The Pros And Cons Of Factory Farming

Factory farming is a form of farming for livestock in a controlled environment using extreme methods. Factory farming has become awfully popular in today’s world, taking over the traditional farming businesses. This method of farming is a very unhealthy and inhumane way to farm livestock. It is not only harmful to the animals, but to humans as well.
To maintain the export of food needed to keep up with demand, these factory farms need to have large amounts of animals to produce such a high quantity of food in a short amount of time. Therefore, the overcrowding of animals due to confined space happens. For example, they use “…stacked battery cages for laying hens, gestation and fallowing crates that curtail movement for swine to as little as
4.5 feet wide by 6.5 feet long and .
. . crates in which calves being raised for veal cannot lie down with their legs extended” (Pearce 55-56). Another problem with overcrowding animals is that diseases can be easily spread.
Due to an abundance of livestock crammed together, leads to masses of animal waste. Having animals around waste can lead to them contracting many diseases that can be easily spread to other animals. An abundance of animal waste is not only harmful to the livestock, but to humans as well. Animal waste has been known to cause many pollution incidents. For example, “…a single 500-sow farm producing 20 piglets per sow a year creates as much effluent as a town of 25,000 people without a waste treatment system” (When Water Kills par. 6). Very little of this dung is properly treated, regulated, or monitored. Because of this problem, studies show water sources being contaminated as well as the air. Human health is a large concern, due to the
pollution being created by factory farms. One reason for this is that, “…manure from factory farms often contains a variety of heavy metals, lake-choking nutrients and deadly pathogens such as E. coli 0157” (When Water Kills Par. 4). These deadly pathogens do not get absorbed into the land, consequently causing them to spread into the air, and runoff water streams. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has supported the possible use of manure lagoons, where large scale factory farms would go to dump their manure. This practice still is not efficient. Multiple spills into rivers show how much manure will still leak out into streams and ground water. As shown in the 2005 spill into New York's Black River, killing an abundance of fish in the rivers (Colleran). These facts show just how hard it is to completely stop the waste created from factory farming from escaping into the water supply humans use daily. This is very harmful to humans, and needs to be stopped.
Another leading problem with factory farming is the abuse of the livestock.
The animals being forced to live in these slaughter houses are treated in an inhumane way by the factory farmers, daily. In the swine factories, if they cannot move down the chute quick enough for the workers, the animal will often be beat to death with a lead pipe, this is called piping. Thumping is another unnecessary form of animal abuse that is performed in the swine industry of factory farming. Piglets that have not grown up to standard packing size, often the runts, are picked up by their hind legs, and are smashed head first into the concrete floor. This is often preformed multiple times on just one piglet. These are just a few of the inhumane activities that are performed on the animals used for factory
farming.
Some people might argue that factory farming is essential to provide for the growing population. This statement is however, not true. Before factory farms came into business, traditional farming - also known as family owned farms - was the way to produce food for the population. In an interview “ABARES executive director Karen Schneider said, despite contrary perceptions, family farms have also provided most of the capital that underpins the $60 billion Australian farm sector” (Australian Par.3). People are unaware of these facts, and need to be reminded that family farming still produces enough food to supply the population. According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, family owned farms are just as profitable, and sometimes more, than their factory farm competitors (Australian Par. 2).
All of these examples are good reasons as to why factory farming is inhumane, and should not be allowed. Factory farming causing harm to human health, as well as the obvious harm to the livestock should be good reasons to use other alternatives to farming. Traditional farming, and organic ways of farming produce the same products without such intense animal abuse and harm to human’s health.