Reducing and Eliminating Industrial Farms Essay

Factory farming is a practice that is used to keep up and sustain the supply and demand for different types of animal meat. A poultry factory farm that will be discussed is Perdue Farms. Perdue Farms is established and operated in the United States and has a processing facility where they raise and slaughter chickens. Perdue Farms is meeting the needs of the consumers by supplying and mass producing poultry for consumption. One may view this of being a success by having a well-established, profitable business that is fulfilling their responsibilities to the consumers. While that may be true, they are not fulfilling their ethical responsibility to the animals. These animals are in close quarters where they are nested in urine and feces. There can even be instances where they will be sitting on or near deceased chickens until their cage is chosen for slaughter. Since these animals are massively produced the use of hormones and antibiotics are used to sustain life and growth. On top of the poor, dirty living conditions these animals are also giving additives that will eventually make it to the consumer. The process has an impact on those employed by the corporation and those who purchase products from them.

Industrialization has revolutionized America’s economy. Mass production allows products in demand to be easily available for purchase. But at what point does this system cross the line? It is one thing to mass produce electronics and clothing, for example, but applying mass production to the meat industry is entirely different. In order to generate the most profit, livestock are killed systematically at a massive scale on an assembly line. These animals are treated as nothing more than objects that can be processed, packaged, and sold to a consumer. For this business to take place with both time and cost efficiency, the welfare of the livestock is placed as one of the last priorities. Factory farming has gotten out of hand, and America is

Factory Farming is an increasing industry in the United States. These large farms, which evidently appear to be more like slaughterhouses than the typical farms a person can imagine are located throughout the United States. These factory farms contain animals ranging from chickens, sheep, goats, cows, turkeys, and pigs, they also contain dairy products. The conditions for the animals and the employees of these factory farms are inhumane and vile. Life behind the walls of the factory farm is both unsanitary for the animals and the employees. Employees are forced to endure long hours and poor treatment. Animals in these conditions withstand living in cages and are forced to live in uninhabitable ways.

Every year, over 58 billion farm animals are killed by humans for food production, and this astounding number does not even include sea creatures. This is known as factory farming – the system of inhumane raising of livestock for the purpose of supplying food for human consumption in the cheapest way possible. It is argued that factory farming should be illegal and banned worldwide not only because of its cruelty towards animals but also because the low quality meat can produce harmful diseases and major health concerns to consumers.

Even though higher yields are met for demand and human consumption, factory farming is cruel to animals due to the fact animals are often subject to harsh living conditions, more susceptible to diseases and injuries and are treated inhumanely during the slaughtering process. Unfortunately, with an increase in human population worldwide, the strain on farmers to meet the demand increases as well. This in turn causes more animals to be subject to this cruelty.

Attention getter: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, animal agriculture is a leading source of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane emissions, the top three greenhouse gasses (FAO, 2006).

Factory farms cause a lot of waste in fact, a place called Delmarva Peninsula has 600 million chickens which together all create a whopping 400 tons of manure in a single year but that is nothing compared to the US’ crazy 61 million tons of animal waste alone in a year. That is 130 times the amount of human waste! According to the Environmental Protection Agency, hog, chicken and cow manure has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in just twenty-two states! The amount of animals bred in Factory Farms will make these numbers rise dramatically too.

Animal rights are practically non-existent in many different ways today. Factory farming is probably the worst thing they can do to the poor helpless animals. Factory farming effects chickens, cows, pigs, and many other animals that are used for food, milk and eggs. One of the biggest organizations against factory farming is called Compassion Over Killing (COK). They go to great lengths to protest and inform people about animal cruelty.

In the United States, most of the meat and dairy products consumers purchase at the grocery store come from facilities called factory farms. Factory farming is a fast and cheap method of mass producing meat, cheese, milk, eggs, and several other variations of animal products. Although cost effective, factory farming is criticized because of the subpar conditions the animals are subjected to, and the apparent environmental harm they inflict due to the immense amount of waste these factories produce. In an article titled “Using Emerging Pollution Tracking Methods to Address the Downstream Impacts of Factory Farm Animal Welfare Abuse”, the authors Tarah Heinzen and Abel Russ discuss the recurrent mistreatment of livestock on factory farms, the

Poultry is by far the number one meat consumed in America; it is versatile, relatively inexpensive compared to other meats, and most importantly it can be found in every grocery store through out the United States. All of those factors are made possible because of factory farming. Factory farming is the reason why consumers are able to purchase low-priced poultry in their local supermarket and also the reason why chickens and other animals are being seen as profit rather than living, breathing beings. So what is exactly is factory farming? According to Ben Macintyre, a writer and columnist of The Times, a British newspaper and a former chicken farm worker, he summed up the goal of any factory farm “... to produce the maximum quantity of

Fast food restaurants rely heavily on factory farms which pose problems to the environment, animals, and ultimately, the consumers and people of the area. Due to the high demand for animal products, about 10 billion animals a year are subject to cruelty on these farms (“Pollution (Water, Air, Chemicals)”). Animals are crowded into cages and crates where they are to be slaughtered carelessly. They are filled with antibiotics and artificial growth hormones that not only hurt the animals but the environment and consumers who end up eating or drinking the products that are taken from the animals. On top of human consumption, 75% of the antibiotics aren’t even consumed by the animals and end up in their urine and manure (“Factory Farming and the Environment”). If the harmful manure wasn’t enough, factory farms produce about one million tons of manure a day (“Factory Farming and the Environment”). Farmers take this abundance of manure and spread what they can over land and dispose of the rest. The land can’t absorb all that it's given and this manure, along with the manure that was disposed of, can leak into water sources, thus polluting the water. When these toxic substances pollute water sources, it can enter major bodies of water and begin to kill aquatic life (Geer). The manure from the animals also emits harmful gases into the atmosphere which has led to air pollution

With the world’s population continuing to increase, the demand for food is higher than ever. This increase in food demand also calls for more efficient ways of growing and providing the food. Two methods that are very controversial are the organic and conventional method. While many people support the organic method because of its known benefits, others feel that it is an over inflated industry that cheats consumers out of their money. But recently many studies have disproved those critics. These studies prove that Organic food is a better choice than conventional because it is better for the environment, avoids the use of chemicals, and is generally more beneficial.

Industrial or commercial farming places a large amount of pressure on our natural resources, and us as humans. Animals in these factories produce an extreme amount of fecal wastes, which leads in pollution of our air, land, and water. The residents who live in areas where industrial farming takes place have already seen and personally lived through the outcomes of such horrendous form of food production. It is known that industrial farming effects our health, but there is more to this. Residents who live near these kinds of areas face lower property values because of how close they live to these factories and the contamination that has spread into their homes and possibly in their bodies. In addition, the natural cycle of renewal is interrupted when

Organic farming is becoming an increasingly popular market throughout the world. (Adam, 2004, p. 666). The aims of organic farming are, to decrease pollution, maintain soil fertility and biodiversity, be more sustainable, and have increased nutritional benefits than conventionally grown foods (Yaping et. al., 2003, p. 298). While the aim of conventional farming is to provide safe, proficient supplies of food, in abundance and at low prices (Trewavas, 2001, p.409). Since 1996, the amount of land in the UK dedicated to organic farming has risen tenfold (Adam, 2004, p. 666). As well, from 1992 to 1997, the amount of certified organic cropland in the US more than doubled (Tafel et al, 2007, p.182 ). The main difference between organic and

As the soil becomes more and more polluted with these toxins, it becomes unsustainable. Therefore, land that would have remained fertile for centuries through the commonsense farming of our ancestors, is being ruined by farming controlled by big corporations whose sole interest is in immediate short term profit (Goodall 38). Industrialized livestock farming with thousands of animals crammed into small factory spaces is responsible for numerous bacterial and viral infections such as E.coli., Avian bird flu, Mad cow disease, Salmonella, and many more. Therefore, conventional farmers use antibiotics to keep these animals alive. This over use of antibiotics is causing the creation of new, resistant strains of deadly diseases that kill people and animals. Disease is actually caused by the bad practices, shortcuts, and antibiotic resistance. This has the opposite effect of what was intended and also costs farmers millions of dollars every year instead of saving money. Unfortunately, conventional agriculture experts recommend these monocultural farming practices in the name of quick, mass production.