Preview

Factory Farming Research Papers

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
870 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Factory Farming Research Papers
Most of the population eats meat, and even more consume dairy. But do you really know where that meat and dairy you consume comes from? Most of America’s farms have converted to factory farming. A factory farm is a facility housing thousands of animals (such as cows, chickens, and pigs) in confined spaces. “If a factory means efficient, large scale production, then that is what it is” states David Leyonhjelm. As a result of factory farming, there is a large supply of meat and dairy for a cheap price. According to Leyonhjelm, “the world will be consuming two-thirds more animal protein in 2050 than it does today”. The demand for animal protein will skyrocket. “Since 1967 global production of poultry meat has increased 700%, eggs by 350%, pig …show more content…
Although factory farming is a cheap and quick way to produce animal protein, this practice needs to be eliminated because of the inhuman treatment of animals and the health and financial harm to …show more content…
It affects humans in so many different ways. Mostly health-wise and economically. Throughout the 1900s, most farmers made little income and some had to leave their homes in search for a new job (especially during the Great Depression). Because of factory farming, many farmers are going bankrupt. Due to Factory Farming, farmers and their families are financially scared. This only affects a small population and is only a small issue for the rest of the population. Health is a major issue for as big as the world population i. According to Farm Sanctuary (an organisation dedicated to get rid of factory farming and other in human farming practices), “The unnatural feeds, hormones, and excessive quantities of antibiotics used on factory farms put the human population at risk for chronic disease, obesity, and drug-resistant bacteria, and pose the threat of major zoonotic disease outbreaks”. If water is contaminated and a fish “drinks” it, then a human eats that fish, then that person is getting the contamination. This is just like what is happening with factory farming. By consuming the meat and dairy from factory farm animals, diseases spread. Food-born illnesses don’t just affect a few people in small ways. “48 million Americans become sick each year from food-related diseases, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die” (Should Congress Strengthen). And that is only the US. “Fatal outbreaks of foodborne illnesses are still far too common, and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Thesis: As stated by the “Food & Water Watch” Animals in Factory Farms are loaded with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, are mistreated and forced to live in unnatural, in humane, and unhealthy conditions, and the many communities that have to deal with air and water pollution caused by nearby Factory Farms.…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vegans vs. Meateaters

    • 333 Words
    • 2 Pages

    feathery chickens that run wildly about, and the pink pigs that roll in the mud. We may also sing about that nice farmer, Old McDonald, and all of his nice animals. The truth is that Old McDonald with a straw hat has been replaced by a business man in the hard hat. Ninety-five percent of the meat we eat does not come from Old McDonald's farm. Hens, chickens, turkeys, and over half of beef cattle, dairy cows, and pigs come from an “animal factory" which is a mechanized environment. This new farming method finds blue skies, tall silos, and grassy hillsides good for calendars but, bad for business. Those pictures are not cost effective. Animals are not treated with the loving care of a farmer but, are treated like inmates on death row.…

    • 333 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Over the last few decades farming animals for food has grown and evolved into a highly efficient, streamlined industry known as factory farming. Factory farms are owned and operated by big corporations, and despite the fact they make up only a small percentage of farms in the United States, they are responsible for most of the meat and eggs we consume here (Sierra Club, 2005). In factory farming, baby piglets are castrated without anesthesia and thrown into a pen, where they huddle in a corner writhing in pain. Egg laying chickens are crammed four or five to a cage (45x50cm) for their entire lives. They cannot spread their wings or stretch out in any way, and they never see daylight. To prevent them from pecking at one another, their beaks are brutally burnt or sliced to a stub. To produce veal, newborn calves are confined in small crates and restrained to allow a minimum of movement until they are slaughtered at just five months old. Factory farmed animals are treated like non-living commodities, suffering horrendous cruelties to produce the maximum profit at the least amount of cost. In recent years public awareness about factory farming conditions has grown, and so have concerns over animal cruelty and public health. The general public should not tolerate animal cruelty in the factory farming industry because it is extremely inhumane to animals and it represents a growing health hazard for human beings; instead, consumers should put pressure on the industry to change the way animals are treated and to ensure farms do not pose a threat to public health.…

    • 2009 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Throughout history, human beings have grouped themselves together in communities. The concept of communities offered two major benefits; first, defense against enemies that might threaten the community. And second, the ability to sustain a constant food source to subsist on year-round. The need for a constant food supply became a major factor in early farming practices (Pollan, 2006) through animal husbandry. The waste from the livestock was used as fertilizer for the other crops that were raised on the farm. These crops were utilized to feed the farmers, sell at market, as well as feed the livestock through the next winter. In this manner, there is a continuous lifecycle on the homestead. The overall mindset is different, first, I will feed my family, second try to make a profit, and third, I will try to keep livestock for the next year in order to grow my farm. When the production of beef became more about profit the respect and love for the land fell catastrophically to the wayside. Modern feedlot operations are creating environmental problems that will affect our country in the future, as well as health issues for consumers, which would to corrected by implementing strong regulations in the handling of feedlot waste and a mandated correction in the diet of the cattle.…

    • 2210 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Buying any meat, dairy, and egg products is buying from the same four large companies that run the meat industry in America today. By using the Confined/Concentrated Animal Feeding Systems or CAFOs, these companies have made it to the top of the meat industry. CAFOs systems are unethical and pose a huge risk to our environment and our own health. Although these animals are being raised to be consumed does not mean they should live in small pins with no exercise, stand in their own feces, and be pumped with growth hormones and antibiotics. CAFO systems also have a huge impact on our environment, the CAFO systems have a vast amount of waste produced on small amounts of farmlands that cannot decompose properly. Causing farmers to dispose of the…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Too much of a good thing can be bad for us as human beings and the environment. We like to buy the biggest and best of everything. This has turned from buying big cars and big stereos to buying larger hamburgers and steaks. We as a nation have gone from having meat as a delicacy and eating it on occasion to most people eating only meat during every meal. We need to go back to eating more fruits and vegetables and less meat. We also need to find different ways to produce meat in ways that are safer for the animals and the environment.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Factory Farm Environment

    • 4021 Words
    • 17 Pages

    In order to provide a safer environment for factory farmed animals in Australia, and to better regulate factory farming, new legislation specific to the welfare of livestock needs to be introduced.…

    • 4021 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the years, it seems as if the agricultural industry has been more focused on the quantity, more than quality. As a society, we have been manipulated by companies into thinking we are eating all natural ingredients. Before companies started serving our foods with chemicals, authentic food came from animals that were free to roam on pastures and that were freshly cut and packaged. Now the food comes from a factory farm, which is when animals are treated as if they were machines designed only to produce. Factory farming has a negative impact on animals, human health and the environment. As consumers, we should be in control of what we want in our food; and to do so, we should cut down on how much we buy from the markets.…

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Factory Farms In America

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Most people's initial instinct when they think about livestock is to imagine cows roaming in expansive green fields, living in harmony with the pigs and chickens that stick close to the barn to be fed and taken care of by loving farmers. But, sadly the reality of the industry does not satisfy the imaginations and the practices of small farms that have the time and consideration to treat living creatures with the dignity they deserve. When speaking of livestock factories the animals have become product and with product corporations tend to do everything to make their product the most profitable it can be, even if it is at the expense of lives. The list of horrifying atrocities the factory farm industry commits everyday is far longer than any essay could cover but a few…

    • 519 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Factory farming is a topic that has been debated for a while. Factory Farming is a serious matter, it should be stopped. Factory farming is basically animals being put in small cells. They are only alive to be used for food. The welfare of these animals is poor; they are abused and fed drugs.…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sustainability Of CAFO

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages

    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…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Factory Farming

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In her article “Down on the Factory Farm: It’s a Life Sentence for Animals,” Debra Probert argues that readers should consider becoming vegetarians in response to the abuse of animals on factory farms. In her article, published in Alive: Canadian Journal of Health and Nutrition, Probert describes conditions that a variety of animals endure on factory farms. Her goal is to convince readers of the abuse that animals endure on factory farms and to argue for a decrease or cessation of meat eating by the public. In this article Probert presents information to prove that factory farms are indeed as atrocious as she claims. Although Probert has a very good argument and emotional appeal when visualizing the conditions these animals are subjected to, she does not give any references to ensure that what the readers are reading is indeed accurate, and she lacks the experience and credentials to support the claims. Probert give details to show readers the truth about factory farming.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Singer’s article criticizes factory farms for industrializing their farming practices and sacrificing good animal husbandry practices for increases in production. Singer indicates the ridiculous amount of animals affected by factory farm mistreatment by stating “[t]he use and abuse of animals raised for food far exceeds, in sheer numbers of animals affected, any other kind of mistreatment” (“Down on” 19). Singer evaluates the reasoning behind factory farmer’s unethical practices, and concludes that “farming is competitive and the methods adopted are those that cut costs and increase production” (“Down on” 20). By cutting costs and increasing production rates factory farming industry workers accumulate more wealth, and consumers are able consume more meat then physically necessary. One can evaluate this luxury the “Principle of Disproportionality” which states that “[a]ctions that meet nonbasic or luxury needs of humans are prohibited when they aggress against the basic needs of animals” (Sterba…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Factory Farming Effects

    • 1867 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Those who are unaware of the issues that factory farmed foods present to their health and to the environment may argue that there is no difference between meat from a happy cow raised in a large grassland and meat from a cow in a factory. They may even state that these animals are treated fairly and are better off in these factories with farmers to take care of them before they are used for their meat and milk. That, in these farms, the well-being of the animals is a priority to the farmers who raise them. They are better off in the factories than free in nature where they could be harmed. Some may even state that they have more of a risk to infectious diseases when they are walking around free in nature. Others, who simply do not care about the mistreatment or are ignorant to that issue may argue that the farmers have the right to their working freedom- however they may choose to go about it. This is their job and way of income for their families, which they are dependent on. Therefore, they need to continue these practices in order to stay financially stable. Nevertheless, factory farming is not considered illegal by the federal government so why should the farmers put a halt to their methods? The government even, in some cases, provides relief to the farmers while funding large companies who partake in methods of factory farming. A final argument that one may have against banishing…

    • 1867 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Paper

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages

    If you’ve ever walked into a grocery store you might have noticed that there are “no seasons” in the American market or there are more amounts of boneless meats. Production plays a huge role in the way America consumes food. Back in the late 1900’s the McDonald Brothers started a factory system in their restaurants. Meat packaging used to be one of the best jobs in America, now it has become the most dangerous job. 32,000 animals are slaughtered per day and employees are at risk, and usually receive infectious diseases, such as e-coli. Today four companies run eighty percent of the beef produced, one of the biggest being Tyson. Tyson’s inject hormones in their chickens, causing chickens to be twice as big. When chickens have so many steroids it causes rapid growth. These chickens can’t handle all this weight and their organs tend to give up to them. As more and more antibiotics are give to these chickens, the chickens are becoming resistant and get sick and worse. You would think these chicken growers would make money but they don’t. An average grower makes only 18,000 dollars a year, and borrows 500,000 dollars to create two chicken houses. Once a chicken grower signs that contract, it’s hard for them to get out. With the constant upgrade and upkeep Tyson requires, it’s hard for these chicken growers to make a decent living.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays