Factory Animal Farming is
Harmfully Affecting People and the Environment on a Local and Global Level
By Katherine Podoll
The
cruel and harmful environment in which cows, chickens, and other animals are
living in factory farms is not only affecting these poor animals, but is also
affecting the people living around these farms, as well as the global
atmosphere. In these farms, chickens are packed so tightly that they can never
stretch their wings, and in some cases they live on top of each other in a way
so that a chicken may never touch the ground. Pigs and cows are also confined
to horrifically small spaces, and all of these animals are neglected, their
living spaces never cleaned, their illnesses never treated. In 1986, after he
began investigating factory farms and stockyards, journalist Gene Baur began
Farm Sanctuary, an organization focused on protecting the lives of all animals.
In the past 29 years, Baur’s organization has excelled, and after publishing
two books on the topic, he has gained much knowledge on the issues associated
with animal farming. He has discovered that the bad conditions they are living
in not only affects the animals, but it directly affects all of us, as well.
It
is natural to have thoughts go to the animals when thinking about animal
farming, but have you ever stopped to think that even just being near a factory
farm can be extremely harmful to you as well? According to Baur, in
these confined warehouses there are “toxic fumes that come from them. There are
also antibiotic-resistant pathogens that have now been found in the
groundwater. The reason for that is there are animals kept in these horrible
conditions, and they are routinely fed enormous quantities of drugs just to be
kept alive, which is resulting in the development of antibiotic-resistant
pathogens, which is sickening people, and in some places people are dying.”
This worst-case scenario is taking place because as the toxic fumes are
escaping the warehouses, they are combining with the antibiotic-resistant
pathogens and infecting the people, yet there are no antibiotics, or medicines,
that can help cure the illness. Most people living near such harmful factory
farms do not even realize the danger they are in, because of the quietness and
secrecy with which factory farmers go about their work.
A lot of
the dangers that come with animal farming are not directly linked to the
animals themselves, and therefore can be hard to identify if you do not know
exactly where to look. Another way that this practice is harming the local
environment is by releasing herbicides into the water. And while some of this
caused by the animals through their manure, the majority is caused by the food
given to the animals. In fact, “70% of the corn, and 90% of the soybeans grown
in the US are fed to farm animals, and those crops are grown with an enormous
amount of herbicides, and pesticides. And those get into the groundwater, they
get into the environment, and they impact our health,” says Baur. This is a
very interesting connection to make, between animals and what they are fed. If
the fact that the US is using up the land of an average 80% of corn and
soybean production solely to feed harmfully kept animals is not shocking
enough, the usually covered-up detail about how it is poisoning our water is
not something that can be ignored.
However,
not only is factory farming affecting the environment and its people on a local
scale, but it is affecting it on a global scale, through climate change.
“Factory farming has been found by the United Nations to be one of the top
contributors to the most serious environmental problems we’re facing on the
planet,” explains Baur. “They’re a greater contributor to climate change than
the entire transportation industry, in fact, according to the United Nations.”
He goes on to explain why this is: first, it is because of the amount of crops
that need to be grown to feed the animals, which uses lots of energy every step
of the way, such as pesticide and fertilizer use, which must be created with
fossil fuels, and then the harvesting and transportation of the products;
second, there is lots of energy behind the processes of the actual animals
being raised on the farms; third, animals, particularly cows, are releasing
vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere; and fourth, energy is used to
transport the animals once again to slaughter houses, which use “lots and lots
of energy, lots and lots of water, lots and lots of resources,” assures Baur.
He adds that not only are we destroying the atmosphere by emitting huge amounts
of greenhouse gases, but we are also destroying the planet by cutting down
rainforests to create space to grow crops for these animals! “Not only are we
putting a lot of greenhouse gases into the environment through the production
process of animal agriculture, but we are also destroying some of the planet’s
best ways to clean the air,” explains Baur.
So, what
can we do to reduce or prevent factory farming and all of its side effects? The
answer, Baur says, is to start small: with ourselves. If we can all begin to
make small changes to our diet and our eating habits, then, with enough people
aware and involved, it will make a large impact. “It is critically important,
especially now with the [California] drought, to look at our food choices, and
to shift those in a way that we’re going to have a lighter footprint,” reports
Baur. “And the best way to do that is to eat plants instead of animals.” This
doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to completely cut meat out of our
diet, but we must, as a society, begin to see it as a privilege and not as a
nightly necessity. If we can begin to cherish the meat we are offered, and be
conscientious in only obtaining meat from holistic farms who strive to limit
their environmental footprint, then we have a chance to change the meat
industry and begin saving the planet and our own lives along the way.