Factory Farms VS Farm Sanctuary:Battle of the Farm Animals\
By: Gracy Buckholtz, EarthScope Reporter

 




    Factory farming has got a lot of news coverage recently. With documentaries like food inc coming out, it’s practically unavoidable to hear about the meat industry and some of its more gruesome problems. Many people recognize the issues but are unwilling to take action because they believe it’s the only way to farm. Gene Baur, an author, activist, and the proud owner of Farm Sanctuary would not agree.

Baur has created a different type of farming, one that respects animals and takes care of their needs. “[Farm Sanctuary] really grew out of a need, we started investigating farms to check out conditions, we would find living animals literally left in trash cans...we started rescuing these animals and caring for them.” Instead of treating his animals like profit, Baur takes care of each one like you would for a friend. He operates Farm Sanctuary, a farm that doesn’t have a slaughter count or profit margins to fill, it’s a rescue farm where abused animals can go and live the rest of their life peacefully. These rescue farms are humane and don’t cause the environmental and health problems that can be seen with factory farms.

    Global warming most usually attributed to cars or other fossil fueled factories. While these produce more carbon dioxide than cows, cows produce more methane which is more harmful to the environment. Factory farms produce anywhere from 150-200 pounds of methane per cow a day, that’s the weight of an average American man. This gas has negative effects on the environment, like droughts or floods due to climate change, but factory farming can have a negative effect on the immune systems of the people that eat the meat processed there.

    The animals that live in the horrid conditions of factory farms are usually very stressed out. Any student can tell you that stress leads to disease. Disease leads to a decline in profits for the factory farms, so they try to keep the animals alive by feeding them tons of antibiotics. These stay in the animal’s meat and when people eat them they get passed the immunity to the antibiotics. This sounds like it might be a good thing but this means that those antibiotics can’t be used to treat people anymore. Instead of building an immunity to infection, they build one against the drugs meant to help them. Stronger diseases grow and now people can’t take medicine to help them because they have built up an immunity to it. This contamination can also be spread to the underground water supplies and continue to make surrounding families ill. Factory farms aren’t just bad for the animals inside of them, they are harmful to the environment and to people.

    Hope is not lost however, Baur thinks that factory farming is on the decline.“Farmers markets are popping up all over the place, community supported agriculture programs, community gardening...I think if it continues factory farming will be in some trouble.” With more farms like his, that respect animals and treat them like the living beings they are, we might see a turnaround in the industry. If more people shop locally, and support humane farming, the problems we see in the environment will hopefully fade away. Maybe some day we can all be marathon-running vegans like the inspirational Gene Baur but for right now the it’s important to start small, local, and humane.



To learn more or support Farm Sanctuary go to http://www.farmsanctuary.org/