Factory Farming Effects

The Lasting Effects of Factory Farming
Undercover investigations of factory farms brings a light to what is being kept behind closed doors for a company’s profit and gain at the expense of severely abused animals and harmful environmental factors. As reported by an article from The Washington Post, harmful antibiotics are used in everyday life of the factory farmers to make their jobs easier and the food cheaper on the market. These antibiotics cause damage not only to the environment and the animals, but to the consumer’s health as well. With the exposure of animal cruelty in factory farming, as well as threats to human health and the environment, why does the federal government allow this practice to continue?
According to the ASPCA website,
factory farming is, “a large, industrial operation that raises large amounts of animals for food.” These factory farms are generally created because it allows manufacturers to breed a huge population of animals in an efficient amount of space, making for a larger profit margin. This topic was brought to my attention 3 years ago when I first watched a documentary called Cowspiracy. After watching, I learned about the lasting effects that processed meats and the dairy industry impose the environment and the consumers health. The statistics were overwhelming. To my surprise, not much was being done to solve this issue. The man from the documentary went on his own journey to investigate several companies that practice factory farming. He asked them if they understood the toll that their company had on the environment and to American individual’s health. I did further research on this study and learned many shocking facts about what was going on behind closed curtains.
Although it is an alarming matter that disturbs our community, many contend otherwise.
Those who are unaware of the issues that factory farmed foods present to their health and to the environment may argue that there is no difference between meat from a happy cow raised in a large grassland and meat from a cow in a factory. They may even state that these animals are treated fairly and are better off in these factories with farmers to take care of them before they are used for their meat and milk. That, in these farms, the well-being of the animals is a priority to the farmers who raise them. They are better off in the factories than free in nature where they could be harmed. Some may even state that they have more of a risk to infectious diseases when they are walking around free in nature. Others, who simply do not care about the mistreatment or are ignorant to that issue may argue that the farmers have the right to their working freedom- however they may choose to go about it. This is their job and way of income for their families, which they are dependent on. Therefore, they need to continue these practices in order to stay financially stable. Nevertheless, factory farming is not considered illegal by the federal government so why should the farmers put a halt to their methods? The government even, in some cases, provides relief to the farmers while funding large companies who partake in methods of factory farming. A final argument that one may have against banishing
factory farms is that companies like Tyson and Smithfield provide economic relief to meat and dairy industries and consumers concomitantly. It would only cause more of an issue at hand if these companies were to be shut down because people would no longer be able to find meat and dairy for an affordable price.
As aforementioned, factory farms are cost efficient to suppliers because it allows them to breed droves of animals at less cost. Because corporations try to make the most profit possible and put cheaper meat and dairy on the market, factory farms often use cruel techniques in order to quickly separate and send off the animals for slaughter. For instance, layer chickens. Layer chickens essentially lay roughly 90% of eggs sold in the United States. Newborn chicks are separated by sex, and while the male chicks are suffocated, gassed, and decapitated, the females are placed on a conveyor belt to have their beaks removed before they are placed in small cages, about four square inches in size. Chickens, who are accustomed to an environment where they can spread their wings, become aggressive towards each other because of the pain and suffering they endure from the mutilation process, and of course because they are crammed into close proximity with each other. The factory farmer’s will remove the chickens beaks to prevent possible aggressive behaviors. Beak removal however, is an extremely painful and cruel process. Out of all the chickens that are delivered, 20% will die from disease or stress. How would you feel to be a chicken that was tortured for Tyson? Many other animals suffer at the hands of factory farmers, e.g. dairy cows. Rollingstone magazine sent interviewers undercover to investigate a monopoly dairy farms, and found that, although dairy cows are huge animals that require spacious fields, the farms had dairy cows on concrete slabs barely larger than their bodies. The cows’ udders were so large that they often were hardly able to walk. Since the udders are abnormally large, they are often covered in sores and oftentimes infected, which puts them at high risk for deadly infections. In instances of chickens, cows, and other farm animals, abuse is all too common and usually goes unnoticed because companies do not want to lose money by having to fire farmers, and there is no definitive way to enforce and regulate ethic rules. Mutilation and disease, however, does not simply affect the animal– it impacts human beings and the earth as well.
In addition to the suffering of animals, who often are victims of mistreatment, unnatural growth, mutilation, and shortened lifespans, factory farms pose a huge threat to the society as a whole. Unfortunately, many are unaware of the environmental and health issues that factory farmed foods bring forth to society. Since many Americans strongly favor their dark meats and fast food chains, it has been up for debate whether society will change their eating habits to save the environment and their well-being. These consumers live their everyday lives and eat these chemically processed meats unaware of the toxic effects. The antibiotics and GMOs in processed meats can lead to numerous concerns on one’s health, such as heart disease and obesity. The harmful antibiotics injected into cows to produce milk and beef can lead to problems including breast, prostate and colon cancer. Infections and foodborne illnesses can also arise from eating these products. Though this is an arising concern, Americans still choose to stay uninformed on the matter. Many will turn the other cheek when a topic like this is brought up; this is because most Americans are at fault here. Majority participate in supporting fast food and dairy industries, unaware of the repercussions that we all will face. Not many care to learn about what is going into their bodies, and their children's bodies, when little do they know the damage that the meats and processed foods have on their health. Since this is a cheap way to get protein, many American’s are in favor of their delectable pop-in-the-microwave brand meats. So, is your abused, factory processed, chemically enhanced Tyson chicken nuggets really worth the risk? Not only is there concerns with the processed meat alone, it is also found that there is contamination in our drinking water and air due to the greenhouse gases and methane that are let out by factory farms. Factory farms have hundreds of thousands of animals collectively, and those animals naturally produce waste– in fact, they can generate more than a million tons per day. Factory farms generally will store this waste in large fields, oftentimes unmonitored and cast aside. Not only that, but factory farms put antibiotics in the animals’ food, which usually ends up in their waste, and ultimately ends up being consumed by humans because of tainted crops and water systems, leading to countless potential illnesses. In addition to this prospect, the poor sanitation in most factory farms makes it very likely for diseases like salmonella and e.coli to infect and potentially kill the consumers. Aside from humans being directly affected, factory farms become a huge problem for the environment. As mentioned before, manure and waste from the animals is let out into neglected fields. This incautious disposal poses a threat to the environment because animal waste generates methane gas, one of the gases that contribute to the infamous greenhouse effect. Fossil fuels that create fertilizers do even more to impinge upon the environmental issue. Fertilizers contain carbon, and, when put into crops, will emit tons of CO2 gas into the air. This problem also leads directly into deforestation, because livestock grazing is one of the leading causes of deforestation. The FAO estimates that over half of the Amazon rainforests are being used for grazing animals, and this number will grow because the demand for livestock continues to grow with the population. If trees continue to be cut down, then all of the CO2 being emitted by the fertilizers cannot be absorbed by the trees through photosynthesis, and this will, in turn, contribute to the greenhouse effect. Not to mention the water wasted in animal agriculture. It is, in simple words, an unsustainable way of life to keep these methods going. It takes nearly 1,000 gallons of water to produce only 1 gallon of milk. The usage of water in watering crops for farm animals to eat, providing them water, and also cleaning all the tools and supplies that the farms use to transport and store the animals creates an issue to our fundamental water supply. According to one website, one pound of beef takes 1581 gallons of water, which is about 100 showers for the average American. When water is depleted, droughts begin to occur. Subsequently, crops will die, and then it will take even more water to produce enough crops for the animals, making for an endless feedback loop of water depletion and consumption. This issue is important to our time because we are causing much damage to the environment, and it is uncertain how much longer the earth will be around if we continue to leave this kind of environmental footprint on the world. In the near future it will become necessary to fix the problems that factory farms pose in order to preserve the environment.
Organizations have banded together to raise awareness about Factory farms, and efforts have been made to shut down many of them.
Though some have prevailed, many have failed, and this is because there are no specific laws that forbid certain animal farm practices, such as beak removal of chickens. This allows for corporate moguls to walk away usually penalty-free, even if their ethics are called to question. With the environmental impacts becoming more and more apparent, however, more people around the globe are beginning to realize that a change must be made, and perhaps will universally come to the conclusion that the end to factory farms are, in fact,
necessary.