In only the last half-century, rapid population growth, quickly rising incomes and intense urbanisation have given rise to a sharp spike in meat consumption. Factory Farming: As bad for the environment as it is for you Don't take it from me. The animals are constantly abused, and are always brought up into unfit living conditions and fed artificial things. Chemical fertilizers, used to grow the feed crops for cattle in feedlots and pigs and chickens kept indoors in sheds, produce nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas. often family businesses will accompany the animals to the slaughter house to keep them calm. any intensive farming is bad- factory farms or little family farms. According to the United Nations, the number of industrial livestock sent to slaughter each year is equivalent to eight times the human population on planet Earth. In short, their bad diet can become your bad diet, which can become counter-productive to your health. The manure must be collected and removed. The energy intensive factory farming methods of the industrialised nations are responsible for the consumption of huge amounts of fossil fuels. Asked by Wiki User. Factory farming needs to stop, really. Factory farming is unsustainable, with overcrowded farms overwhelming local ecosystems, leading to depletion of natural resources. Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while minimizing costs. Animals are farmed in indoor, cramped and unhealthy conditions. 13 14 15. The meat produced by factory farming is cheap because it is of very low quality. Maryland Senator Richard Madaleno reintroduced the Community Healthy Air Act (CHAA) in that state’s 2018 session. The conditions there are much, much worse. Did you also know that there are 327.2 million people living in America. However, if you value the health of the planet, the civil rights of human beings, and you are against cruelty towards animals, there are really no ifs, ands, or buts about it — factory farming is bad. Since the 1950s, antibiotics have been used on factory farms to increase the rate of growth in animals. This critically important piece of legislation would have required the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to monitor air emissions from industrial factory farms in Maryland and to assess their impacts on public health. Asking whether a global industry is “good” or “bad” is never a completely straight forward question. Factory-farmed animals produce more than 1 million tons of manure every day. On the other hand, opponents of factory farming contend that the negatives that come along with factory farming far outweigh the positives. Today, more than 99% of all meat, eggs and dairy products produced in the United States are from battery farms. The animal waste often contains undigested antibiotics which are given to the livestock to prevent the spread of disease in their confined living conditions. Then there is the loss of forests. Learn about factory farming's toll on the environment. Fifty-two percent of those were antibiotics important to human health. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Top Answer. Agriculture and Society Factory farming is the practice of intensively farming animals to produce meat and dairy products. Modern animal agriculture puts an incredible strain on natural resources such as land, water, & fossil fuel. The aim of this essay is to raise three independent moral concerns with factory farming, and to explain why the practices associated with factory farming flourish despite the cruelty inflicted on animals and the public health risks imposed on people. What worries me greatly is that if factory farming is outlawed in America, the outcry may result in our chicken being provided by foreign countries, especially China. Why is factory farming bad? Battery farming or factory farming has become a widespread practice in the last three to four decades. Wiki User Answered . Yet each one of these farmed animals is, in scientific terms, a sentient being and in the eyes of religion, they are surely “creatures of god”? Factory farming inflicts more suffering on animals than any other industry in the world. Factory farming can pollute the earth. The pollution from the factories is going into our air and destroying our atmosphere. 2. Factory farming is the intense confinement of farmed animals raised for food, considered inhumane by some, to meet consumer demand for animal meats. Ok I am going to give a different perspective from someone who is in the industry and has seen many of the various production techniques around the United States. A recent study shows that 80 percent of Americas workforce is in factory farming this is from the lack of education, so if there was no factory farming than there is less jobs and that means many people will not have enough money. • Animal conditions: Typically, large numbers of animals are kept in close confinement on such farms, having little room to maneuver. Factory farming is not just bad for farm animals. While factory farming has many negative attributes, one of the burgeoning concerns is the impact that industrial animal agriculture has on the planet. At no other time in history have so many animals died or suffered so much throughout their lives. While the marketing behind the meat industry might suggest otherwise, the fact of the matter is that factory farming is cruel on many levels. Factory farming is a major contributor to water and air pollution as well as deforestation. But such a difference is less than it might seem, and hardly enough to justify the radical distinction we draw between free-range (good) and factory farming (bad). These are my reasons why factory farming is necessary. Did you know, according to the US Department of Agriculture, Americans eat over 220 pounds of meat per year. A vast body of research shows just how bad the production of meat, milk and eggs is for the planet. Viral storm: why factory farming is bad for your health. February 2, 2016. This kind of factory farming is the biggest cause of animal suffering on the planet. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, only about 30 percent of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are administered to people to treat diseases. Factory farming is bad for our environment, as well as for the animals. Now if we do some basic math, did you know that Americans all together eat 71,984,000,000 POUNDS of meat?!? Factory Farm Conditions Are Bad for People Too ... you can register your objection to factory farming by doing your bit to reduce demand for their products. Why are factory farms so bad? See Answer. The need to grow large amounts of high-energy feed leads to increasing deforestation and soil erosion; and the pollution of water, soil and air by agrochemicals and manure waste is already a huge concern. Bad. Industries behind beef, dairy, eggs, and pork fight to show you a different image. The Ethical Farming Fund’s vision is a world without factory farms, so naturally we wouldn’t favor industrial animal farming. In 2018, the animal agriculture industry purchased 25 million pounds of antibiotics. The aim of factory farming is to maximize profits by raising the largest amount of animals in the smallest space possible at the lowest cost feasible. The problem is- most people want cheap chicken, regardless of the cost. Cost is minimized, and output is maximized, with little regard to the broader implications of this industry. Factory farming isn’t only bad for the animals, it’s bad for the environment and human health as well. often small family farms actually do care about the animals unlike big money making factory farms, and yes, they will still use antibiotics etc. These are the reasons why factory farming has a negative impact on the environment. The other 70 percent, the vast majority, are administered to U.S. livestock, primarily to compensate for the unnatural and unhealthy conditions of factory farming. It is ‘mechanically recovered’ (i.e. Factory farming is too often viewed as the cheap, efficient solution to feeding our world. The goal of this operational method is to maximize the levels of food productivity while minimizing the costs of production. Compassion in World Farming’s founder, Peter Roberts, The proliferation of factory farming is as much a feature of the industrial age as fossil fuel production. Why Factory Farming Is The Largest Cause Of Animal Abuse In History. The scale of modern factory farms concentrates their impacts in harmful ways. Advertisement. In a conventional feedlot operation, for example, confined cattle deposit large amounts of manure in a small amount of space. Matilda Lee | 28th October 2011. Pollution from agriculture in the U.S. threatens over 13,000 miles of rivers and streams, and over 60,000 acres of lakes and ponds. 2010-04-12 16:13:37. ripped from the bone by machine at suck force, and then pureed and reconstituted), and parts of the body that most consumers would say shouldn’t be used – lips, eyes, testicles, anal tracts – are included in sausages and patties. A new film follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. 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