic engineering, and inhumane methods of treating livestock.

Why do we support Factory Farming? Increased amounts of food means that food prices can drop and make it easier for consumers to feed themselves and their families. With a growing population the government supports industrial farming. A trend in America is “Bigness”; that implies larger acreage and field equipment, two factors that family farmers cannot afford. To replace the empty spaces of the agricultural market there will be a few large corporate companies.

Solutions There are many solutions to the farms, the most obvious being shut down the farms all together, but this solution would not work because they are far to large and profitable of an industry to shut down. A feasible solution would be to enforce the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act, and make an amendment so that it applies to birds as well. We can also create laws stating livestock should have enough room to move, so that they aren’t confined to one tiny space their entire lives. Laws can also be made requiring any runoff from farms to be stopped or collected before it infests other places. Stricter laws can also be put into place regulating what meat can be put on the market, that way meat from infected cows or pigs or chickens is not sold in the market, possibly infecting humans.

Conclusion Many debates are held by experts and specialists about this issue. Animals in the large factory farms live in stressful situations that make them suffer all their lives. It is important to realize moral, economic, and ethical issues of this problem. Factory farming pollutes environment, affects animals, public health, especially those, who live close to such farms. The factory farming industry is harmful for human life as well as environment and global warming. The idea to turn back to small family farms is worth to be more investigated and overviewed. Those, who eat meat, eggs and dairy products, have to think about conditions, where animals were raised. Moral and ethical norms are important in raising animals with the aim of healthy eating.