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Factory Farms
by the Humane
Farming Association (HFA)
 Factory
Farming: The True Costs
Despite overwhelming scientific evidence presented
during the past two decades demonstrating a relationship between
meat consumption and disease, the amount of animal flesh consumed
in the U.S. has not dropped. In fact, it has increased slightly.
The per capita consumption of mammal and bird flesh rose from
196 lbs. in 1980 to 213 lbs.
Americans continue to eat large amounts of
animal flesh — far more than what could be considered
necessary for nutritional purposes — because it is aggressively
marketed to seem desirable and essential, it is readily accessible
and convenient, and because it is relatively cheap.
The take-over of agriculture in the U.S. by
large corporations has allowed a larger number of animals
to be produced more quickly and for less money. Agribusiness
has reaped great profits while keeping consumer prices low.
But the real costs of factory farming — in terms of
the loss of family farms, food-borne illness, damage to the
environment, and animal suffering — have been tremendous.
 Loss
of Family Farms
Family farms are being squeezed out of business
by their inability to raise the capital to compete with huge
factory farms. Traditional farming is labor intensive, but
factory farming is capital intensive. Farmers who do manage
to raise the money for animal confinement systems quickly
discover that the small savings in labor costs are not enough
to cover the increasing costs of facilities, energy, caging,
and drugs.
The increase in factory farms has led to a
decrease in the price independent farmers get for their animals,
forcing thousands out of business. The number of U.S. farmers
dropped by 300,000 between 1979 and 1998.
During a recent 15-year period, hog farms
in the U.S. decreased from 600,000 to 157,000, while the number
of hogs sold increased. Consolidation has resulted in just
3 percent of U.S. hog farms producing more than 50 percent
of the hogs. Similarly, 2 percent of cattle feed operations
account for more than 40 percent of the nation's cattle. In
the poultry industry, the number of "broiler" chicken
farms declined by 35 percent between 1969 and 1992, while
the number of birds raised and slaughtered increased nearly
three-fold.
The demise of small farms in the U.S. has
been helped along by actions of the federal government. Congress,
influenced by strong lobbying groups, has consistently passed
federal farm programs benefiting the large agricultural corporations.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 1987
and 1996, the food industry made campaign contributions of
more than $41 million to federal lawmakers.
The bias against small farms continues despite
the appointment of a special commission in the late 1990s
by then-Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to study how
small farms have been displaced by factory farms and how the
trend might be reversed. The report from that commission,
titled "A Time to Act," described the enormous social
costs of the destruction of the American family farm, as the
economic basis of rural communities in the U.S. diminishes
and rural towns are "lost."
 Animal
Suffering
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
(USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service, each year
about 10 percent — or 900 million — of the animals
raised for food never reach the slaughterhouse. They die on
the farm due to stress, injury, and disease. The on-farm death
rate ranges from a low of 4 percent for cows and calves to
12 percent for turkeys, 14 percent for hogs, and 28 percent
for some types of chickens.
Agribusiness corporations claim that animals
in factory farms are "as well cared for as their own
pet dog or cat." Nothing could be further from the truth.
The life of an animal in a factory farm is characterized by
acute deprivation, stress, and disease. Industrialized agriculture
has made the determination that it is more "cost effective"
to accept some loss in inventory than to spend money on treating
animals humanely.
Farm animals, by the millions, are forced
to live in cages or crates just barely larger than their own
bodies. While some species, like hogs and veal calves, may
be caged alone without any social contact, others, like egg-laying
hens and chickens, may be crowded so tightly together that
they fall prey to stress-induced cannibalism. Unable to groom,
stretch their legs, or even turn around, the victims of factory
farms exist in a constant state of distress.
If a private citizen confined a dog or cat
in a manner common in factory farms, or subjected an animal
to surgical procedures without anesthesia, the individual
could be charged with cruelty to animals. Farming is an area,
however, that federal and state laws protecting animals barely
touch. The powerful agribusiness and pharmaceutical lobbies
have seen to it that farm animals are specifically excluded
from welfare laws.
There are virtually no federal laws that protect
farm animals from even the most harsh and brutal treatment
as long as it takes place in the name of production and profit.
The federal Animal Welfare Act, which regulates the treatment
of animals for commercial purposes, does not apply to farm
animals unless they are being used in research or for exhibition.
Moreover, a majority of states have specifically exempted
some aspect of the treatment of animals in agriculture from
their cruelty laws.* It is left entirely to the preference
of the individual company how many egg-laying hens are stuffed
into each little wire cage, or whether an artificially inseminated
sow must spend her entire pregnancy chained to the floor of
a cement-bottomed cage.
 Making
People Sick
Factory farm conditions result in severe physiological
as well as behavioral afflictions in animals. Anemia, influenza,
intestinal diseases, mastitis, metritis, orthostasis, pneumonia,
and scours are only the beginning of a long list of ailments
plaguing animals in factory farms. By ignoring basic needs
such as exercise, fresh air, wholesome food, and proper veterinary
care, factory farms are a breeding ground for stress and infectious
disease.
It is all done in the name of increasing profits.
Animals in factory farms are confined in cages and crates
to save on space and limit the number of workers required.
The animals are given antibiotics, hormones, and highly concentrated
feed to accelerate growth and weight gain.
Factory farms attempt to counter the ill effects
of this intensive confinement by administering continuous
doses of antibiotics and other drugs to the animals. This
"cost effective" practice has a significant negative
impact on both the animals and the people who consume them.
Veterinarians and animal protection advocates have long expressed
concern over the conditions on factory farms, and now medical
doctors are warning that the tragedy of factory farming reaches
well beyond the farm animals themselves…
Widespread overuse of antibiotics is resulting
in the evolution of new strains of virulent bacteria whose
resistance to antibiotics poses a great threat to human health.
Doctors are now reporting that, due to their uncontrolled
use on factory farms, these formerly life-saving drugs are
often rendered useless in combating human disease.
Conditions on factory farms and in slaughterhouses
are also responsible for a large proportion of food-borne
illnesses reported in the U.S. each year. Officials at the
USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have
referred to the current situation with food-related disease
as an "epidemic."
*States that exempt some aspect of agriculture
from animal anti-cruelty statute: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut,
Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska,
Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, and Wyoming.
You Can Help
| • |
Share information about
what you've learned with your family, friends, and members
of your community; |
| • |
Join local activist groups to oppose
the construction of any factory farms in your area; |
| • |
Support local, organic farms; |
| • |
Eliminate or significantly reduce
the amount of animal flesh in your diet; |
| • |
Support the Humane Farming Association
in its campaigns to protect farm animals from cruelty,
to protect the public from food-borne disease and the
chemicals used on factory farms, and to protect the
environment from the impacts of animal factories. |
The article above is reprinted with the
permission of the Humane
Farming Association (HFA).
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