From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Intensive animal farming or
industrial livestock production, also known as
factory farming, is a production approach towards farm animals in order to maximize production output, while minimizing production costs.
Intensive farming refers to
animal husbandry, the keeping of
livestock such as
cattle,
poultry, and
fish at higher stocking densities than is usually the case with other forms of animal agriculture—a practice typical in
industrial farming by
agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are
meat,
milk and
eggs for human consumption. There are issues regarding whether factory farming is sustainable or
ethical.
Confinement at high stocking density is one part of a systematic
effort to produce the highest output at the lowest cost by relying on
economies of scale, modern machinery,
biotechnology, and
global trade.
There are differences in the way factory farming techniques are
practiced around the world. There is a continuing debate over the
benefits, risks and ethical questions of factory farming. The issues
include the efficiency of food production;
animal welfare; and the environmental impact (e.g.
agricultural pollution) and health risks.
History
The practice of industrial animal agriculture is a relatively recent development in the
history of agriculture,
and the result of scientific discoveries and technological advances.
Innovations in agriculture beginning in the late 19th century generally
parallel developments in
mass production in other industries that characterized the latter part of the
Industrial Revolution. The discovery of
vitamins and their role in animal
nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which allowed chickens 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.
Agricultural production across the world doubled four times
between 1820 and 1975 (1820 to 1920; 1920 to 1950; 1950 to 1965; and
1965 to 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.
According to the
BBC,
the era factory farming per se 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."
In 1966, the United States, United Kingdom and other industrialized
nations, commenced factory farming of beef and dairy cattle and domestic
pigs.
From its American and West European heartland factory farming became
globalized in the later years of the 20th century and is still expanding
and replacing traditional practices of stock rearing in an increasing
number of countries. In 1990 factory farming accounted for 30% of world meat production and by 2005 this had risen to 40%.
Contemporary animal production
Sum of developed countries' livestock and feed subsidies
Factory farms hold large numbers of animals, typically cows, pigs,
turkeys, or chickens, often indoors, typically at high densities. The
aim of the operation is to produce large quantities of meat, eggs, or
milk at the lowest possible cost. Food is supplied in place. Methods
employed to maintain health and improve production may include some
combination of disinfectants, antimicrobial agents, anthelmintics,
hormones and vaccines; protein, mineral and vitamin supplements;
frequent health inspections; biosecurity; climate-controlled facilities
and other measures. Physical restraints, e.g. fences or creeps, are
used to control movement or actions regarded as undesirable. Breeding
programs are used to produce animals more suited to the confined
conditions and able to provide a consistent food product.
Intensive production of livestock and poultry is widespread in
developed nations. For 2002-2003,
FAO
estimates of industrial production as a percentage of global production
were 7 percent for beef and veal, 0.8 percent for sheep and goat meat,
42 percent for pork, and 67 percent for poultry meat. Industrial
production was estimated to account for 39 percent of the sum of global
production of these meats and 50 percent of total egg production. In the U.S., according to its
National Pork Producers Council, 80 million of its 95 million pigs slaughtered each year are reared in industrial settings.
Chickens
A commercial chicken house with open sides raising broiler pullets for meat
In the United States, chickens were raised primarily on family farms
until 1965. Originally, the primary value in poultry was eggs, and meat
was considered a byproduct of egg production.
Its supply was less than the demand, and poultry was expensive. Except
in hot weather, eggs can be shipped and stored without refrigeration for
some time before going bad; this was important in the days before
widespread refrigeration.
Farm flocks tended to be small because the hens largely fed
themselves through foraging, with some supplementation of grain, scraps,
and waste products from other farm ventures. Such feed stuffs were in
limited supply, especially in the winter, and this tended to regulate
the size of the farm flocks. Soon after poultry keeping gained the
attention of agricultural researchers (around 1896), improvements in
nutrition and management made poultry keeping more profitable and
businesslike.
Prior to about 1910, chicken was served primarily on special
occasions or Sunday dinner. Poultry was shipped live or killed, plucked,
and packed on ice (but not eviscerated). The "whole, ready-to-cook
broiler" was not popular until the 1950s, when end-to-end refrigeration
and sanitary practices gave consumers more confidence. Before this,
poultry were often cleaned by the neighborhood butcher, though cleaning
poultry at home was a commonplace kitchen skill.
Two kinds of poultry were generally used: broilers or "spring
chickens"; young male chickens, a byproduct of the egg industry, which
were sold when still young and tender (generally under 3 pounds live
weight), and "stewing hens", also a byproduct of the egg industry, which
were old hens past their prime for laying.
The major milestone in 20th century poultry production was the
discovery of vitamin D, which made it possible to keep chickens in
confinement year-round. Before this, chickens did not thrive during the
winter (due to lack of sunlight), and egg production, incubation, and
meat production in the off-season were all very difficult, making
poultry a seasonal and expensive proposition. Year-round production
lowered costs, especially for broilers.
At the same time, egg production was increased by scientific
breeding. After a few false starts, (such as the Maine Experiment
Station's failure at improving egg production) success was shown by
Professor Dryden at the Oregon Experiment Station.
Improvements in production and quality were accompanied by lower
labor requirements. In the 1930s through the early 1950s, 1,500 hens was
considered to be a full-time job for a farm family. In the late 1950s,
egg prices had fallen so dramatically that farmers typically tripled the
number of hens they kept, putting three hens into what had been a
single-bird cage or converting their floor-confinement houses from a
single deck of roosts to triple-decker roosts. Not long after this,
prices fell still further and large numbers of egg farmers left the
business.
Robert Plamondon
reports that the last family chicken farm in his part of Oregon, Rex
Farms, had 30,000 layers and survived into the 1990s. However the
standard laying house of the current operators is around 125,000 hens.
This fall in profitability was accompanied by a general fall in
prices to the consumer, allowing poultry and eggs to lose their status
as luxury foods.
The
vertical integration
of the egg and poultry industries was a late development, occurring
after all the major technological changes had been in place for years
(including the development of modern broiler rearing techniques, the
adoption of the Cornish Cross broiler, the use of laying cages, etc.).
By the late 1950s, poultry production had changed dramatically.
Large farms and packing plants could grow birds by the tens of
thousands. Chickens could be sent to
slaughterhouses
for butchering and processing into prepackaged commercial products to
be frozen or shipped fresh to markets or wholesalers. Meat-type chickens
currently grow to market weight in six to seven weeks, whereas only
fifty years ago it took three times as long.
This is due to genetic selection and nutritional modifications (but not
the use of growth hormones, which are illegal for use in poultry in the
US and many other countries). Once a meat consumed only occasionally,
the common availability and lower cost has made chicken a common meat
product within developed nations. Growing concerns over the
cholesterol content of
red meat in the 1980s and 1990s further resulted in increased consumption of chicken.
Today, eggs are produced on large egg ranches on which
environmental parameters are well controlled. Chickens are exposed to
artificial light cycles to stimulate egg production year-round. In
addition,
forced molting
is commonly practiced, in which manipulation of light and food access
triggers molting, with the goal of increased egg size and production.
Forced molting is controversial. While it is widespread in the US, it
is prohibited in the EU.
On average, a chicken lays one egg a day, but not on every day of
the year. This varies with the breed and time of year. In 1900, average
egg production was 83 eggs per hen per year. In 2000, it was well over
300. In the United States, laying hens are butchered after their second
egg laying season. In Europe, they are generally butchered after a
single season. The laying period begins when the hen is about 18–20
weeks old (depending on breed and season). Males of the egg-type breeds
have little commercial value at any age, and all those not used for
breeding (roughly fifty percent of all egg-type chickens) are killed
soon after hatching. The old hens also have little commercial value.
Thus, the main sources of poultry meat 100 years ago (spring chickens
and stewing hens) have both been entirely supplanted by meat-type
broiler chickens.
Some believe that the "deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices". On the other hand, according to the
CDC article
H5N1 Outbreaks and Enzootic Influenza by
Robert G. Webster et al.:
Transmission of highly pathogenic H5N1 from domestic
poultry back to migratory waterfowl in western China has increased the
geographic spread. The spread of H5N1 and its likely reintroduction to
domestic poultry increase the need for good agricultural vaccines. In
fact, the root cause of the continuing H5N1 pandemic threat may be the
way the pathogenicity of H5N1 viruses is masked by co-circulating
influenza viruses or bad agricultural vaccines.
Webster explains:
If you use a good vaccine you can prevent the
transmission within poultry and to humans. But if they have been using
vaccines now [in China] for several years, why is there so much bird
flu? There is bad vaccine that stops the disease in the bird but the
bird goes on pooping out virus and maintaining it and changing it. And I
think this is what is going on in China. It has to be. Either there is
not enough vaccine being used or there is substandard vaccine being
used. Probably both. It's not just China. We can't blame China for
substandard vaccines. I think there are substandard vaccines for
influenza in poultry all over the world.
In response to the same concerns, Reuters reports Hong Kong
infectious disease expert Lo Wing-lok saying that "The issue of vaccines
has to take top priority", and Julie Hall, in charge of the WHO's
outbreak response in China, saying that China's vaccinations might be
"masking" the virus. The BBC reported that Wendy Barclay, a virologist at the
University of Reading, UK, said:
The Chinese have made a vaccine based on reverse genetics
made with H5N1 antigens, and they have been using it. There has been a
lot of criticism of what they have done, because they have protected
their chickens against death from this virus but the chickens still get
infected; and then you get drift – the virus mutates in response to the
antibodies – and now we have a situation where we have five or six
"flavours" of H5N1 out there.
Keeping wild birds away from domestic birds is known to be key in the fight against H5N1. Caging (no
free range
poultry) is one way. Providing wild birds with restored wetlands so
they naturally choose non-livestock areas is another way that helps
accomplish this. Political forces are increasingly demanding the
selection of one, the other, or both based on nonscientific reasons.
Pigs
Intensive piggeries (or hog lots) are a type of concentrated animal feeding operation specialized for the raising of
domestic pigs
up to slaughter weight. In this system of pig production grower pigs are
housed indoors in group-housing or straw-lined sheds, whilst pregnant
sows are confined in sow stalls (
gestation crates) and give birth in farrowing crates.
The use of sow stalls (gestation crates) has resulted in lower
production costs, however, this practice has led to more significant
animal welfare concerns. Many of the world’s largest producers of pigs (
U.S. and
Canada) use sow stalls, but some nations (e.g. the
UK) and some
US States (e.g.
Florida and
Arizona) have banned them.
Intensive piggeries are generally large warehouse-like buildings.
Indoor pig systems allow the pig’s condition to be monitored, ensuring
minimum fatalities and increased productivity. Buildings are ventilated
and their temperature regulated. Most domestic pig varieties are
susceptible to heat stress, and all pigs lack sweat glands and cannot
cool themselves. Pigs have a limited tolerance to high temperatures and
heat stress can lead to death. Maintaining a more specific temperature
within the pig-tolerance range also maximizes growth and growth to feed
ratio. In an intensive operation pigs will lack access to a wallow
(mud), which is their natural cooling mechanism. Intensive piggeries
control temperature through ventilation or drip water systems (dropping
water to cool the system).
Pigs are naturally omnivorous and are generally fed a combination of grains and protein sources (soybeans, or
meat and bone meal).
Larger intensive pig farms may be surrounded by farmland where
feed-grain crops are grown. Alternatively, piggeries are reliant on the
grains industry. Pig feed may be bought packaged or mixed on-site.
The intensive piggery system, where pigs are confined in individual
stalls, allows each pig to be allotted a portion of feed. The
individual feeding system also facilitates individual medication of pigs
through feed. This has more significance to intensive farming methods,
as the close proximity to other animals enables diseases to spread more
rapidly. To prevent disease spreading and encourage growth, drug
programs such as
antibiotics,
vitamins,
hormones and other supplements are preemptively administered.
Indoor systems, especially stalls and pens (i.e. ‘dry,’ not
straw-lined systems) allow for the easy collection of waste. In an
indoor intensive pig farm, manure can be managed through a lagoon system
or other waste-management system. However, odor remains a problem which
is difficult to manage.
The way animals are housed in intensive systems varies. Breeding
sows will spend the bulk of their time in sow stalls (also called
gestation crates) during pregnancy or farrowing crates, with litter,
until market.
Piglets often receive range of treatments including castration,
tail docking to reduce tail biting, teeth clipped (to reduce injuring
their mother's nipples and prevent later tusk growth) and their ears
notched to assist identification. Treatments are usually made without
pain killers. Weak
runts may be slain shortly after birth.
Piglets also may be
weaned and removed from the sows at between two and five weeks old
and placed in sheds. However, grower pigs - which comprise the bulk of
the herd - are usually housed in alternative indoor housing, such as
batch pens. During pregnancy, the use of a stall may be preferred as it
facilitates feed-management and growth control. It also prevents pig
aggression (e.g. tail biting, ear biting, vulva biting, food stealing).
Group pens generally require higher stockmanship skills. Such pens
will usually not contain straw or other material. Alternatively, a
straw-lined shed may house a larger group (i.e. not batched) in age
groups.
Many countries have introduced laws to regulate treatment of farmed animals. In the USA, the federal
Humane Slaughter Act requires pigs to be stunned before slaughter, although compliance and enforcement is questioned.
Cattle
Cattle are often raised by allowing herds to
graze on the grasses of large tracts of
rangeland called
ranches.
Raising cattle in this manner allows the productive use of land that
might be unsuitable for growing crops. The most common interactions with
cattle involve daily
feeding, cleaning and
milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve
ear tagging,
dehorning, loading,
medical operations, vaccinations and
hoof
care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations.
There are also some cultural differences in working with cattle - the
cattle husbandry of Fulani men rests on
behavioral techniques, whereas in Europe cattle are controlled primarily by physical means like
fences.
Once cattle obtain an entry-level weight, about 650 pounds (290 kg), they are transferred from the range to a
feedlot to be fed a specialized
animal feed which consists of corn byproducts (derived from ethanol production), barley, and other grains as well as alfalfa and
cottonseed meal. The feed also contains premixes composed of microingredients such as vitamins, minerals, chemical preservatives,
antibiotics,
fermentation products, and other essential ingredients that are
purchased from premix companies, usually in sacked form, for blending
into commercial rations. Because of the availability of these products, a
farmer using their own grain can formulate their own rations and be
assured the animals are getting the recommended levels of minerals and
vitamins.
Breeders can utilise cattle husbandry to reduce
M. bovis infection susceptibility by selective breeding and maintaining herd health to avoid concurrent disease.
Cattle are farmed for beef, veal, dairy, leather and they are sometimes
used simply to maintain grassland for wildlife - for example, in
Epping Forest,
England. They are often used in some of the most wild places for
livestock. Depending on the breed, cattle can survive on hill grazing,
heaths, marshes, moors and semi desert. Modern cows are more commercial
than older breeds and having become more specialized are less versatile.
For this reason many smaller farmers still favor old breeds, such as
the dairy breed of cattle
Jersey.
There are many potential impacts on human health due to the
modern cattle industrial agriculture system. There are concerns
surrounding the antibiotics and growth hormones used, increased E. Coli
contamination, higher saturated fat contents in the meat because of the
feed, and also environmental concerns.
As of 2010, in the U.S. 766,350 producers participate in raising
beef. The beef industry is segmented with the bulk of the producers
participating in raising beef calves. Beef calves are generally raised
in small herds, with over 90% of the herds having less than 100 head of
cattle. Fewer producers participate in the finishing phase which often
occurs in a
feedlot, but nonetheless there are 82,170 feedlots in the United States.
Aquaculture
Aquaculture is the cultivation of the natural produce of water (fish,
shellfish,
algae
and other aquatic organisms). The term is distinguished from fishing by
the idea of active human effort in maintaining or increasing the number
of organisms involved, as opposed to simply taking them from the wild.
Subsets of aquaculture include
Mariculture (aquaculture in the ocean);
Algaculture (the production of
kelp/
seaweed and other
algae);
Fish farming (the raising of
catfish,
tilapia and
milkfish in freshwater and brackish ponds or
salmon in marine ponds); and the growing of
cultured pearls.
Extensive aquaculture is based on local photosynthetical production
while intensive aquaculture is based on fish fed with an external food
supply.
Aquaculture has been used since ancient times and can be found in
many cultures. Aquaculture was used in China c. 2500 BC. When the
waters lowered after river floods, some fishes, mainly
carp, were held in artificial lakes. Their brood were later fed using
nymphs and
silkworm feces, while the fish themselves were eaten as a source of
protein. The
Hawaiian people practiced aquaculture by constructing
fish ponds. A remarkable example from
ancient Hawaii is the construction of a fish pond, dating from at least 1,000 years ago, at
Alekoko. The Japanese practiced cultivation of
seaweed by providing
bamboo poles and, later, nets and
oyster shells to serve as anchoring surfaces for
spores. The
Romans often bred fish in ponds.
The practice of aquaculture gained prevalence in Europe during the
Middle Ages,
since fish were scarce and thus expensive. However, improvements in
transportation during the 19th century made fish easily available and
inexpensive, even in inland areas, causing a decline in the practice.
The first North American fish hatchery was constructed on
Dildo Island, Newfoundland Canada in 1889, it was the largest and most advanced in the world.
Americans were rarely involved in aquaculture until the late 20th
century, but California residents harvested wild kelp and made legal
efforts to manage the supply starting c. 1900, later even producing it
as a wartime resource.
In contrast to agriculture, the rise of aquaculture is a
contemporary phenomenon. According to professor Carlos M. Duarte About
430 (97%) of the aquatic species presently in culture have been
domesticated since the start of the 20th century, and an estimated 106
aquatic species have been domesticated over the past decade. The
domestication
of an aquatic species typically involves about a decade of scientific
research. Current success in the domestication of aquatic species
results from the 20th century rise of knowledge on the basic
biology of aquatic species and the lessons learned from past success and failure. The stagnation in the world's
fisheries and
over exploitation
of 20 to 30% of marine fish species have provided additional impetus to
domesticate marine species, just as overexploitation of land animals
provided the impetus for the early domestication of land species.
In the 1960s, the price of fish began to climb, as wild fish
capture rates peaked and the human population continued to rise. Today,
commercial aquaculture exists on an unprecedented, huge scale. In the
1980s, open-net cage
salmon farming
also expanded; this particular type of aquaculture technology remains a
minor part of the production of farmed finned fish worldwide, but possible
negative impacts on wild stocks, which have come into question since the
late 1990s, have caused it to become a major cause of controversy.
In 2003, the total world production of fisheries product was
132.2 million tonnes of which aquaculture contributed 41.9 million
tonnes or about 31% of the total world production. The growth rate of
worldwide aquaculture is very rapid (greater than 10% per year for most
species) while the contribution to the total from
wild fisheries has been essentially flat for the last decade.
In the US, approximately 90% of all shrimp consumed are farmed and imported. In recent years salmon aquaculture has become a major export in southern
Chile, especially in
Puerto Montt and
Quellón, Chile's fastest-growing city.
Farmed fish are kept in concentrations never seen in the wild, e.g. 50,000 fish in a 2-acre (8,100 m2) area,
with each fish occupying less room than the average bathtub. This can
cause several forms of pollution. Packed tightly, fish rub against each
other and the sides of their cages, damaging their fins and tails and
becoming sickened with various diseases and infections.
Some species of sea lice have been noted to target farmed coho and farmed Atlantic salmon specifically.
Such parasites may have an effect on nearby wild fish. For these
reasons, aquaculture operators frequently need to use strong drugs to
keep the fish alive (but many fish still die prematurely at rates of up
to 30%) and these drugs inevitably enter the environment.
The lice and pathogen problems of the 1990s facilitated the
development of current treatment methods for sea lice and pathogens.
These developments reduced the stress from parasite/pathogen problems.
However, being in an ocean environment, the transfer of disease
organisms from the wild fish to the aquaculture fish is an ever-present
risk factor.
The very large number of fish kept long-term in a single location
produces a significant amount of condensed feces, often contaminated
with drugs, which again affect local waterways. However, these effects
appear to be local to the actual fish farm site and may be minimal to
non-measurable in high current sites.
Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture
Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) is a practice in which
the by-products (wastes) from one species are recycled to become inputs (
fertilizers, food) for another. Fed
aquaculture (e.g. fish,
shrimp) is combined with inorganic extractive (e.g.
seaweed) and organic extractive (e.g.
shellfish)
aquaculture to create balanced systems for environmental sustainability
(biomitigation), economic stability (product diversification and risk
reduction) and social acceptability (better management practices).
"Multi-trophic" refers to the incorporation of
species from different
trophic or
nutritional levels in the same system. This is one potential distinction from the age-old practice of aquatic
polyculture,
which could simply be the co-culture of different fish species from the
same trophic level. In this case, these organisms may all share the
same biological and chemical processes, with few
synergistic benefits, which could potentially lead to significant shifts in the
ecosystem. Some traditional polyculture systems may, in fact, incorporate a greater diversity of species, occupying several
niches,
as extensive cultures (low intensity, low management) within the same
pond. The "Integrated" in IMTA refers to the more intensive cultivation
of the different species in proximity of each other, connected by
nutrient and energy transfer through water, but not necessarily right at
the same location.
Ideally, the biological and chemical processes in an IMTA system
should balance. This is achieved through the appropriate selection and
proportions of different species providing different ecosystem
functions. The co-cultured species should be more than just
biofilters; they should also be harvestable crops of commercial value.
A working IMTA system should result in greater production for the
overall system, based on mutual benefits to the co-cultured species and
improved
ecosystem health, even if the individual production of some of the species is lower compared to what could be reached in
monoculture practices over a short term period.
Sometimes the more general term "integrated aquaculture" is used
to describe the integration of monocultures through water transfer
between organisms.
For all intents and purposes however, the terms "IMTA" and "integrated
aquaculture" differ primarily in their degree of descriptiveness. These
terms are sometimes interchanged.
Aquaponics,
fractionated aquaculture, IAAS (integrated agriculture-aquaculture
systems), IPUAS (integrated peri-urban-aquaculture systems), and IFAS
(integrated fisheries-aquaculture systems) may also be considered
variations of the IMTA concept.
Shrimp
A
shrimp farm is an
aquaculture business for the cultivation of marine
shrimp or
prawns
for human consumption. Commercial shrimp farming began in the 1970s,
and production grew steeply, particularly to match the market demands of
the USA, Japan and Western Europe. The total global production of
farmed shrimp reached more than 1.6 million
tonnes in 2003, representing a value of nearly 9 Billion US$. About 75% of farmed shrimp is produced in Asia, in particular in
China and
Thailand. The other 25% is produced mainly in Latin America, where
Brazil is the largest producer. The largest exporting nation is Thailand.
Shrimp farming has moved from China to Southeast Asia into a meat
packing industry. Technological advances have led to growing shrimp at
ever higher densities, and
broodstock is shipped worldwide. Virtually all farmed shrimp are penaeids (i.e., of the
family Penaeidae), and just two species of shrimp—the
Penaeus vannamei (Pacific white shrimp) and the
Penaeus monodon (giant tiger prawn)—account for roughly 80% of all farmed shrimp. These industrial
monocultures
are very susceptible to diseases, which have caused several regional
wipe-outs of farm shrimp populations. Increasing ecological problems,
repeated disease outbreaks, and pressure and criticism from both NGOs
and consumer countries led to changes in the industry in the late 1990s
and generally stronger regulation by governments.
Regulation
In various jurisdictions, intensive animal production of some kinds
is subject to regulation for environmental protection. In the United
States, a
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation
(CAFO) that discharges or proposes to discharge waste requires a permit
and implementation of a plan for management of manure nutrients,
contaminants, wastewater, etc., as applicable, to meet requirements
pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act.
Some data on regulatory compliance and enforcement are available. In
2000, the US Environmental Protection Agency published 5-year and 1-year
data on environmental performance of 32 industries, with data for the
livestock industry being derived mostly from inspections of CAFOs. The
data pertain to inspections and enforcement mostly under the Clean Water
Act, but also under the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act. Of the 32 industries, livestock production was among the
top seven for environmental performance over the 5-year period, and was
one of the top two in the final year of that period, where good
environmental performance is indicated by a low ratio of enforcement
orders to inspections. The five-year and final-year ratios of
enforcement/inspections for the livestock industry were 0.05 and 0.01,
respectively. Also in the final year, the livestock industry was one of
the two leaders among the 32 industries in terms of having the lowest
percentage of facilities with violations.
In Canada, intensive livestock operations are subject to provincial
regulation, with definitions of regulated entities varying among
provinces. Examples include Intensive Livestock Operations
(Saskatchewan), Confined Feeding Operations (Alberta), Feedlots (British
Columbia), High-density Permanent Outdoor Confinement Areas (Ontario)
and Feedlots or Parcs d'Engraissement (Manitoba). In Canada, intensive
animal production, like other agricultural sectors, is also subject to
various other federal and provincial requirements.
In the United States, farmed animals are excluded by half of all state
animal cruelty laws including the federal
Animal Welfare Act.
The 28-hour law, enacted in 1873 and amended in 1994 states that when
animals are being transported for slaughter, the vehicle must stop every
28 hours and the animals must be let out for exercise, food, and water.
The United States Department of Agriculture claims that the law does
not apply to birds. The Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act is
similarly limited. Originally passed in 1958, the Act requires that
livestock be stunned into unconsciousness prior to slaughter. This Act
also excludes birds, who make up more than 90 percent of the animals
slaughtered for food, as well as
rabbits
and fish. Individual states all have their own animal cruelty statutes;
however many states have a provision to exempt standard agricultural
practices.
In the United States there is a growing movement to mitigate the
worst abuses by regulating factory farming. In Ohio animal welfare
organizations reached a negotiated settlement with farm organizations
while in California,
Proposition 2, Standards for Confining Farm Animals, an initiated law was approved by voters in 2008. Regulations have been enacted in other states and plans are underway for referendum and lobbying campaigns in other states.
An action plan has been proposed by the USDA in February 2009,
called the Utilization of Manure and Other Agricultural and Industrial
Byproducts. This program’s goal is to protect the environment and human
and animal health by using manure in a safe and effective manner. In
order for this to happen, several actions need to be taken and these
four components include:
• Improving the Usability of Manure Nutrients through More Effective
Animal Nutrition and Management
• Maximizing the Value of Manure through Improved Collection, Storage,
and Treatment Options
• Utilizing Manure in Integrated Farming Systems to Improve
Profitability and Protect Soil, Water, and Air Quality
• Using Manure and Other Agricultural Byproducts as a Renewable Energy
Source.
In 2012 Australia's largest supermarket chain, Coles, announced
that as of January 1, 2013, they will stop selling company branded pork
and eggs from animals kept in factory farms. The nation's other dominant
supermarket chain, Woolworths, has already begun phasing out factory
farmed animal products. All of Woolworth's house brand eggs are now
cage-free, and by mid-2013 all of their pork will come from farmers who
operate stall-free farms.
Controversies and criticisms
Advocates of factory farming claim that factory farming has led to
the betterment of housing, nutrition, and disease control over the last
twenty years, while opponents claim that it harms wildlife and the environment, creates health risks, abuses animals, and raises ethical issues.
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 and thirst;
from discomfort; from pain, injury or disease; to express normal
behavior; 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."
Factory farming is greatly debated throughout Australia, with
many people disagreeing with the methods and ways in which the animals
in factory farms are treated. Animals are often under stress from being
kept in confined spaces and will attack each other. In an effort to
prevent injury leading to infection, their beaks, tails and teeth are
removed.
Many piglets will die of shock after having their teeth and tails
removed, because painkilling medicines are not used in these operations.
Factory farms are a popular way to gain space, with animals such as
chickens being kept in spaces smaller than an A4 page.
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. 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 by 7 ft (0.61 by 2.13 m)
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. 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.
Death rates for sows have been increasing in the US from
prolapse, which has been attributed to intensive breeding practices. Sows produce on average 23 piglets a year.
Human health impact
Pesticides are used to control organisms which are considered harmful and they save farmers money by preventing product losses to pests. In the US, about a quarter of pesticides used are used in houses, yards, parks, golf courses, and swimming pools and about 70% are used in agriculture. However, pesticides can make their way into consumers' bodies which can cause health problems. One source of this is
bioaccumulation in animals raised on factory farms.
"Studies have discovered an increase in respiratory,
neurobehavioral, and mental illnesses among the residents of communities
next to factory farms."
The CDC writes that chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds from
animal waste may travel in the soil and water. Residents near such
farms report problems such as unpleasant smell, flies and 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.
Antibiotic use in livestock 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.
Intensive farming may make the evolution and spread of harmful
diseases easier. Many communicable animal diseases spread rapidly
through densely spaced populations of animals and crowding makes genetic
reassortment more likely. However, small family farms are more likely
to introduce bird diseases and more frequent association with people
into the mix, as happened in the
2009 flu pandemic.
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. In 1998, the
European Union banned feeding animals antibiotics that were found to be valuable for human health. Furthermore, in 2006 the
European Union
banned all drugs for livestock that were used for growth promotion
purposes. As a result of these bans, the levels of antibiotic resistance
in animal products and within the human population showed a decrease.
In the United States, the use of antibiotics in livestock is
still prevalent. The FDA reports that 80 percent of all antibiotics sold
in 2009 were administered to livestock animals, and that many of these
antibiotics are identical or closely related to drugs used for treating
illnesses in humans. Consequently, many of these drugs are losing their
effectiveness on humans, and the total healthcare costs associated with
drug-resistant bacterial infections in the United States are between
$16.6 billion and $26 billion annually.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA) has been identified in pigs and humans raising concerns about
the role of pigs as reservoirs of MRSA for human infection. One study
found that 20% of pig farmers in the United States and Canada in 2007
harbored
MRSA. A second study revealed that 81% of
Dutch pig farms had pigs with MRSA and 39% of animals at slaughter carried the bug were all of the infections were resistant to
tetracycline and many were resistant to other antimicrobials. A more recent study found that MRSA ST398 isolates were less susceptible to
tiamulin, an antimicrobial used in agriculture, than other MRSA or methicillin susceptible
S. aureus.
Cases of MRSA have increased in livestock animals. CC398 is a new clone
of MRSA that has emerged in animals and is found in intensively reared
production animals (primarily pigs, but also cattle and poultry), where
it can be transmitted to humans. Although dangerous to humans, CC398 is
often asymptomatic in food-producing animals.
A 2011 nationwide study reported nearly half of the meat and
poultry sold in U.S. grocery stores — 47 percent — was contaminated with
S. aureus, and more than half of those bacteria — 52 percent — were
resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics.
Although Staph should be killed with proper cooking, it may still pose a
risk to consumers through improper food handling and
cross-contamination in the kitchen. The senior author of the study said,
"The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely
came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands
attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today."
In April 2009, lawmakers in the Mexican state of Veracruz accused
large-scale hog and poultry operations of being breeding grounds of a
pandemic swine flu, although they did not present scientific evidence to
support their claim. A swine flu which quickly killed more than 100
infected persons in that area, appears to have begun in the vicinity of a
Smithfield subsidiary pig
CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation).
Environmental impact
Intensive factory farming has grown to become the biggest threat to the global environment through the loss of
ecosystem services and global warming. It is a major driver to global
environmental degradation and
biodiversity loss.
The process in which feed needs to be grown for animal use only is
often grown using intensive methods which involve a significant amount
of
fertilizer and
pesticides. This sometimes results in the
pollution of water, soil and air by
agrochemicals and manure waste, and use of limited resources such as water and energy at unsustainable rates.
Entomophagy is evaluated by many experts as a sustainable solution to traditional
livestock, and, if intensively farmed on a large-scale, would cause a far-lesser amount of environmental damage.
Industrial production of pigs and poultry is an important source of
GHG
emissions and is predicted to become more so. On intensive pig farms,
the animals are generally kept on concrete with slats or grates for the
manure to drain through. The manure is usually stored in slurry form
(slurry is a liquid mixture of urine and feces). During storage on farm,
slurry emits
methane and when manure is spread on fields it emits
nitrous oxide and causes
nitrogen pollution of land and water. Poultry manure from factory farms emits high levels of nitrous oxide and ammonia.
Large quantities and concentrations of waste are produced. Air quality and
groundwater are at risk when animal waste is improperly recycled.
Environmental impacts of factory farming include:
- Deforestation for animal feed production
- Unsustainable pressure on land for production of high-protein/high-energy animal feed
- Pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer manufacture and use for feed production
- Unsustainable use of water for feed-crops, including groundwater extraction
- Pollution of soil, water and air by nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer used for feed-crops and from manure
- Land degradation (reduced fertility, soil compaction, increased salinity, desertification)
- Loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication, acidification, pesticides and herbicides
- Worldwide reduction of genetic diversity of livestock and loss of traditional breeds
- Species extinctions due to livestock-related habitat destruction (especially feed-cropping)
Labor
Small
farmers are often absorbed into factory farm operations, acting as
contract growers for the industrial facilities. In the case of poultry
contract growers, farmers are required to make costly investments in
construction of sheds to house the birds, buy required feed and drugs -
often settling for slim profit margins, or even losses.
Research has shown that many immigrant workers in concentrated
animal farming operations (CAFOs) in the United States receive little to
no job-specific training or safety and health information regarding the
hazards associated with these jobs.
Workers with limited English proficiency are significantly less likely
to receive any work-related training, since it is often only provided in
English. As a result, many workers do not perceive their jobs as
dangerous. This causes inconsistent personal protective equipment (PPE)
use, and can lead to workplace accidents and injuries. Immigrant workers
are also less likely to report any workplace hazards and injuries.
Market concentration
The
major concentration of the industry occurs at the slaughter and meat
processing phase, with only four companies slaughtering and processing
81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50
percent of chickens.
This concentration at the slaughter phase may be in large part due to
regulatory barriers that may make it financially difficult for small
slaughter plants to be built, maintained or remain in business. Factory
farming may be no more beneficial to livestock producers than
traditional farming because it appears to contribute to
overproduction
that drives down prices. Through "forward contracts" and "marketing
agreements", meatpackers are able to set the price of livestock long
before they are ready for production. These strategies often cause farmers to lose money, as half of all U.S. family farming operations did in 2007.
In 1967, there were one million pig farms in America; as of 2002, there were 114,000.
Many of the nation's livestock producers would like to market
livestock directly to consumers but with limited USDA inspected
slaughter facilities, livestock grown locally can not typically be
slaughtered and processed locally.
Demonstrations
From 2011 to 2014 each year between 15,000 and 30,000 people gathered under the theme
We are fed up! in Berlin to protest against industrial livestock production.
Fast Food
The
meat that is used in fast food industries often comes from factory
farms because of the low prices. The animals that the meat comes from
are treated with drugs and antibiotics for the purpose of accelerating
weight gain, and preventing disease in crowded and unsanitary farming
conditions. However, these animals suffer greatly because their internal
organs and bones can not keep up with the rapid increase in weight.
Chickens that go through this process can hardly take a few steps
because of their underdeveloped bones. The antibiotics used on the
animals can have a negative effect on the consumers as well. When a
certain antibiotic is issued to a group of animals for a long period of
time, the bacteria residing in the animals will develop a resistance to
the drug. If a person consumes improperly cooked meat with drug
resistant bacteria and becomes sick, that person would become
unresponsive to any antibiotic treatment. There have been regulations
implemented on fast food companies to restrict the usage of antibiotics.
Surveys and tests are conducted on industries to determine their
antibiotic usage rate, and each industry is issued a grade ranging from
an A to a F. As of 2018, only two fast food chains earned an A and 11
earned a F.
Most common cancers in US males, by occurrence
in US males, by mortality
in US females, by occurrence
in US females, by mortality
