Sustainability Of CAFO

In “The Future of Food Production,” Sam Forman brings attention to the unsustainable state of our growing industrialized food system. In the shadows of each bite we take lurks hidden costs not only economically but environmentally, socially and healthfully. As consumer’s demands in North America increase, farms have moved away from integration and instead to specialization, also known as “the industrial food system.” The deep divide between these two systems is a clear display of the rapid change in today’s demand-driven market, which begs us to question the sustainability of our new system. As large industrial farms maximize their land and resources for profit we stray farther and farther from the natural balanced process and in turn throw the ecosystem wildly out of harmony. Livestock
CAFO’s are undoubtedly less earth friendly than methods of traditional farming in more ways than one; the transport they require is a hefty waste of fossil fuels and the waste that these plants produce can cause massive environmental issues are just the tip of the iceberg. Another issue that can plague large CAFO’s is the threat of bacteria. Living conditions and animal health in this type of environment is not monitored very closely, which can lead to weakened animal immune systems, and eventually to risks for consumers of these meat products. Aside from health drawbacks, people also seem to be weary of the societal impacts of large scale agriculture. Studies have shown that increasing specialized farming in large communities has consistently led to a decrease in population, employment and income. In favour of the industrial method, some argue it is cheaper and more efficient to feed America’s appetite this way. What we don’t see are the hidden costs to the heavily manufactured, seemingly cheaper options: subsidies that our tax dollars account