Research Paper- No Moooore Factory Farming- Jordan Zapp 8/12/15

No Moooore Factory Farming

            Mass-producing animals and animal products has been part of our culture for the last century. It has grown significantly up to modern day, emerging as one of the biggest, most powerful industries. This mass-production is known as factory farming. It looks like how it sounds: cows, pigs, and poultry kept in cages or stalls, machinery doing most of the dirty work, factory-style. The practice of factory farming is detrimental to the planet due to the way it negatively affects our health, ethics, and the environment.

            “Food is fuel,” “you are what you eat,” “let thy food by thy medicine.” We have heard it all before. What we put in our body affects our daily function indefinitely. It appears that the factory farming industry did not get the memo. Many farmers give their animals low doses of antibiotics and hormones. These are given in order to promote growth, aid production, and prevent disease (Factory Farming: Misery for Animals). Not only are these antibiotics and hormones doing unnatural things to the animals, but it also affects whoever eats the animals as well. Eating animals that have been inundated with hormones can lead to chronic illness, obesity, heart disease, and abnormal or early developmental growth in young teens. According to an article by nutrition expert Tracey Roizman, eating animals with hormone residue puts women at risk to develop potentially cancerous breast lumps. In another study, a chemical growth promoter known as zeranol was found to have reduced height and breast size in adolescent girls (Roizman). Clearly, the use of hormones in animals will affect the humans who consume them.  What’s more, bacteria residing on or near the animals become exposed to the antibiotics and can develop antibody resistance (Factory Farming: Misery for Animals). This will also affect us because the next time you are sick, your antibiotic may no longer be effective.  Our bodies do not need the health problems associated with hormone treated livestock.   

            Like humans, animals produce waste. Thousands of animals in one farm, times the thousands of factory farms across the world is a recipe for a whole lot of waste. Where does it all go? Good question. Most farms want to get rid of the excrement quickly and cheaply. It ends up dumped in lagoons, liquefied, and sprayed on to the land. The waste leaks into the water sources and soil of neighboring farms. Studies have been done proving that the toxins in the waste can cause illnesses to people near or on the farm. These problems can include neurological, respiratory, and reproductive problems (Other Health Risks of the Meat Industry).  Additionally, an article by the EPA reveals that large amounts of nitrate from waste, which seeps into underground sources of drinking water, can affect children with an often fatal blood disease known as Blue Baby Syndrome (What’s the Problem?).  The factory farming industry is mismanaging the animal waste at the expense of our health.  Poop is making us sick! Frankly, that is really gross.

            During the processing phase of factory farming, meat is sterilized and cleaned so that it can be neatly packaged and sent to a grocery store and from there, to your dinner table. Unfortunately, not all things can be cleaned from the meat.  Scientists discovered a disease in the 1970s in cattle known as Mad Cow Disease (Food Safety Consequences of Factory Farms).  It is an infectious disease that affects the brain of the cattle.  Mad Cow Disease was a direct result of cattle being fed cattle products, such as unused organs and brain tissue. This infectious disease cannot be “taken out” of animal meat even after processing.  In fact, a “human” version known as variant Creutzfelt Jakob Disease (vCJD) is believed to be caused by exposure to contaminated meat (Mad Cow Disease).  To put it simply, what we are feeding the animals affects them and therefore, affects us.

            Imagine living in a cramped, dirty, smelly stall with hundreds of other humans pressed against you; that is how it has been your whole life. No personal space, no freedom whatsoever. That is reality for factory-farmed animals. These animals will go their entire lives in filthy, dark sheds, stuffed into battery cages, and crates. They will never raise families, never build nests or experience what they are supposed to as animals (Factory Farming: Misery for Animals). Take chickens, for example. A chicken will be stuffed into a small battery cage with several other chickens. Several other battery cages will be stacked on top of them. Animals above will defecate on animals below, spreading disease. Some chickens will die and not be properly disposed of (Factory Farming: Misery for Animals). It is chaoic, grimy, putrid uproar. No living thing deserves a life like that, yet that is what they get. There have been few laws set in place to protect the animals from damaging environments. On of them is the Humane Slaughter Act. Approved in 1958, it contains outdated standards and excludes poultry.  How can this act remain the same when our world has changed so much in the last fifty years?

            In addition to unpleasant living conditions, animals are also subject to cruel slaughter methods. The Humane Slaughter Act applies to millions of livestock killed on federal slaughter plants. It does not apply to the billions of chickens, millions of turkeys, ducks, and rabbits killed each year. It does not apply to animals killed on the factory farm (Cruel Slaughter Practices). The regulated methods of “humane” slaughter are expensive and rarely used. The chicken industry is known to grind male chicks alive because there is no other use for them. Because they are not protected, they are subject to horrors such as “being hung upside down, shocked into paralysis, having their throat cut, and being drowned in hot water- all while conscious,” (At Slaughter).  No living thing should ever have to undergo such barbarity at the hands of a human.

            Not only is the treatment of the animals unethical, but the business aspect of the industry itself is questionable. Factory farming is a huge industry, and billions of dollars invested in it. According to the Center of Concern, an oligopoly is usually four major firms controlling over 40% of the market. The agricultural (including factory farming) industries are closer to 60-80%. Our food industry is being controlled by a handful of firms, getting rich of cheap farming practices at the animals’ expense. They often choose the path of least resistance, keeping production cheap. The success of the industry, supported the consumers who love meat, enable lobbyists to shape farming policy in favor of big business. There have been changes in regulation that have made it easier to “sneak by” with cheaper, unethical practices (Why Corporate Agriculture is a Problem). This prevents good economic competition, discourages small family farms, and jeopardizes the integrity of the industry.

            Factory farming is also damaging to the environment. Lots of animals produce lots and lots of waste. These huge amounts of manure release methane and other greenhouse gasses such as nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to the global warming crisis. According to report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), animal agriculture gets credit for 37% of methane emissions and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions (How Factory Farming Contributes to Global Warming). Our world is deteriorating quickly as we will are clogging up our atmosphere with greenhouse gasses.  Imagine the improvements if factory farming emissions were out of the equation!

            The waste and general production also pollute the air, water and land. Excrement is normally disposed of in lagoons or lakes and does not undergo the sanitizing process of human waste (Factory Farms and the Environment). After it has liquefied, waste is usually sprayed onto the land. The manure seeps into the water supply, the soil, and toxins rise into the air. This can affect our health, as aforementioned. The contaminated soil contains crops that we need to eat; the polluted water is no longer safe to drink.

            Lastly, factory farming contributes to deforestation. Vast areas of land are cleared to raise livestock and are eventually exhausted from waste production and constant tread from animals. What’s more, large amounts of land are cleared to grow food for the livestock (Factory Farms and the Environment). With regard to eliminating factory farming, many argue that we will exhaust the land even more because we will need to grow more crops. This is not entirely accurate; we will in fact be relieving much of the land from the constant growing of crops for the animals. Not only are trees being cut down and ecosystems destroyed, but no counter measures are being taken to replant or relocate. This results not only in elimination of natural resources, but also decreases the amount of fresh air to balance emissions.

            Factory farming causes severe damage to the planet. If we want our bodies to last long enough to live good, healthy lives, we cannot expect it to thrive with the aid of toxic hormones, animal waste, or infectious diseases.  In the same way, we cannot claim to be the compassionate, intelligent beings when considering the way animals are treated before and during slaughter.  Finally, factory farming is killing the environment, the earth; our only home.  It is unsustainable and unhealthy for the health of humans, the well-being of animals, and the condition of the earth.

Works Cited

"At Slaughter." Animal Welfare Institute. Animal Welfare Institute. Web. 12 Aug. 2015. 

"Cruel Slaughter Practices : The Humane Society of the United States." The Humane Society. Web.                12 Aug. 2015.

"Factory Farms and the Environment." Farm Sanctuary. Web. 18 July 2015

"Factory Farming: Misery for Animals." PETA. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.                        Web. 18 July 2015.

"Food Safety Consequences of Factory Farms." Food Water Watch General. 27 Mar.       2007.                      Web. 29 July 2015.

"How Factory Farming Contributes to Global Warming." EcoWatch. 21 Jan. 2013. Web.   2 Aug.             2015.

"Mad Cow Disease in Humans: Facts, Treatment and Symptoms." MedicineNet.

 "Other Health Risks of the Meat Industry." People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA,             n.d. Web. 29 July 2015. 

Roizman, Tracey. "Do Hormones in the Food Supply Affect the Human Body?" Healthy                                 Eating. Web. 12 Aug. 2015

"What's the Problem?" EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 4 Aug. 2015. Web. 12      Aug.                        2015.   

"Why Corporate Agriculture Is a Problem." Center of Concern. CEDC. Web. 29 July        2015.