In 2009, a swine flu strain labeled H1N1 infected 22 million people in the United States and killed more than 4,000. Read on for nine surprising facts about the US farming industry. Around two in every three farm animals are factory farmed (that’s over 50 billion every year!). 97% of the 10 billion animals tortured and killed each year are farm animals. Factory farming produces the highest quantity of meat, eggs and dairy at the lowest possible cost. However, a growing number of experts and consumers believe that costs to the health and welfare of animals are simply too high.1 Every year, hundreds of millions of animals in Australia are confined in factory farms. The animals are not seen as an individual, sentient beings with unique physical and psychological needs but as eggs, milk, meat, leather, etc. Industrial agriculture is one of the most unsustainable practices of modern civilization. Forests are clear-cut for the cultivation of feed, causing a massive loss of biodiversity. With factory farming also comes industrial agriculture. These chemicals end up in the soil and water, as well as in the animals and ultimately, us. They are then sent to slaughter. 7. Over 10 billion land animals are killed for food every year, just in the United States alone. [6] This is due to its large-scale production and rapid profit. In order to produce eggs and meat, factory-farmed animals endure physical pain, stress, fear, loneliness and chronic boredom. Around 70 billion farm animals are now subject to factory farming… Despite the abhorrent cruelties behind this colossal trade, to this day, factory farms continue to dominate and control the meat industry. A factory farm (only) needs to have 500 beef cattle, 500 dairy cows, sell 500,000 chickens annually or house 100,00 egg-laying chickens (Factory Farm Nation 2015). Factory farming is the top cause of water wastage in the US. [8] In 2012, U.S. farms and ranches spent $329 billion to produce $388 billion in goods. In the UK and the U.S., the number of farmers has been dramatically reduced with the rise of factory farming. Banana farm Facts about Farming 5: The factory pollution. It can hurt the farming community. Factory Farming. Factory farming is very cruel. These operations produce enormous volumes of waste, pollute the air and water, exploit workers, harm animal welfare, fuel antibiotic resistance and climate change, and harm the rural communities they are purported to benefit. Although we are making some progress in the U.S. due to the steadfast efforts of animal advocates and a slowly awakening public, worldwide the factory farming story grows steadily more desperate. Factory farming cruelty facts reveal that 94% of Americans say they believe the animals bred for consumption shouldn’t suffer. 11. Small and medium-sized farms raising food animals have been pushed out by factory farms housing thousands of animals in crowded spaces. The need to grow large amounts of high-energy feed leads to increasing deforestation and soil erosion; and the pollution of water, soil and air by agrochemicals and manure waste is already a huge concern. Specifically,55 square feet of … As intensive farms are highly mechanized – requiring little manual labor, their introduction into rural areas tends to reduce rural employment. Factory farming is everywhere. Millions of people are exposed to pathogens such as Salmonella and avian influenza each year. Agriculture is the biggest contributor to climate change of all industries, with factory farming playing a big part. What worries me greatly is that if factory farming is outlawed in America, the outcry may result in our chicken being provided by foreign countries, especially China. In the 1970s, pig farmers succumbed to the mass production process and began shifting to factory farming. Agriculture's $1.053 trillion contribution to the US economy is higher than the GDP of Indonesia Jim Young/Reuters. In factory farms, sensitive, intelligent animals are treated like mere production units, rather than thinking, feeling beings. Factory farming accounts for 37% of methane (CH4) emissions, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of CO2. But factory farming comes at a cost. “Factory farming is shrouded in mythology,” he said. Factory farming is an industrial process in which animals and the products they generate are mass produced. “One of the myths is that it’s an efficient way of producing food when actually it is highly inefficient and wasteful. The waste from factory farming is reported to have polluted the groundwater in 17 states, and an unbelievable 35,000 miles of water bodies in 22 states. The link between factory farming and increasing pandemic risk is well established scientifically, but the political will to curtail that risk has, in the past, been absent. Factory farmed chicken is often tainted with fecal residues as well as E. coli and arsenic. Modern animal agriculture has a pronounced impact on natural resources like land, water, and fossil fuel. Factory farming needs to stop, really. Factory farming pumps out huge volumes of cheap meat. 5% – 10% of hens are reported to die during the forced molting process. Factory farming may encourage animal diseases to mutate to human diseases. [2] Manure can also contain traces of salt and heavy metals, which can end up in bodies of water and accumulate in the sediment, concentrating as they move up the food chain. In every corner of the earth, it’s rivers and oceans have become polluted with animal waste. During the mass farming of crops like wheat and soy, pesticides and insecticides are heavily used. Industrialized agriculture or factory farms, along with small farms, produce significant amounts of waste and are inextricably connected to the scale at which humans are able to raise billions of animals each year for food. The number of dairy cows on factory farms with more than 500-head rose 120.9 percent from 2.5 million cows in 1997 to 5.6 million in 2012. Today, roughly 94% of all animals farmed for human consumption are raised on factory farms. This is what factory farming means for chickens. The modern breeds of chicken who are raised for their 'meat' are the result of an intensive selective breeding process designed to make them grow extremely fast. These intensive systems put production above all else, creating vast quantities of seemingly cheap meat, milk and eggs. It can cause respiratory distress, nausea, and headaches. Sometimes, bad smell spread around there and make pollution in the factory. Two large threats that come out of factory farming are swine influenza and bird influenza. 13. Cow farmers followed suit. Factory Farms “Factory farm” is a term commonly used to describe an industrial facility that raises large numbers of farm animals such as pigs, chickens or cows in intensive confinement where their movements are extremely inhibited. April 9, 2014. Factory farming is the modern practice of raising animals for food in extreme confinement, in order to maximize profits. It is ‘mechanicall… Factory farming sees animals as ‘products,’ ‘commodities’ for production and sale just like bricks o… And sadly, these animals are exempted from animal cruelty laws that protect dogs and cats and other companion animals. Factory farming, though not directly, is responsible for deforestation and draining of wetlands. 12. News about factory farming, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. Steve McIvor continues: “We need to expose the woefully poor conditions that many factory-grown chickens are living in. Factory farming also creates nitrate pollution; it’s bad for pigs and for our planet. Confinement to the point at which suffocation is commonplace is the … The meat produced by factory farming is cheap because it is of very low quality. Factory farming fuels the climate emergency, with the massive amount of greenhouse gases it releases. REVEALED: 9 Frightening Facts about Factory Farming. Shortly before giving birth, they … 6. This type of farming operation is often referred to as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation or CAFO. The problem is- most people want cheap chicken, regardless of the cost. Animals are kept in cages or … Factory farms are those that pack hundreds, thousands, and sometimes millions of cows, pigs, chickens into the farms. The steady growth of factory farming in the developing world is by far the greatest threat to animals, both in terms of total numbers and aggregate suffering. Foster Farms chicken may have infected and sickened more than 10,000 people due to this contamination. 5. In the US, family farms are being wiped out because of factory farming, which has the capability to produce goods much more quickly and cheaply than traditional farming, thus becoming the obvious choice of large-scale companies and businesses. Gestation crates are so small that breeding sows can’t even turn around. People living near factory farms often suffer from headaches, nausea, and respiratory distress due to the effects of factory pollution. Raising animals for food also tears down a whole bunch of rain forest. So fast, in fact, that chicks grow up so quickly they reach 'slaughter weight' when they're only 5-8 weeks old — still chirping like the babies they are. … KFC has a huge stake in the market with more than 18,000 outlets in 115 countries; we want to see them use their global influence to show they care about the welfare of chickens.” Around 260 million acres of forests in the US have been cut down to produce food for farm animals. In the U.S., for example, the number of farm workers has dropped 80% over the past 50 years. Factory farming is unsustainable, with overcrowded farms overwhelming local ecosystems, leading to depletion of natural resources. The number of dairy cows on factory farms doubled, and the average-sized dairy factory farm increased by half, between 1997 and 2012. Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also known by its opponents as factory farming, is a type of intensive agriculture, specifically an approach to animal husbandry designed to maximize production, while minimizing costs. Factory Farming Facts Farmed Animals Not Protected Under Animal Cruelty Laws. In West Virginia and Maryland, male fish are growing ovaries, and scientists suspect that this is the result of factory-farm runoff from drug-laden chicken feces. To maintain a steady supply of milk, these cows are forced to give birth every year for about three to four years until they are no longer able to produce enough milk to make them financially justifiable to the dairy industry. There are many animals in the factory farms such as pigs, chickens, and cows. It can have a negative impact on the environment. They are suffering in secret, behind closed doors and away from public view. 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