{"id":3327,"date":"2022-11-14T02:35:28","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T02:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farmforward1.wpengine.com\/?page_id=3327"},"modified":"2023-04-11T10:53:53","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T14:53:53","slug":"factory-farming-impact-animals-enivronment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.farmforward.com\/issues\/climate-and-the-environment\/factory-farming-impact-animals-enivronment\/","title":{"rendered":"Factory farming: Impact on animals, workers, environment, & more"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Prior to the industrialization of agriculture<\/a>, farmed animals typically roamed outdoors on small, independent, family-owned farms that produced a variety of foods. But recent decades have seen unparalleled changes in how animals are reared. A drive for increased productivity and profitability has caused countless small farms to be pushed out of business by the factory farms that now dominate animal agriculture in the U.S. and many other countries around the world.<\/p>\n

What is factory farming?<\/h2>\n

Factory farming is a recent method of meat, dairy, and egg production that involves raising huge numbers\u2014typically thousands or tens of thousands\u2014of genetically uniform animals in a relatively small amount of space. A factory farm, sometimes called a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), aims to churn out as much of a particular animal product as possible at minimal expense to the company that controls the facility. This results in meat, dairy, and eggs with prices that do not reflect their actual costs to farmed animals, workers, local communities, public health, and the environment.<\/p>\n

History of factory farming<\/h2>\n

While raising animals for food is a long-established practice, factory farms are a recent invention. It wasn\u2019t until the mid-twentieth century<\/a> that high crop yields and technological advances made it possible for farmers to confine huge numbers of animals in high densities indoors.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with factory farming?<\/h2>\n

The harm that factory farming causes to animals, people, and the planet far outweighs its purported benefits.<\/p>\n

Poor animal welfare<\/h3>\n

In today\u2019s industrial production systems, the welfare of chickens, pigs, cows, and other farmed animals is largely ignored<\/a>. These intelligent, sensitive animals are denied socialization, exercise, access to the outdoors, and the freedom to carry out their natural behaviors.<\/p>\n

The growing public concern for animal welfare has led many consumers to look for animal products with animal welfare certifications that purport to ensure good treatment. Consumers rightly expect animal welfare labels\u2014with names like \u201cCertified Humane\u201d and \u201cAnimal Welfare Certified\u201d\u2014to reflect best practices for animal welfare, but Farm Forward\u2019s report, \u201cThe Dirt on Humanewashing<\/a>,\u201d reveals that this simply isn\u2019t the case. A lack of clarity around what different welfare certifications actually mean allows factory-farmed products to be marketed and sold to conscientious consumers under the guise of higher welfare choices.<\/p>\n

Intensive confinement<\/h3>\n

Intensive confinement is perhaps the most widely known animal welfare issue associated with factory farming. Although recent years have seen progress, the majority (66 percent, based on an estimate by industry analysts) of layer hens in the U.S. are still housed in battery cages<\/a>. Similarly, keeping breeding sows in gestation crates during pregnancy remains a standard practice in the pork industry despite being incredibly cruel. Even factory-farmed animals who are not trapped inside cages, crates, or stalls are tightly packed together in sheds by the thousands or tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

Genetic manipulation<\/h3>\n

Farmed animals are selectively bred to produce unnaturally high yields of meat, milk, or eggs at the expense of their health and welfare. The most extreme consequences of genetic manipulation can be seen in hybrid poultry<\/a>, who suffer from severely compromised health as a result of being bred for genetic mutations such as rapid growth and obesity.<\/p>\n

Mutilations (disbudding, dehorning, tail docking, and beak trimming\/conditioning)<\/h3>\n

In intensive confinement systems, cows\u2019 horns become dangerous, piglets chew each other’s tails off, and hens peck at one another\u2019s feathers. Rather than providing the animals with an environment that meets their needs (which would be expensive), the factory farming industry\u2019s answer to these problems is to mutilate animals\u2019 body parts in an attempt to make the animals better suited to the conditions they live in. Common mutilations include disbudding (destroying a young animal\u2019s horn buds), dehorning (removing horns that have already started to grow), tail docking (amputating an animal\u2019s tail), and beak trimming or conditioning (slicing off one quarter to one third of a bird\u2019s beak).<\/p>\n

Culling of male chicks<\/h3>\n

Since cockerels (male chickens) cannot lay eggs and are therefore not worth any money to egg producers, male chicks born into the egg industry are routinely killed after hatching<\/a>. This usually involves newborn chicks being gassed or, in a practice called maceration, ground up alive.<\/p>\n

Labor issues and workers\u2019 rights violations<\/h3>\n

Animals are not the only ones who suffer for the sake of cheap animal products. Labor issues and workers\u2019 rights violations are rife within the industry. Factory farm and slaughterhouse workers, many of whom are immigrants and risk retaliation if they speak out, typically work long, grueling shifts in hazardous conditions for low pay. In a survey of immigrant dairy farm workers in New York State, almost half of respondents reported having faced workplace bullying or discrimination, and two-thirds\u00a0 said that they had been injured while working.1<\/a>\u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n

Slaughterhouse jobs are some of the most dangerous in the United States. US meat plant workers are three times more likely to suffer serious injury than the average American worker. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, every week US meatpackers suffer amputations, fractured fingers, second-degree burns and head trauma<\/a>. Records compiled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) show that each month US meat plants report at least 17 \u201csevere\u201d incidents involving \u201chospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye.\u201d2<\/a><\/p>\n

Environmental impacts<\/h3>\n

Factory farming has a wide range of environmental impacts<\/a>\u00a0. Intensive meat and dairy production is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, consumes large quantities of freshwater, drives biodiversity loss, uses vast stretches of land, and pollutes our air, water, and soil.<\/p>\n

Human health risks<\/h3>\n

Factory farming is a threat to the health of farmworkers, consumers, and virtually everyone else on the planet. Housing thousands of genetically uniform, chronically sick animals in close proximity makes it alarmingly easy for viruses like avian influenza to emerge, spread, and jump from farmed animals to humans. Industrial poultry farms could be the source of a global pandemic<\/a> even more dangerous than COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Animals in factory farms are routinely given antimicrobial drugs (such as antibiotics<\/a>) to keep them alive and to make them grow faster. This overuse of drugs, many of which are medically important for use in humans, is contributing to the rise of antimicrobial resistance<\/a>, which the World Health Organization has declared is one of the 10 biggest threats to global human health.<\/p>\n

Impacts on rural communities<\/h3>\n

Factory farming impacts rural communities<\/a> in a variety of ways. The air pollution and overwhelming stench of animal manure from CAFO facilities can harm the health of local residents and prevent them from spending time outdoors, reducing their quality of life. The replacement of small farms with large-scale operations is also linked to job losses and a decrease in property values.<\/p>\n

How are factory-farmed animals killed?<\/h2>\n

In slaughterhouses, factory-farmed animals are killed and cut up on high-speed disassembly lines, compromising both animal welfare and worker safety. The method of slaughter used varies between species.<\/p>\n

Chickens\u2014who are slaughtered in higher numbers<\/a> than any other land animal\u2014are commonly killed using a method known as live-shackle slaughter. First, they are restrained upside down on a metal conveyor that takes them through a bath of electrically charged water<\/a> to stun them. Then they have their throats slit, often by a mechanical blade, before their bodies are plunged into a tank of scalding water to remove the feathers. It\u2019s sadly not uncommon for errors to occur during this process, resulting in birds having their throats slit while still conscious or being boiled alive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How does factory farming affect the environment?<\/h2>\n

Factory farming makes it possible to mass produce meat and dairy, both of which have a disproportionate impact on the environment in comparison to most plant-based foods. Animal agriculture is a leading contributor to many of the biggest environmental issues in the world today.<\/p>\n

Greenhouse gas emissions<\/h3>\n

Researchers estimate that global food production is responsible for around 35 percent<\/a> of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Of these emissions, 57 percent can be attributed to animal agriculture<\/a>, while only 29 percent are linked to the production of plant-based foods.3<\/a><\/p>\n

Air pollution<\/h3>\n

Each year in the U.S, fine particle air pollution caused by animal agriculture is responsible for the premature deaths of 12,700 people.4<\/a> Some of this air pollution is dust kicked up by intensively farmed animals or is emitted when fields are tilled for growing crops, some of which are fed to animals. A bigger culprit, though, is the massive manure lagoons where animal feces and urine are stored. As this waste decomposes, it emits<\/a> large quantities of ammonia, a potent gas that reacts with other pollutants to form dangerous particles that can find their way into people’s lungs and bloodstream. Animal manure also pollutes the air when it is sprayed onto fields.<\/p>\n

Water pollution<\/h3>\n

Factory farming is a major cause<\/a> of water pollution. Animal manure is high in the plant nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, which can cause the growth of algal blooms and have severely detrimental effects on aquatic ecosystems. Manure can also be full of antibiotics, hormones, harmful bacteria, and heavy metals. These pollutants can enter waterways when manure slurries are overapplied to fields or when manure storage lagoons leak or overflow.<\/p>\n

Land usage<\/h3>\n

Keeping large numbers of animals indoors requires using vast swathes of land for growing feed crops. More than 90 million acres<\/a> of land in the U.S. grow corn, most of which is fed to farmed animals.<\/p>\n

Growing crops to feed farmed animals is generally a far less efficient use of land than growing crops directly for human consumption. For example, it takes an estimated<\/a> 7.1 square meters of land to produce 100 grams of protein from poultry meat but just 2.2 square meters of land to produce the same amount of soy protein from tofu.<\/p>\n

Who owns most farms and factories?<\/h2>\n

Although the majority<\/a> of farms in the U.S. are family-owned, most meat production is controlled by a handful of massive corporations. More than 97 percent<\/a> of chicken farmers in the U.S. work as contract growers for big poultry. While these farmers might technically own their farms, all the chickens they raise are owned by the company they signed a contract with, leaving the farmers with little to no control over how the birds are reared.<\/p>\n

Factory farming facts and statistics<\/h2>\n