MEMO PAGE:
KHALIL ENDISHA
I chose to approach this paper by first collecting solid sources, that I could make my paper
revolve around. I made sure I had my sources first and then went from there. I had a short period
of time to write it so my drafting and revising was very brief, I wish I had more time to revise the
paper, and make sure I am making my points clear and understandable. I also wish I had time for
peer review.
My biggest strength in the essay I would say, are my sources and how I was able to use them to
make my argument clear and well supported. My biggest weakness is maybe my writing style
and grammar mistakes. I am least proud of my grammar skils, I also wish I could make a better
closing statement.
I am also ashamed of my time management skills, that took away from the potential of this
essay.
If i had more time I would invest more time in making the audience realize how significant my
point is for the greater good of society.
The human population on earth, Is a very large number. The estimated number is 7,324,783,225,
as of 2015, fifty years ago this number was 4,563,131,244 less, we where about 2,761,650,981
people on the planet. Our populations are increasing at exponential levels. In 2050 we will
approximately be 9,550,994,891 people on this planet(US population 2015). As our populations
continue to increase in the ways they are, the difficulty to sustain the human race will also
continue increase. Resources become scarce, demand on resources increases, as a result pressure
on our suppliers also increases.
An essential resource humans need to sustain their lives is food, without food humans cannot live.
Humans are omnivores, we are able to sustain ourselves on plant, and animal based diets. Animal
based diets make up the diets of a large segment of our population. the average American ingests
about 430 calories from animal based diets (Molla, Rani). 88% of adults, in America include
meat in their daily diets. according to the USDA, the average meat eater in 2012 consumed 75
pounds of red meat and 57 pounds of poultry(Molla, Rani). This means about 285,749,105
million people in the United States are living on animal based diets.
These statistics imply the immense pressure the meat industry is under, by the consumers. In
order to cope with demands and pressures the agriculture industry has developed ways in which
they make it possible to supply these high demands, one of these ways is through factory farming.
Factory farms are large industrial operations that include the cultivation of large amounts of
animals, using procedures that minimize cost, and maximize amount of production. The animals
are cultivated for one purpose, to provide nutrition for a vast population, supplying their
demands. In doing so, costs of productions are cut to maximize produce. In this paper I argue
that while decreasing the costs of production, when using procedures like factory farming,
consumers and producers pay a high ethical cost, an ethical cost that depletes, informed
consumers and producers, of their morals and ethics.
Many may argue the opposite, many argue, the factory farming meat industry, is responsible for
the highest of the ethical accomplishments, if it is feeding our nations and our economies. The
argument could be made that the benefits that come from factory farming actually over trumps
the ethical costs paid.
The USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for America recommends 3.3 ounces of meat per day. the meat
industry, which is 80% dependent on factory farms for produce ("How America turned it's
livestock farms into factories"), produces about 92.9 billion pounds of meat in 2012( "The States
Meat Industry at a Glance"). In 2010 more than 487,600 workers were employed by the meat and
poultry packing industries, creating a combined salary of 19 billion dollars( "The States Meat
Industry at a Glance"). Companies involved in meat production, along with suppliers,
distributors and retailers employ 6.2 million people in the U.S with jobs that total 200 billion
dollars in wages. The consumption of meat and poultry generates 2.4 billion in state sales taxes.
All of this revenue generates 864.2 billion annually to the U.S economy, roughly 6% of the
entire GDP( "The States Meat Industry at a Glance"). These statistics are valid attempts to
justify the ethical costs being paid by the factory farming industry. That does not imply, we
should not study the implications and consequences of these techniques, ethical implications.
While the economy and population might be benefiting from these techniques, These techniques
do have implications that are of grave concern both economically and morally.
While factory farming might appear benefiting the economy, factory farming seriously affects
the environment in which it works in, adding ethical and financial costs to the nation. Factory
farming is responsible for the largest amount of land pollution in the world . A total of 33% of
arable land is used to produce feed crops for the animals being cultivated. Vast areas of forested
land is cleared to grow feed for animal production. Deforestation and land degradation have
profound impacts on the planets ability to sustain vital agriculture resources and sustain food
(Mire, Chetane).
The raising of farm animals requires a substantial amount of water resource, farm animals
require water for hydration, and also for other reasins. Factory farming requires a substantially
larger amount of water, in comparison with traditional farming methods. Industrial operations
require water for cleaning enclosures, to dispose of waste produced by the animals, and also for
the later stages when producing and processing the meat, this results in a large amount of waste
water. According to the FAO( food and agriculture organization) the livestock sector is the
largest contributor sectoral source of water pollution, which has immense negative implications
on our collective environment ("How America turned it's livestock farms into factories").
Unlike human waste, livestock waste is often flushed out of confinement buildings untreated,
into large cesspools, or lagoons, these pools may leak out or burst, when this happens the waste
and odor is spread along communities. Manure from the lagoons are also applied to fields as
fertilizer, when the application exceeds the ability of fields to absorb the nutrients, the residual
manure nutrients and any bacteria leach of the fields into ground water and rivers. Contaminants
including heavy metals, antibiotics and pathogenic bacteria all make their ways to our drinking
water. This enhances the possibility for people to contract water borne diseases. Six of the 150
pathogens found in animal manure are responsible for 90% of human food and water borne
diseases ("How America turned it's livestock farms into factories").
Factory farming is also responsible for a fair amount of air pollution, which is another way the
implications of factory farming come back to harm the consumers and producers. Factory
farming results in the emissions of important greenhouses that harm our environment . As the
numbers of farm animals grow the number of emissions also grows. It is predicted that by 2050,
over two thirds of greenhouse emissions will be emitted by farm animal production (Pelletier &
Tyedmers, 2010).
Wellfare or decent living conditions for animals in factory farms is void. Animals are tormented
and put through inadequate living conditions for the convenience of producers. . According to
Donald Broom, Colleen Macleod Professor of Animal Welfare in the Department of Clinical
Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge University “efforts to achieve earlier and faster growth,
greater production per individual, efficient feed conversion and partitioning, and increased
prolificacy are the causes of some of the worst animal welfare problems.
For egg laying hens, the increase In production has cause osteoporosis-induced loss of structural
bone mass. This is so severe that these birds commonly experience bone fractures. In industrial
pig production, adult female pigs are put through intensive cycles of impregnation, giving birth
and nursing all while intensively confined. During their four-month pregnancies, 80% of sows
(adult female pigs) are kept in stalls or gestation crates that restrict the animal’s movement, to
the extent that the animals are unable to turn around, if they chose too. Many pigs suffer
psychological trauma form such living conditions, the animals start developing behavioral
diseases, animals start to chew on metal bars they are confined with, in some instances pigs
suffer severe depression and become unresponsive(Bergeron, 2006).
Most cattle raised for beef are castrated, de horned and branded , these are painful procedures
that most of the time are done without anesthesia. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated and
milked for 10 out of 12 months. They are extensively milked which is an activity that is
immensely exhausting for the cows, in peak lactation period a cow exerts the equivalent amount
of effort it would take a human to jog 6 hours a day, every day. Another product that requires an
animal to live in miserable conditions is veal, which requires calves to be, heavily confined and
restricted for their 16 to 18 weeks of life before they are slaughtered("How America turned it's
livestock farms into factories") .
Animals involved in factory farming are denied natural lives they have evolved to enjoy,
hundreds of thousands of chickens, or thousands of pigs can all be living in one building one that
has the insufficient capacity to do so. Industrialized livestock conditions make animals
vulnerable to disease and puts them under immense suffering.
Industrialized meat packing corporations are thinking of ways to force animals into their
preferred production models, like genetically modifying animals, in efforts to increase produce
and decrease costs, instead of adapting production systems that maximize animal welfare, or
enhance the well being of our environment. The techniques used in factory farming are
techniques that disregard animal welfare in ways that I have listed and many more.
Factory farming is only increasing in size and with that moral and ethical costs are also
increasing. In the essay “We need a public life with purpose “ Micheal Sandel speaks about the
importance of discourse about the implications of the actions we partake in as a society,
collectively. In order to achieve a healthy ethically aware society matters like factory farming
need to be assessed through our ethical moral lenses, and not our profit driven minds.
Micheal slander believes our societies are developing, from having market economies to
becoming market societies, he says a market economy is a tool, a valuable and effective tool for
organizing productive activity, but a market society is a place where almost everything is up for
sale, where market values seep into almost every sphere of life, and sometimes crowd out or
corrode non market values, like ethics or morals. The conversation our society ought to have, is
one that debates and brings up the ethical and moral implications of our supplier’s ways. Once
enough people in our society realize the negative moral implications that result from our meat
industrie’s techniques, second thoughts and techniques must arise, techniques that will relieve
our society of the ethical costs consumers and producers are paying for their nutrition.
Citations:
U.S. Population (LIVE) (Population of the United States (2015))
Mire, Chetane. "The Industrialization of Animal Agriculture: Implications for Small Farmers,
Rural Communities, the Environment, and Animals in the Developing World." Print.
The United States Meat Industry at a Glance (The United States Meat Industry at a Glance)
"How America Turned It's Livestock Farms into Factories." Print.
Molla, Rani. "How Much Meat Do Americans Eat? Then and Now." Walstreet Journal (2014).
Print.
Pelletier N and Tyedmers P. (2010). Forecasting potential global environmental costs of
livestock production 2000-2050. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America
Bergeron R, Badnell-Waters AJ, Lambton S, and Mason G. (2006). Stereotypic oral behaviour in
captive ungulates: foraging, diet and gastrointestinal function. In: Mason G and Rushen J (eds.),
Stereotypic Animal Behaviour: Fundamentals and Applications to Welfare, 2nd Edition
(Wallingford, U.K.: CABI, pp.19-57)