Factory Farming: Cruel or Not?
Factory Farming: Cruel or Not?
Have you ever thought about where your food, mainly meat, milk, and eggs in this particular case, comes from? To keep up with the abundant demand for food in today’s world people are always looking for ways to better supply that demand. Factory farming is a farm where animals are raised on a large scale using intensive methods and modern equipment. This method is cruel to animals for many reasons, such as very small living space, poor diet, numerous forms of abuse, deformities, continuous dosages of different types of drugs, unsanitary environment, and not to mention the impact it has on humans and the environment.
There are numerous reasons why factory farming is considered cruel; the animals are caged, either alone or with others of the same kind, that are barely big enough to hold them, carcasses are often in among the living, unnecessary abuse by workers, numerous doses of hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and other drugs, poor diet, and painful and dangerous transportation. According to Natalie Purcell in her article “Cruel Intimacies and Risky Relationships: Accounting for Suffering in Industrial Livestock Production,” “Diminished care practices and lack of intimacy in commercial food animal production are related to cost minimization and economies of scale. For example, today the vast majority of beef cattle are not permitted to graze for long on grass fields because it is more efficient to raise them in densely populated feedlots (Pollan, 2002, 2006)” (p. 64). Hogs, chicken, and fish are not any better off; their too small holding pens, rapid-growth feeding protocols and transportation destroys their bodies inside and out. In his article “The dangers of factory farming,” Bradley Miller (1988) states, “factory farm conditions result in severe physiological as well as behavioral animal afflictions. Anemia, influenza, intestinal diseases, mastitis, metritis, orthostasis, pneumonia, and scours are only the beginning of a long
Have you ever thought about where your food, mainly meat, milk, and eggs in this particular case, comes from? To keep up with the abundant demand for food in today’s world people are always looking for ways to better supply that demand. Factory farming is a farm where animals are raised on a large scale using intensive methods and modern equipment. This method is cruel to animals for many reasons, such as very small living space, poor diet, numerous forms of abuse, deformities, continuous dosages of different types of drugs, unsanitary environment, and not to mention the impact it has on humans and the environment.
There are numerous reasons why factory farming is considered cruel; the animals are caged, either alone or with others of the same kind, that are barely big enough to hold them, carcasses are often in among the living, unnecessary abuse by workers, numerous doses of hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and other drugs, poor diet, and painful and dangerous transportation. According to Natalie Purcell in her article “Cruel Intimacies and Risky Relationships: Accounting for Suffering in Industrial Livestock Production,” “Diminished care practices and lack of intimacy in commercial food animal production are related to cost minimization and economies of scale. For example, today the vast majority of beef cattle are not permitted to graze for long on grass fields because it is more efficient to raise them in densely populated feedlots (Pollan, 2002, 2006)” (p. 64). Hogs, chicken, and fish are not any better off; their too small holding pens, rapid-growth feeding protocols and transportation destroys their bodies inside and out. In his article “The dangers of factory farming,” Bradley Miller (1988) states, “factory farm conditions result in severe physiological as well as behavioral animal afflictions. Anemia, influenza, intestinal diseases, mastitis, metritis, orthostasis, pneumonia, and scours are only the beginning of a long
References: Leal, A. (Dec. 12, 2012). ‘Free Range’ Scam. Retrieved from http://www.peta2.com/blog/free-range-scam/ Miller, B. S. (1988). The Dangers of Factory Farming. Business & Society Review (00453609), (65). Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=107&sid=e93f9b7c-3a22-468a-b841-5cf3933013a0%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLGNwaWQmY3VzdGlkPXM4ODU2ODk3JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bsh&AN=4653575 Mosser, K. (2011). An introduction to logic. (Ashford University ed.) San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Purcell, N. (2011). Cruel Intimacies and Risky Relationships: Accounting for Suffering in Industrial Livestock Production. Society & Animals, 19(1), 59-81. doi:10.1163/156853011X545538