Jake Bucks
Period 5
1/30/14
Are We As Humane As We Like To Believe?:
Factory Farming's Devastating Impacts On Society
Most omnivores like bacon, but I say omnivores because not every human is an
omnivore. Have you ever thought to yourself what was the process this bacon went through?
Well if you have, it was not a fun process for that pig. Farming has helped humans advance in
size, without the farming innovations created through the industrial revolution, humans would
have never had the resources in making such a huge population. But is that what this planet
needs the most, more humans? Factory farming is a mass production method of farming with
small resources and big profit. This might sound appealing to consumers because it is easy to
make and easy to buy, but is the price of these products really worth the consequences it brings
with them? Factory farming negatively impacts the welfare of animals, our environment, and the
consumer.
Factory farming abuses farm animals, but overall, pigs and chickens have had the worst
of it. The chicken was the first animal to be factory farmed, through the industrial revolution
farmers could keep chickens in a more confined space with the discovery of vitamins in the
1920’s. Vitamins have allowed farmers to keep chickens inside throughout the whole day. This is
economically more efficient for the farmers rather than using bigger plots of land to house the
chickens. Factory farmed chickens live in cages that are “six tenths of a square foot”(Organic
Consumer Association). Living in a confined cage results in the chickens eating each other out of
frustration. Farmers, trying to prevent this from happening, debeak these chickens. Debeaking a
chicken is where you trim of parts of the chickens beak, causing extreme amounts of pain to the
chicken. The negative impacts outweigh the positive ones when you debeak a chicken. Negative
impacts can vary from acute pain to chronic pain. Chicken beaks have nerves that respond to
pain, imagine if you were to have a bit of your nose cut of, it is the exact pain a chicken feels
when it is debeaked. Chronic pain is a long term effect on the chicken, it gives the chicken
phantom pain. Human amputees have a feeling of phantom pain, where they feel a limb or organ
that is missing. The only positive factor of debeaking is that it saves farmers money.
Factory farming has also have had an impact on pigs. Pigs are raised for slaughter, and all
of a pigs body can be used for food. Much like chickens, factory farmed pigs live in crates that
are “7 feet long and 2 feet wide” (peta.org) too small for the animal. These crates give pigs
frustrated tendencies such as biting other pigs tails. Farmers try to prevent this by cutting of the
pigs tails. Instead of fixing a pig's living space by making it bigger, factory farmers make more
problems for the pig by cutting of their tails. Pigs are very intelligent animals that make bonds
with other pigs and even humans. Just like humans (and almost every other animal) pigs care for
their offspring, piglets and their mothers are separated within ten days of being born. The Mother
pigs are then recycled to give birth again every three to four years. The separation between the
mother and the piglet combined with the recycling of the mother can causing a huge amount of
stress on sows. The major point of factory farming is to be quick and have mass production, and
in doing so, farmed animals lose happiness, their freedoms, and suffer abuse.
Factory farming is not only abusing animals but it is also abusing the environment. “The
U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) reports that animals in the U.S. meat industry
produce 61 million tons of waste each year, which is 130 times the volume of human waste - or
five tons for every U.S. citizen.” (Organic Consumer Association). Manure can be beneficial and
harmful to the environment. Manure can give land fertility, with the chemicals in manure, plants
for the most part thrive. But too much of anything is harmful, and the amounts of manure factory
farms produce exceed the benefits of land fertility by polluting water. Animal Feed Operations
(AFOs) are facilities where farm animals are raised in confined areas. AFOs produce the
majority of the pollution due to the fact they hold so many animals. If AFOs do not have the
proper means of getting rid of manure, lacking a storm water run of system or its location like
being on a hill, then the manure will seep into rivers or underground drinking water supplies. Not
only does it pollute water, it affects the air quality, including dust, smog, greenhouse gases, and
odors. Factory farming has produced these massive facilities that not only give animals an
unhappy life, but also have huge impacts on the environment.
You might be thinking that all of these negative consequences have no direct impact on
you, well you have been lied to by the factory farmers. Factory farms produce meat that has been
over medicated making it more dangerous for humans to eat. The use of antibiotics and vitamins
to keep disease from spreading inside the cramped farm houses do keep the animals alive and
spare them, for the most part, from disease, but these antibiotics have started to make super
bacterias that can prevent human antibiotics from working “Antibiotics in farm animals leave
behind drug-resistant microbes in meat and milk. With every burger and shake consumed, supermicrobes settle in the stomach where they transfer drug resistance to bacteria in the body,
making one more vulnerable to previously-treatable conditions” (A Lifestyle Worth Living: A
Powerful How to Guide for a Happy, Healthy and Purposeful Life). For example, say you get
Salmonella and doctors give you antibiotics, but the antibiotics that have been prescribed to you
are not working. The reason behind that would be because chickens have been given antibiotics
for Salmonella already, therefore, the bacteria within your system, since you have consumed the
chicken, is immune to the antibiotic. That also brings up the fact that even with all of these
medicines in factory farm animals it will still cause the meat they produce to be unhealthy. The
FDA states, “Broiler carcass contamination measured in the processing plant estimates that 20%
of broiler chickens in the United States are contaminated with Salmonella and over 80% are
contaminated with Campylobacter (104). Consumption of food contaminated with these bacteria
can lead to illness in susceptible individuals” (FDA.gov). These medicines are primarily given to
these animals just so farmers can make a profit. The meat they produce is borderline edible, and
that makes the meat cheaper for the consumers, but also gives the farmer more money. Do you
need meat everyday? Would you rather have high quality meat or low quality? Factory farming
is giving dangerous meat to consumers, and we are losing the quality of our meat.
Some people believe that factory farming is the only way out now, that there is no going
back, and this is wrong. If we steadily go back to individuals owning farms and producing
animals or even cut back on factory farming we can eventually have a slow population increase.
That is the biggest problem of factory farming, it is making the human population too big, if we
do not change factory farming then we are setting the future up to fail. A lot of people will die if
we keep up with this huge population growth due to lack of food. Starving will become a normal
thing because factory farmers will eventually not be able to feed the world. Some factory farmers
even fool themselves into believing they truly care for the animals they own. In California,
factory farmers tried to get the Supreme Court to “strike down a California law that requires
exactly the sort of basic humane treatment for farmed animals that factory farmers claim to
want”(aldf.org). Factory farmers also defend themselves by saying that they have compassion for
the animals they raise, but if you look at what they do you see the exact opposite. Factory
farmers are bluntly cruel if an animal show resistance to them or affects profits.
In Charlie Chaplin's final speech in “The Great Dictator” he states “Machinery that gives
abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and
unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity.” Instead
of worrying about a profit, farmers should start worrying about us, the people, and the animals
that give up their lives to sustain ours. We can bring health back to the environment, we can
make our population smaller, we can fix factory farming. We do not have a lot of time though,
and if this method of mass production continues to live we will be destroying the human race
along with the animals we manipulate to support this inhumane way of life.
Citations
"Factory Farming." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2013.Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"Industrial Agriculture Is a Major Threat to Biodiversity." Biodiversity. Ed. Debra A. Miller.
Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "The Issues: Biodiversity."
Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"Factory Farmed Fish Can Help to Feed an Expanding World Population." Factory Farming. Ed.
Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Will
Farmed Fish Feed the World?"www.worldwatch.org/node/5883. 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in
Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"Disturbing Facts on Factory Farming & Food Safety." Disturbing Facts on Factory Farming &
Food Safety. 23 Jan. 2014 <http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/factoryfarm.cfm>
Leyonhjelm, David. "Factory Farming Is Essential to Feed the World." Factory Farming. Ed.
Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Factory
Farming—Essential to Feed the World."www.onlineopinion.com.au. 2012. Opposing Viewpoints
in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"11 Facts About Animals and Factory Farms." Do Something. 23 Jan. 2014
<http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-animals-and-factory-farms>.
"Factory Farms." Food Water Watch General. 21 Jan. 2014
<http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/factoryfarms/>.
Athanasiou, Katerina. "Most Factory Farms Use Healthy and Responsible Animal Practices."
Factory Farming. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Current Controversies.
Rpt. from "Ethics of Factory Farms."www.cornellsun.com 31 Mar. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints
in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"Phantom limbs: The body in mind." Taylor and Francis. 26 Jan. 2014
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13546800244000111#.UuWH9p4o6Uk>.
"Welcome!" Madison.com. 27 Feb. 2010. 26 Jan. 2014 <http://host.madison.com/specialsection/factory_farms/managing_manure/the-good-and-bad-of-manure/article_74241af8-225611df-883c-001cc4c03286.html>.
"What's the Problem?" EPA. Environmental Protection Agency. 24 Jan. 2014
<http://www.epa.gov/region9/animalwaste/problem.html>.
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/SafetyHealth/RecallsWithdrawals/UCM15230
8.pdf