Factory farming can refer to any intensive commercial form of agriculture that employs extreme growing techniques to produce the greatest ouput in the least space, usually with heavy use of agrichemicals and veterinary drugs. It most often refers to large-scale, industrialized, intensive rearing of livestock, poultry, and fish. The practice is widespread in developed nations — much of the meat, dairy, and eggs available in supermarkets are produced in this manner.
The term is also used in reference to fruits and vegetables grown as intensive monoculture crops, to bees for honey production, and fur-bearing animals for the fur trade that are raised in similar intensive conditions.
Factory farming is a pejorative term, but as is shown in Jennifer Abbott's documentary, A Cow At My Table, the expression originated within the agricultural industry itself.
Factory farming of animals
Operations most often called factory farms focus on producing meat for human consumption at the lowest unit cost. This type of business is also known as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).
Certain farming practices are often used to define an operation as a factory farm. Although use of one or more of these practices does not automatically make an agricultural operation into a factory farm, the size and intensity of their application are important factors. These practices may include:
- confinement — To save space and improve supervision and feeding operations, animals are confined in pens or cages. In some cases animals may be confined in small indoor areas, unable to turn around, lie down, or move without contacting other animals. This may increase the incidence of behaviors such as fighting and cannibalism, which may be countered through procedures like debeaking and tail docking.
- drug programs — Antibiotics, vitamins, hormones, and other supplements are preemptively administered to counteract potential spread of disease and encourage growth.
- processed feed — Feeds may be processed on site. While traditional feeds such as hay and grain may be fed to animals, other types of feed may be added or substituted (e.g.cows may be fed high-protein products such as molasses, beet pulp, and cottonseed meal; calves might be given protein concentrate, also known as milk replacer, in place of milk). Cows have also been fed the remains of other cattle, which some researchers believe may contribute to the spread of mad cow disease.
- large numbers of animals — Farms may contain extremely large animal counts.
Criticism
Opponents say that factory farming is inhumane, [2] poses health risks, and causes environmental damage. Arguments include:
- disease — Animals raised on antibiotics are breeding antibiotic resistant strains of various bacteria ("superbugs").
- pollution — Concentrated animal waste is polluting the groundwater, and creating dust, fly, and odor problems for their neighbors.
- inhumane — Crowding, drugging, and performing surgery on animals. Baby chickens are debeaked hours after birth, this means that their beaks are sliced off with a hot blade. This is always done without anaesthesia and is a very painful process. It also causes many chicks to die of starvation because it is too painful for them to eat. Male bulls and pigs are also castrated to make them more subdued. This is also usually done without anaesthesia. In the egg industry male chicks are useless so they are either thrown in large garbage bins and left to suffocate or die from being crushed by other chicks. Other farms throw the live chicks into giant crushers. The crushed chicks are later fed to the hens to induce faster growth.
- resource overuse — Large populations of animals require a lot of water and are depleting water resources in some areas. The cattle industry is also responsible for about 70% of the soil erosion occurring in the United States as well as a considerable amount of rainforest deforestation. This is because more and more farmland is needed to feed the cows.
- unemployment — Factory farming is displacing family farming and undermining society.
- dangerous — Factory farms and slaughter houses can be very dirty and dangerous for employees.
- low quality food — The poor quality of meat due to the excessive feeding and lack of exercise.
Factory farms may be harmful to the environment if not properly regulated and managed due to the large quantities of waste produced. Lakes, rivers, and groundwater are at risk of being polluted when the waste is not properly disposed of. For example, a Missouri hog farm paid a US$1 million fine for illegally dumping waste, causing the contamination of a nearby river and the deaths of more than 50,000 fish.
Opponents believe that factory farming is responsible for many foodborne illnesses and many of our food safety risks. An estimated one out of every four cattle that enters a slaughterhouse may host toxic forms of the bacteria E. coli. A Consumer Reports study of nearly 500 supermarket chickens found campylobacter in 42 percent and salmonella in 12 percent, with up to 90 percent of the bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Eggs pose a salmonella threat to one out of every 50 people each year. In total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are 76 million instances of foodborne illness each year, and more than 5,000 deaths.
Factory farming of plants
Main article (comparative discussion of large-scale, conventional, chemical-based agriculture) at organic farming
Factory farming also at times describes some large produce and grain operations. The general criteria are similar to those for livestock factory farms. Some of the characteristics of farms that may be classified as factory farms are:
- large scale — hundreds or thousands of acres of a single crop (much more than can be absorbed into the local or regional market);
- monoculture — large areas of a single crop, often raised from year to year on the same land, or with little crop rotation;
- agrichemicals — reliance on imported, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to provide nutrients and to mitigate pests and diseases, these applied on a regular schedule;
- hybrid seed — use of specialized hybrids designed to favor large scale distribution (e.g. ability to ripen off the vine, to withstand shipping and handling);
- genetically engineered crops — use of GE varieties designed for large scale production (e.g. ability to withstand selected herbicides);
- large scale irrigation — heavy water use, and in some cases, growing of crops in otherwise unsuitable regions by extreme use of water (e.g. rice paddies on arid land).
Critics of factory farmed crops cite a wide range of concerns, many of which have not been scientifically investigated to any great degree. On the food quality front, it is held by critics that quality is reduced when crops are bred and grown primarily for cosmetic and shipping characteristics. Environmentally, factory farming of crops is claimed to be responsible for loss of biodiversity, degradation of soil quality, soil erosion, food toxicity (pesticide residues) and pollution (through agrichemical build-ups, and use of fossil fuels for agrichemical manufacture and for farm machinery and long-distance distribution).
Alternatives to factory farming
The definition of factory farming is somewhat variable, and the proposed alternatives to factory farming are not sharply defined. In general, critics of factory farming advocate decentralized approaches to food production, such as smaller farms serving local markets, and the reduction or elimination of synthetic agents in agriculture. The most common counter argument is that chemical-based, industrialized farming is necessary in order to feed the billions of humans on the planet. By this reasoning, refinement of existing large-scale agricultural technologies and techniques is the only viable path to change.
See also
External links
- GoVeg.com - a vegetarian website including a large section on cruelty to animals
- A critique of factory farming
- Support for factory farming - with an environmental emphasis
- FactoryFarming.com - another site critical of intensive livestock production
- The Meatrix - a parody of The Matrix critical of factory farming and the meat industry, and viewed by some as vegan propaganda.
- Meet Your Meat - a PETA-produced factory farm tour narrated by Alec Baldwin
- Video showing foie gras production