Factory Farming

Factory farming generally refers to confined animalfeeding operations (CAFOs), in which very large numbers of animals—especially cattle, pigs, and chickens—are crowded in a narrow space to gain weight, and therefore value, as rapidly as possible. In pursuit of optimum weight, motion is discouraged, and since animals tend to become sick in crowded and unhygienic conditions where exercise is impossible, their food is laced with antibiotics to keep them healthy as well as hormones and other nutritional supplements to speed their growth. Forty percent of the world's meat supply is raised in CAFOs.

At one point, CAFOs, and the agricultural practices associated with them, were restricted to Europe and North America, as the largest consumers of meat. With the new prosperity in China, Brazil, India, and other recent entrants to the global economy, the farms have spread worldwide, especially near the urban concentrations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

On the one hand, these practices have made fresh meat much more available to consumers in all parts of the world. Furthermore, the meat is not very expensive, largely because of the world overproduction of grain, which will fatten the animals much more quickly than will grass. Consumers have voted with their dollars to maintain these practices.

On the other hand, many objections to CAFOs have been raised, which may be summarized as follows: First, there is widespread hunger in the world; the grain surpluses are artificial, fueled by developed world subsidies, and cry out for more equitable distribution. While people starve, critics have argued, it is wrong to feed the cereal grains that could save their lives to animals. (It takes about 10 pounds of plant protein to make 1 pound of animal protein.) Growing meat is not a good allocation of the food resources of the world.

Second, it is not clear that the addition of substantial amounts of animal protein is a good thing for the health of the developing world, or indeed for anyone. Most of the degenerative, chronic, and most dangerous conditions of the developed world are associated with animal protein and fat—heart disease, stroke, obesity, and several forms of cancer come to mind. Critics insist that there is no health imperative to maintain these facilities.

Third, the pollution that they generate is arguably an assault on the eyes, the nose, the neighborhood, and the natural environment. Where cattle, chickens, and pigs roam freely in small numbers over pastures, their widely distributed manure fertilizes the ground and enriches their food supply. But the CAFOs provide no room to spread and reabsorb the manure; it is stored in lined pits or lagoons in concentrations that would be toxic to any natural ecosystem. Discharge of the manure into the local waterways would kill all life for miles; spillage on the land makes the land unusable. Ironically, critics point out, this most organic of products, the manure of domestic farm animals, has become as threatening to its environment as any store of nuclear waste. And the amount continues to increase, exponentially.

Fourth, the concentration of work for the sake of maximizing profit changes the traditional work of the farmer and herdsman into an industrial job with traditionally unsafe conditions. When Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle in 1906, the meatpacking industry was characterized by brutal and unsafe conditions in [Page 848]long hours of work. Since the 1970s, observers of the industry report, those conditions have largely returned, especially in those parts of the world without well-enforced worker safety provisions. In long rooms called disassembly plants, where the animals are butchered as rapidly as possible, not all the blood on the floor comes from the animals.

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