This is a two-parter post, due to both the topic and its complexity. I am first looking in detail at Industrial (aka Factory) Farming of animals, from what it is, its pros and cons. In the second post, I will look into how to continue eating meat, without supporting those Industrial Farms.
(Warning: Truthful and Some Graphic Details Below,
But no Graphic Photos.)
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Farm Sizes
In farming, size matters, for it is the only way to evaluate the impact of styles of farming on the environment, community, and economy. But lets start with how the government defines farm sizes (1). Some, like WAPO, argue that each size, or type of farm is needed, but we should learn from them to improve our food processes. I would counter argue, that the only thing to learn from ”Factory” Farms is that absolutely no animal should be raised in an industrial setting.
By Revenue
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a farm as any establishment which produced and sold, or would have sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products during a fiscal year. Obviously, by looking at the revenue in the definition, small farms (even when selling directly to the consumer) would have a hard time surviving.
- Point Farms – those whose revenue is equal to or less than $1k per year
- Small- less than $250,000 per year (in 2020 this was 88% of the farms)
- Large – between $250,000 and $500,000 (4.4% of farms)
- Very large – more than $500,000 (7.5% of farms)
By Acreage
Again, per the USDA, farms can fall into three categories based on acreage.
- Small – 231 acres (or 88% of farms in USA)
- Large – 1421 acres
- Very Large – 2086+ acres
By Number of Animals
There are ratings for other farm animals other than the ones I list below, such as: turkeys, horses, ducks, and sheep, but these numbers are the most readily avialable.
- Small <300 beef cattle, <200 Dairy cows <750 large pigs <25000 egg laying hens
- Medium 300-999 beef cattle, 200-699 dairy cows 750-2499 large pigs 25000-81999 egg laying hens
- Very Large 1000+ beef cattle, 700+ dairy cows, 2500+ large pigs, or 82,000+ egg-laying hens
Definitions
Family Farms Defined
Family-run farms, that are small to medium sized, are not likely to be as efficient as industrial farms, which often results in higher food costs for consumers. But these farms often bring a large amount of benefits to their local communities through job creation, raising revenue into rural communities, being available during food chain problems, and are more likely to keep animals humanely, and the environment cleaner.
In the USA, ~96% of the 2.2M farms are family owned and operated, that is any farm organized as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or family corporation. Family farms exclude farms organized as nonfamily corporations or cooperatives, as well as farms with hired managers (USDA, Economic Research Service 2007 Family Farm Report). But inversely, TheGuardian reports that the few, high density industrial farms produce the majority of the food.
Industrial Farms Defined
Industrial agriculture is the large-scale, intensive production of crops and animals. If involving animals, it is officially defined as facilities that Concentrate Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs (2).
- The NRDC organization writes CAFOs: The term refers to a facility that keeps a very large number of live animals confined for more than 45 days per year and brings food into their enclosures rather than allowing them to graze. A “large CAFO” typically has at least 1,000 beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 large pigs, or 82,000 egg-laying hens. There are separate definitions for medium-size and small CAFOs.
Pro’s or Why Have Industrial Farms?
The NRDC wrote that:
- The average dairy farm grew from just 19 cows in 1970 to 120 in 2006, and today’s biggest farms have more than 15,000 cattle.
- The average pig farm grew from 945 animals in 1992 to 4,646 in 2004, with the animals often confined to spaces only slightly larger than their bodies.
- USDA reports global production of cereal grains grew from just over half a billion tons in 1950 to just under 9 billion tons in 2015; an astonishing 1700% increase in 65 years. These grains are often used for animal feed.
These numbers show that there has been a long road toward farm consolidation, leading towards Industrial Farming.
Surplus Food
Like the Industrial Revolution, introducing automation, science, and processing efficiencies allowed farmers to overall increase their land’s yield by increasing the density of planting, using efficient and cheaper mechanical harvesting (for animals this means butchering), efficient packaging, and creating very fast, and global logistics. This resulted in surplus foods that were then shipped everywhere around the world.
Part of the Recycling System
These farms now use recycled organic waste from other large wholesalers, distributors, and retailers as animal feed. Recycled organic waste can be out-of-date, or expired product, that is disposed of by food wholesalers, distributors, and retailers, but also contain waste products from other farming efforts. So Industrial Farming is integrated into the overall recycling system saving landfill.
Lowers Food Cost
With combined state and federal financial support, farmers are influenced on what to grow. Most of this type of funding has been shown to land in the hands of the larger farms, rather than the small to medium sized farms. So those actions assures profits, allowing for lower food costs. But also costs are lowered when Industrial Farming can process more animals for the same or less costs.
Meet Population Needs
As the population continues to grow, despite the pandemic losses, the need for food increases while the amount of land available for growing food remains static. So Industrial Farming is where we need to look to for increasing meat production.
Employment for Community
Industrial Farming facilities (butchering and packaging) leads to additional jobs in local rural communities, academia, specifically research in animal husbandry, antibiotics, climate and weather, etc. Additionally, the science also leads to new technologies in harvesters and other processing tractors that benefits everyone.
Broadened Palates and Balanced Diets
The improved logistics among these Industrial Farms means foods are harvested out of season as we can bring and sell food from other countries at a price still relatively low. This also means since we are not bound by seasons we can eat the diet that best suits our needs. Along the way processing of food in general has improved and there are more shelf-stable foods available to all of us due to innovation spurred on my Industrial efforts.
Processing Efficiency
Worker efficiency tends to be higher at Industrial Farms due to the high levels of job specialization where work becomes routine for employees, and reduces product losses. Machines take over all of the jobs that they can do, leaving humans just for those jobs that required human hands and eyes.
The Negative of Industrial Farms
Industial (or Factory) farming is a form of very intensive agriculture, involving the confining of large numbers of animals within small, inadequate, barely livable spaces, so that the business can maximize profits in selling the animal bodies or body parts, or milk and eggs to consumers. The information below comes from several sources such as: AnimalMatters, FaunAnalytics, TheGuardian, Union of Concerned Scientist’s, the USDA, EPA, and many others.
Genetically Modified Animals or GMO Feed
To generate profit, factory farming initiate changes in the animals through selective breeding (not GMO) to recreate the animals to fit the food product the farm wants to sell (3, 4). Examples include Turkeys and Chickens with overly sized chests.
Other than a particular breed of salmon, GMO meat and fowl are not currently sold in the USA market. Even if not GMO, they eat GMO as NewRepubliic reports: More than 95 percent of meat and dairy animals in the U.S. are fed GMOs. While there are exceptions, most of these GMOs have been deployed by large multinational corporations focused on large-scale farming operations.
Painful Animal Modifications + Killings
Industrial Farms also modify living animals to accommodate over-crowded facilities. And many articles, including some from Veterinary Schools, mention these recognized painful procedures are often done without any consideration to the animals pain, and after effects.
- Cows horns are removed with a hot iron without anesthetic and cause both acute pain and delayed inflammation, but done to reduce injury in crowed Factory situations (5). Even the caustic dehorning paste causes pain, although less than the hot iron (5a).
- ~ 260M male chicks are immediately ground up alive (I have seen a video) or else-wise killed, as they have no value as a food product (6, 6a). This is not true of bull calfs born to dairy cows, they are just sold to “meat” farmers.
- Chickens or turkeys bred to have very large breasts, that are at risk for organ failure, can barely stand and can no longer naturally breed.
- Pigs’ teeth are clipped, ears notched, tails cut off and males castrated all without anesthesia (7, 8).
Living Confined and Behind or Within Bars
Large pig and dairy farms (see photo below) have small metal bars to delineate stalls for the animals. The stalls in some Industrial Farms are so small, that the animal is constantly rubbing their skin against metal causing large and painful abscesses. Some of these housing systems used are designed to separate animals meant to be in a herd.
Toxic Environments
Industrial Farms have large, overcrowded facilities to house animals and thus there is a large amount of waste, include the release of 400+ types of toxic gasses, and particulates. This makes the work environment toxic, and the rural areas around industrial farms are also very toxic places to live according to IATP; causing allergic and respiratory reactions (9). In fact, OtherWords note that Air pollution from factory farms now kills more people than even coal pollution.
Environmental Destruction
There is so much documentation of negative environmental impacts because of industrial farming, that I almost feel no arguments are needed. The chart above shows how the environment improves if we stop animal farming. The NRDC writes, from fertilizer runoff to methane emissions, large-scale industrial agriculture pollution takes a toll on the environment.
- Polluted waterways and aquifers, ocean and fisheries, through mishandling waste and runoff (10,11).
- 83% of our limited farm land is used to feed farm animals, rather than feed humans (12).
- Destruction of forest and wild lands for pastures or growing animal-feed.
- Air pollution from the 50M tons of animal waste USA produces daily, that release compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and methane.
- Factory farming accounts for 37% of methane (CH4) emissions, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of CO2 (see 13 for more information)
- The agricultural practices by Industrial Farms reduce biodiversity in soils, forests, and the air.
Global Warming
The United Nations: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) writes that in order to limit temperature rise, the dairy sector must reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and work towards a low-carbon future.
- GHG emissions have increased by 18 percent between 2005 and 2015 because overall milk production has grown substantially by 30 percent
- Between 2005 and 2015, the global dairy herd increased 11 percent. At the same time, average global milk yield increased by 15 percent
- Increased production efficiency is typically associated with a higher level of absolute emissions
Dairy farms, they explain, are a source of GHG emissions, mainly from enteric fermentation (methane) and manure management (methane and nitrous oxide) and feed production, transport and processing (carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide).
Unsafe Working Conditions
The workers on farms, slaughterhouses, and meat processing or packaging plants are some of the most underpaid, most injured laborers in the workforce (14). This was evidenced in the rate of Covid infections, in addition to the regular health and welfare issues they face.
The WaPo (Sept 24, 2017) write: Agricultural workers suffer fatal on-the-job injuries at a very high rate — far higher than police officers and more than twice the rate of construction workers in 2015, the last year for which comprehensive records are available.
Further, some of the records come from labor initiated complaints (15).
Grows Anti-biotic Resistance
As we know with human populations, overcrowding conditions breed and spread diseases. For animals, the result is the same, resulting in the overuse of antibiotics just to keep them (even if only barely) alive. This over use of antibiotics is part of our outbreak of antibiotic resistant super bugs. The NationalReview writes: A 2011 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that 80 percent of antibiotics in the U.S. in 2009 were used for animals.
Aligned With Pandemics
Some argue Industrial Farming leads directly to pandemics. UNEP writes that Industrial Farms actually elevate the probability of a new pandemic outbreak and all the related deaths. Many zoonotic pathogens, that transfer disease from animal to human, have resulted in the massive killing of pigs (swine flu) and fowl (bird flu).
MSPCA indicates that the conditions on factory farms — where most of U.S. animal products originate — are similar to those of wildlife markets, and could be the source of the next pandemic.
- 2009 pandemic: MSPCA + USPIRG writes it originated on an industrial pig farm in North Carolina.
- USPIRG: 1990s, factory farms were at the epicenter of a deadly Nipah virus outbreak, believed to have been the result of pigs in CAFO operations in Malaysia contracting the virus from bats and passing it on to farm workers.
- 1968 pandemic: CDC states, was caused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus comprised of two genes from an avian influenza A virus, and 1M people died.
- 1918 Spanish Flu: CDC writes, was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin and 50M people died and 500M infected.
TheGuardian insists that UN bodies, academics and epidemiologists recognise the link between the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and increasingly intensive poultry farming.
Too Much Political Power
The industrial farms have an unusual amount of local and federal power such that they can force, through money and lobying:
- Right to Farm Act: Denies nuisance lawsuits against farmers who use “accepted and standard farming practices”, thus suing them for harms is next to impossible.
- Ag-gag laws: Prevents the reporting or photographing abuses of animals and labor.
- EATS Act (2021): Strips states of the right to create progressive agricultural legislation.
- WPL (2022): Rules protecting neighbors from odor and water pollution near intensive livestock and poultry feedlots would be eliminated under a bill moving in the Kentucky Senate.
- CapitalBeat (2022): Georgia’s Senators passed an anti-nuisace protection for farmers so that their neighbors who are bothered by bad smells, dust or noise emanating from a farm, 2 years to file a nuisance suit. After that, any farm operating legally would be protected.
The Matter of Ethics
Mostly, I have not touched on the issue of ethics and morality, trying instead to focus on facts and costs of industrial farming. But, as the Guardian wrote: The fate of industrially farmed animals is one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time. Tens of billions of sentient beings, each with complex sensations and emotions, live and die on a production line.
IMHO Industrial Farming, is an ethical, environmental, and economic disaster that we have all played a part in making; mainly by our expectations of the impossible: to have available to us very cheap eggs, dairy, and meat (in all its forms).
Even as a young girl, I believed life was about making choices and learning how to live with them. That includes the fact that I still, while I am anti-Industrial Farming, consume some amount of animal protein.
—Patty
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