Factory farming

Interior of a hog confinement barn

Factory farming, a system or method of intensive animal farming or industrial farming, is the practice of raising farm animals in confinement at high stocking density, often in barren and unnatural conditions. The practice aims to produce the highest output at the lowest cost by relying on economies of scale, modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade. To increase the yield, synthetic hormones may be used to speed growth, while antibiotics and pesticides mitigate the spread of disease exacerbated by crowded living conditions.

Proponents of factory farming argue that it makes food production more efficient, that the animals are looked after in state-of-the-art confinement facilities and are content, that it is needed to feed the growing global human population, and that it protects the environment. Opponents argue that it harms the environment, creates health risks, and abuses animals. Gerhard Schroeder, then German Chancellor, called for a re-think of factory farming methods in 2000 in response to Europe's BSE crisis, the risks to human health continue to be a concern.

The term

The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first recorded use of the term to an American journal of economics in 1890. It is now used widely by mainstream news organizations, including the BBC, The Washington Post, and CNN. A 1998 documentary, A Cow at My Table, shows the term is also used within the agricultural industry, although it is regarded by sections of the industry as a term used by activists. The Encyclopaedia Britannica writes that the term is "descriptive of standard farming practice in the U.S." and frequently used by animal rights activists. Webster's New Millennium defines it as "a system of large-scale industrialized and intensive agriculture that is focused on profit with animals kept indoors and restricted in mobility."

In the U.S., factory farms are also known as confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), concentrated animal feeding operations, or intensive livestock operations (ILOs).

History

Agriculture had adopted more intensive methods during the 18th century, with this growth in production best characterised by the Agricultural Revolution, where improvements in farming techniques allowed for significantly improved yields, and supported the urbanisation of the population during the Industrial Revolution.

Innovations in agriculture beginning in the late 19th century paralleled developments in mass production in other industries. The identification of nitrogen and phosphorus as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, making possible more intensive types of agriculture. The discovery of vitamins and their role in animal nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which in the 1920s allowed certain livestock to be raised indoors. The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in larger numbers by reducing disease. Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made long-distance distribution of agricultural produce feasible.

According to the BBC, factory farming in Britain began in 1947 when a new Agriculture Act granted subsidies to farmers to encourage greater output by introducing new technology, in order to reduce Britain's reliance on imported meat. The United Nations writes that intensification of animal production was seen as a way of providing food security. The agriculture correspondent of The Guardian wrote in 1964:

Factory farming, whether we like it or not, has come to stay. The tide will not be held back, either by the humanitarian outcry of well meaning but sometimes misguided animal lovers, by the threat implicit to traditional farming methods, or by the sentimental approach to a rural way of life. In a year which has been as uneventful on the husbandry side as it has been significant in economic and political developments touching the future of food procurement, the more far-seeing would name the growth of intensive farming as the major development.

Nature of the practice

Scale

File:Factory-farm-exterior.jpg

Warehouses in which chickens are confined in a factory farm.

Agricultural production across the world doubled four times between 1820 and 1975 to feed a global population of one billion human beings in 1800 and 6.5 billion in 2002.

During the same period, the number of people involved in farming dropped as the process became more automated. In the 1930s, 24 percent of the American population worked in agriculture compared to 1.5 percent in 2002; in 1940, each farm worker supplied 11 consumers, whereas in 2002, each worker supplied 90 consumers.

The number of farms has also decreased, and their ownership is more concentrated. In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens. In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000, with 80 million pigs (out of 95 million) killed each year on factory farms as of 2002, according to the U.S. National Pork Producers Council. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.

Although Europe has become increasingly skeptical of factory farming, after a series of diseases such as BSE (mad cow) and foot and mouth disease affected its agricultural industries, globally there are indications that the industrialized production of farm animals is set to increase. According to Denis Avery of the Hudson Institute, Asia increased its consumption of pork by 18 million tons in the 1990s. As of 1997, the world had a stock of 900 million pigs, which Avery predicts will rise to 2.5 billion pigs by 2050. He told the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley that three billion pigs will thereafter be needed annually to meet demand. He writes: "For the sake of the environment, we had better hope those hogs are raised in big, efficient confinement systems."

Distinctive characteristics

Factory farms hold large numbers of animals, typically cows, hogs, turkeys, or chickens, often indoors, typically at high densities. The aim of the operation is to produce as much meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost. Food is supplied in place, and a wide variety of artificial methods are employed to maintain animal health and improve production, such as the use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements, and growth hormones. Physical restraints are used to control behavior regarded as undesirable. Breeding programs are used to produce animals more suited to the confined conditions and able to provide a consistent "product".

Cows in a factory farm in the U.S.

The distinctive characteristic of factory farms is the intense concentration of livestock. At one farm (Farm 2105) run by Carrolls Foods of North Carolina, the second-largest pig producer in the U.S., twenty pigs are kept per pen and each confinement building or "hog parlor" holds 25 pens. As of 2002, the company kills one million pigs every 12 days. Carrolls, which is owned by Smithfield Foods, switched to total confinement in 1974. The company's chief executive officer, F.J. "Sonny" Faison, has said: "It's all a supply-and-demand price question … The meat business in this country is just about perfect, uncontrolled supply-and-demand free enterprise. And it continues to get more and more sophisticated, based on science. Only the least-cost producer survives in agriculture." The animals are better off in total confinement, according to Faison:

They're in state-of-the-art confinement facilities. The conditions that we keep these animals in are much more humane than when they were out in the field. Today they're in housing that is environmentally controlled in many respects. And the feed is right there for them all the time, and water, fresh water. They're looked after in some of the best conditions, because the healthier and [more] content that animal, the better it grows. So we're very interested in their well-being—up to an extent.

Key issues

The environment

File:Factory-farm-dairy-barn.jpg

The entrance to a dairy barn

One of the most obvious environmental problems that arises out of high density farming is that animals produce significant amounts of waste that need to be disposed of, both within the housing and then also from the factory site. Whilst in low density outdoor farming this can be coped with by stock and crop rotation, intensive techniques, especially on the industrial scale of a factory farm, have the potential to create significant environmental hazards.

The designation "confined animal feeding operation" in the U.S. resulted from that country's 1972 Federal Clean Water Act, which was enacted to protect and restore lakes and rivers to a "fishable, swimmable" quality. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified certain animal feeding operations, along with many other types of industry, as point source polluters of groundwater. These operations were designated as CAFOs and subject to special anti-pollution regulation.

In 24 states in the U.S., isolated cases of groundwater contamination has been linked to CAFOs. For example, the ten million hogs in North Carolina generate 19 million tons of waste per year. The U.S. federal government acknowledges the waste disposal issue and requires that animal waste be stored in lagoons. These lagoons can be as large as 7.5 acres. Lagoons must be protected with an impermeable liner, but can nonetheless leak waste into groundwater under some conditions, and runoff from manure spread back onto fields as fertilizer can leak into surface water in the case of an unforeseen heavy rainfall. A lagoon that burst in 1995 released 25 million gallons of nitrous sludge in North Carolina's New River. The spill allegedly killed eight to ten million fish.

Denis Avery of the Hudson Institute's agricultural think-tank, the Center for Global Food Issues, has called modern farming a "conservation triumph," because it involves getting higher yields of crops and livestock from land. He predicts that, after 2050, three billion pigs will be needed annually to meet demand: "For the sake of the environment," he writes, "we had better hope those hogs are raised in big, efficient confinement systems."

The use of controlled indoor environments means that animals unsuited to the local climate can be farmed, for example, the UK has one of the few climates well suited to the outdoor farming of pigs.

Ethics

Between 60 and 70 percent of six million breeding sows in the U.S. are confined during pregnancy, and for most of their adult lives, in 2 ft by 7 ft gestation crates. According to pork producers and many veterinarians, sows will fight if housed in pens. The largest pork producer in the U.S. said in January 2007 that it will phase out gestation crates by 2017. They are being phased out in the European Union, with a ban effective in 2013 after the fourth week of pregnancy.

The large concentration of animals, animal waste, and the potential for dead animals in a small space poses ethical issues. It is recognised that some techniques used to sustain intensive agriculture can be cruel to animals. As awareness of the problems of intensive techniques has grown, there have been some efforts by governments and industry to remove inappropriate techniques.

In the UK, the Farm Animal Welfare Council was set up by the government to act as an independent advisor on animal welfare in 1979. and expresses its policy as five freedoms: from hunger & thirst; from discomfort; from pain, injury or disease; to express normal behaviour; from fear and distress.

There are differences around the world as to which practices are accepted and there continue to be changes in regulations with animal welfare being a strong driver for increased regulation. For example, the EU is bringing in further regulation to set maximum stocking densities for meat chickens by 2010, where the UK Animal Welfare Minister commented, "The welfare of meat chickens is a major concern to people throughout the European Union. This agreement sends a strong message to the rest of the world that we care about animal welfare.”

However, given the assumption that intensive farming techniques are a necessity, it is recognized that some apparently cruel techniques are better than the alternative. For example, in the UK, de-beaking of chickens is deprecated, but it is recognized that it is a method of last resort, seen as better than allowing vicious fighting and ultimately cannibalism. With the evolution of factory farming, there has been a growing awareness of the issues amongst the wider public, not least due to the efforts of animal rights and welfare campaigners. As a result gestation crates, one of the more contentious practices, are the subject of laws in the U.S., Europe and around the world to phase out their use as a result of pressure to adopt less confined practices.

Health problems and nuisance

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), farms on which animals are intensively reared can cause adverse health reactions in farm workers. Workers may develop acute and chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal injuries, and may catch infections that transmit from animals to human beings.

The CDC writes that chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds from animal waste may travel in the soil and water. Residents near such farms report nuisances such as odors and flies, as well as adverse health effects.

The CDC has identified a number of pollutants associated with the discharge of animal waste into rivers and lakes, and into the air. The use of antibiotics may create antibiotic-resistant pathogens; parasites, bacteria, and viruses may be spread; ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorus can reduce oxygen in surface waters and contaminate drinking water; pesticides and hormones may cause hormone-related changes in fish; animal feed and feathers may stunt the growth of desirable plants in surface waters and provide nutrients to disease-causing micro-organisms; trace elements such as arsenic and copper, which are harmful to human health, may contaminate surface waters.

In the European Union, growth hormones are banned on the basis that there is no way of determining a safe level. The UK has stated that in the event of the EU raising the ban at some future date, to comply with a precautionary approach, it would only consider the introduction of specific hormones, proven on a case by case basis. The various techniques of factory farming have been associated with a number of European incidents where public health has been threatened or large numbers of animals have had to be slaughtered to deal with disease. Where disease breaks out, it may spread more quickly, not only due to the concentrations of animals, but because modern approaches tend to distribute animals more widely.. The international trade in animal products increases the risk of global transmission of virulent diseases such as swine fever, BSE, foot and mouth and bird flu.

Features of factory farming

• Low cost — Intensive agriculture tends to produce food that can be sold at lower cost to consumers. This is achieved by reducing land costs and management costs.
• Quality — Food produced by factory farming methods is often cited as being poorer quality than that produced by traditional methods. Factors of this include poor quality diet of artificial feeds, lack of exercise affecting muscle quality, use of additives to affect the product appearance.
• Efficiency — Animals in confinement can be supervised more closely than free-ranging animals, and diseased animals can be treated faster. Further, more efficient production of meat, milk, or eggs results in a need for fewer animals to be raised, thereby limiting the impact of agriculture on the environment.
• Economic contribution — The high input costs of agricultural operations result in a large influx and distribution of capital to a rural area from distant buyers rather than simply recirculating existing capital. A single dairy cow contributes over $1300 US to a local rural economy each year, each beef cow over $800, meat turkey $14, and so on. As Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff states, “Research estimates that the annual economic impact per cow is $13,737. In addition, each $1 million increase in PA milk sales creates 23 new jobs. This tells us that dairy farms are good for Pennsylvania's economy.”
• Food safety — Reducing number and diversity of agricultural production facilities results in easier management. Smaller facility numbers permit easier government oversight and regulation of food quality. Processing foodstuffs through centralized mediums leads to standardization, which protects general food safety, removing unsafe rogue elements. There is dispute over food safety. It is noted that E. coli grows naturally in most mammals, including humans, and that only a few strains of E. coli are potentially hazardous to humans. They also note that diseases naturally occur among chickens and other animals. Properly cooking food can effectively remove risk factors by killing bacteria.
• Animal health — Larger farms have greater resources and abilities to maintain a high level of animal health. Larger farms can make use of expert veterinarians, while smaller non-industrial farms are limited to farmer's ability to care for his livestock. Under certain definitions of industrial agriculture, industrial agriculture also permits the use of antibiotics to prevent and treat diseases, while non-industrial agriculture, to minimize cost and meet certain other goals, often will not prevent or treat bacterial diseases but will instead hope illness clears up without intervention.
• Diseases The use of intensive farming are thought to make it more likely to evolve harmful diseases. Techniques used in factory farming, such as the need for cheap, artificial foodstuffs have been credited with leading to a higher incidence of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, which in turn is claimed to cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Overpopulation may facilitate the spread of disease. Many communicable diseases spread rapidly under such conditions. Animals raised on antibiotics may develop antibiotic resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria ("superbugs"). Use of animal vaccines can create new viruses that kill people and cause flu pandemic threats. H5N1 is an example of where this might have already occurred.
• Pollution — Large quantities and concentrations of waste are produced. Lakes, rivers, and groundwater are at risk when animal waste is improperly recycled. Pollutant gases are also emitted. Concentrations of animals can produce unacceptable levels of foul smells as opposed to the tolerable odours of the countryside. In less intensive conditions, natural processes can break down potential pollutants. Large farms can maintain and operate sophisticated systems to control waste products. Smaller farms are unable to maintain the same standards of pollution control. By consolidating waste products, farmers can efficiently manage waste.
• Ethics — Cruelty to animals: Crowding, drugging, and performing surgery on animals. In some farms, chicks may be debeaked when very young. Confining hens and pigs in barren environments leads to physical problems such as osteoporosis and joint pain, and also boredom and frustration, as shown by repetitive or self-destructive actions known as stereotypes.. Animal treatment is subject to welfare legislation, though there is not consensus on what is acceptable. Some harmful treatments, such as debeaking, are tolerated on the basis that the alternative is greater harm to the animals.
• Destruction of biodiversity — A tendency towards using single adapted breeds (a mono-culture) in factory farming, both in arable and animal farming, gives uniform product designed for high yields, at the risk of increased susceptibility to disease. The loss of locally adapted breeds reduces the resilience of the agricultural system. The issue is not limited to factory farming and historically the problem is reflected in the rapid adoption of one or two strains of crops across a wide area as seen in the Irish potato famine of 1854 and the Bengal rice famine in 1942. The loss of the gene pool of domesticated animals limits the ability to adapt to future problems.

Views on Factory Farming

• Industry is responsible and self-regulating — Organizations representing factory farm operators claim to be proactive and self-policing when it comes to improving practices according to the latest food safety and environmental findings.

Opponents say that factory farming is cruel, that it poses health risks, and that it causes environmental damage.

In 2003, a Worldwatch Institute publication stated that "factory farming methods are creating a web of food safety, animal welfare, and environmental problems around the world, as large agribusinesses attempt to escape tighter environmental restrictions in the European Union and the U.S. by moving their animal production operations to less developed countries."

See also

• Environmental vegetarianism
• Feedlot
• Humane Slaughter Act
• List of United States foodborne illness outbreaks
• Permaculture
• System of Rice Intensification

Further reading

• "Head to head: Intensive farming", BBC News, March 6, 2001.
• "Commissioner points to factory farming as source of contamination", CBC News, July 28, 2000.
• "Factory farms mainly responsible (Avian Flu)", USA Today, April 1, 2007.
• Brief History of CAFO Regulations—from the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
• National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Independent commission studying the effects of intensive animal production.
• "EU tackles BSE crisis", BBC News, November 29, 2000.
• "Factory Farming: The Impact of Animal Feeding Operations on the Environment and Health of Local Communities", Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Bernstein, Mark H. Without a Tear: Our Tragic Relationship With Animals. University of Illinois Press, 2004. ISBN 0252071980
• Brooman, Simon & Legge, Debbi. Law Relating To Animals. Cavendish Publishing. ISBN 1843141299
• Harden, Blaine. Supplements used in factory farming can spread disease", The Washington Post, December 28, 2003.
• Lorenzten, Amy. "Study Renews Debate Over Sows in Crates", The Washington Post/AP, May 10, 2007.
• Nikiforuk, Andrew. "When Water Kills: Dangerous Consequences of Factory Farming in Canada." Maclean's. 113:24 (June 12, 2000): 18–21.
• O'Brien, Tim. "Factory Farming and Human Health." The Ecologist. 31:5 (June 2001 supplement): 30–34, 58–59.
• Spira, Henry. "Less Meat, Less Misery: Reforming Factory Farms." Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy. 11 (Spring 1996): 39–44.

Proponents

• Journal of Extension, article on case studies of the impact of large scale agriculture
• US Farm Bureau, Farm and Ranchers association
• Coalition to Support Iowa Farmers
• Dairy Today magazine
• USDA food safety
• Purdue University food science extension

Opponents

• Anti-agricultural FAQs on Factory Farming
• Fatal Harvest—The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
• Ask For Change resources for consumers
• FactoryFarming.com
• Cruelty to Animals: Mechanized Madness—Article with links to photos and videos of factory farming
• foie gras production—Video of Foie Gras production
• Husbandry Institute Promoting sustainable, responsible, and ethical animal husbandry
• Information about factory farming from The Humane Society of the United States
• Inside the California Egg Industry: An Undercover Investigation—Video of hens in battery cages at various intensive egg farming facilities. (2/4/06)
• The Meatrix—a parody of The Matrix
• The Meatrix 2: Revolting—the second installment of the Meatrix parodying The Matrix
• Meet Your Meat—a PETA-produced factory farm tour narrated by Alec Baldwin
• FutureFood-Project: Cruelty of factory-farming and revolutionary future solutions (meat without livestock)
• See inside an egg factory farm
• See inside a chicken factory farm
• One of PA's largest egg farms charged with animal cruelty
• TorturedbyTyson.com—Undercover investigation of a Tyson Foods processing plant.