THL
Explore the cruelty that exists behind closed doors and impacts us all.
Many people today believe their milk comes from happy cows living on family farms, or that chicken wings are cut from birds who were able to flutter around as they pleased. Unfortunately, these societal beliefs are perpetuated and exploited by a select few multinational corporations with pure profit motive. Consumers have been deceived into believing all is well.
However, all is not well. There is good reason factory farms have been likened to monopolized criminal operations. Keep reading to discover what factory farming really is, what the costs are, and why it’s high-time the industry changes its ways.
What Is a Factory Farm?
A factory farm, also known as a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), is characteristic of intensive, industrial animal agriculture. The confinement of thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—of animals within extremely cramped conditions, in which they are barely able to turn around or spread their wings, is a predominant feature of this type of farming. Factory farms are the manifestation of corporate takeovers, turning the farming sector into inhumane factories. Their goal is simple: to increase profits for big corporations. This comes at the direct expense of animals, people, and the environment.
Animals on Factory Farms
While some factory farms claim to abide by accepted welfare standards and are accredited with what they call “humane” labels, the reality is that factory farms do nothing but cause cruel harm to the animals in their care. From physical and emotional abuse to the absolute denial of freedom and the ability to conduct natural behaviors, animals on factory farms endure horrific, frightening, and unnaturally shortened lives. Here are some of the most commonly endured and daily experiences for each of the estimated 130 billion animals who are forced to spend their lives in factory farms all around the world.
Chickens
Chickens can be raised for eggs (known as laying hens) or meat (known as broiler chickens). In egg production, male chicks are considered useless. They are therefore killed almost immediately after hatching. Hundreds of millions of chicks are killed for this reason each year. Some factory farms stuff them into plastic bags to suffocate them. Others grind them up alive. The term “life is cheap” applies perhaps most of all to the production of eggs. Laying hens are then “debeaked,” also known in industrial code language as “trimming,” by which the upper tip of the beak is removed without any anaesthesia. This is performed because hens are forced to live in extremely tight quarters and may otherwise peck one another to death out of stress or anxiety.
Broiler chickens, on the other hand, aren’t debeaked because they are killed before their beaks have the chance to grow hard enough to cause any damage. The average broiler lives approximately seven weeks, although their natural lifespans can exceed ten years. Chickens raised for meat account for close to 90% of the total number of animals raised for food in the United States—which equates to an estimated, yet jaw-dropping, 9 billion chickens per year.
Pigs
Pigs are raised for their meat, ending up in the form of commercialized products like bacon or pulled pork—products marketed under names that leave the cute and intelligent pig out of the picture. It is estimated that approximately 967 million pigs are killed for food every year, globally. For the unfortunate females who are chosen to produce generation after generation of piglets, life is particularly grim. For the majority of their lives, they are held in cages not much bigger than their own bodies, preventing them from even turning around. This can cause pigs to go crazy and engage in stereotypic behaviors, such as chewing endlessly on bars—damaging their teeth and jaws in the process. These behaviors are thought to be caused by chronic anxiety and stress—essentially, the conditions they are forced to endure. The piglets these mothers give birth to are taken away from them shortly after they are born and are sent off to vast indoor sheds where they are fattened up and slaughtered when they reach about six months of age.
Cows
Dairy cows are known to scream and cry when their newborn infants are removed from them at birth. This happens almost immediately on most factory farms in order to prevent the babies from drinking any of their mother’s milk, as this would only cut into their profit. Male calves are shipped off to isolation crates, where they are fattened up only to become veal. They are killed at just six months of age. Female calves are either sent to the crates or brought into the dairy production line. Here, they will endure the endless heartbreak and forced insemination that products like cheese, butter, and yogurt require.
Fish
The aquaculture industry has been known to proclaim that the factory farming of fish is more sustainable than the catching of wild fish. However, aquaculture requires vast inputs of wild-caught fish to feed those fish being farmed. For instance, tuna requires more than 15 pounds of feed for every pound they gain. Although some farmed fish feed might not be composed of wild fish, the resources required are staggering—particularly when compared to plant-based foods, which require mere fractions of energy inputs to grow.
How Bad Is Factory Farming?
Factory farming is so horrific that if people knew what really goes on within the walls of those windowless sheds, they would likely reject the products they produce—which is precisely why the industrial animal agriculture industry has gone to such great lengths to hide the truth at all costs.
Dishonesty in advertising is a common phenomenon. From car companies claiming diesel engines are good for the planet, to that sugar-encrusted cereal that will make kids smarter. Yet perhaps the most widespread dishonesty comes from multinational animal agriculture corporations like Tyson Foods. These companies have the most to hide, weaving elaborate stories of “welfare” and the “humane” treatment of animals into their marketing, while making meat cheaper and cheaper, in order to deceive their consumers into believing animals really don’t mind being farmed, and even denying the existence of factory farms. The contradiction is clear in Tyson Food’s corporate purpose: “Raising the world’s expectations for how much good food can do.” Yet, there’s nothing good about it.
Companies like Tyson Foods go even further than misleading advertising. Using their considerable financial resources and political clout, they’ve helped enact “ag-gag” laws across the country, making it illegal for members of the public to document the conditions of typical CAFOs.
How Did Factory Farming Start?
Industrial animal agriculture first began at the turn of the 20th century, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution. As a feature of industrial agriculture, it was born of a combination of technological advances, corporate-friendly policies, and greed. Before they knew it, small farms began disappearing, as they were overtaken by large, vertically-integrated corporations like Tyson Foods, which effectively squeezed out all other competition. This process continues at a massive scale to this day, to the detriment of small farmers and their communities that our nation was built upon.
What Percentage Of Farms Are Factory Farms?
It is safe to say that the vast majority of farms in the United States are indeed factory farms, and this number is increasing worldwide. A pair of 2019 analyses found that, globally, over 90 percent of all farmed animals live on factory farms, while in the United States that figure rises to 99 percent. An overwhelming 99.9 percent of broiler chickens live in factory farm environments.
How Many Animals Are In A Factory Farm?
While the numbers can vary, the typical size of a medium to large factory farm can house 1,000 cattle, 700 dairy cows, 3,000 pigs, 30,000 egg-laying hens, and 125,000 broiler chickens at one time. The average egg-laying factory farm holds a whopping 800,000 birds confined together. In total, it’s estimated that 1.6 billion animals live within the 25,000, or more, factory farms across the continental US.
How Are Animals Are Treated In A Factory Farm?
Animals are treated like unfeeling commodities on factory farms, instead of the sensitive, emotional, and intelligent individual beings they truly are. CAFOs are geared towards maximizing profits above all else, which comes at a steep cost—in the form of animals’ lives. Each animal raised, confined, and abused in a factory farm has no say in what happens in their lives or to their bodies.
Individual animals raised for their meat are often slaughtered within just months of being born. The majority of steaks, bacon, and chicken breasts that wind up on consumer’s plates come from animals young enough to be considered children, or even babies. For them and those who are kept alive longer, life is reduced to an ongoing, excruciating series of emotional and physical assaults. Generally, it is the female animals who live more than a year on factory farms, since their bodies are used to produce subsequent generations of animals for human consumption. Dairy cows are forcibly impregnated at just one year old—and every subsequent year—until they are about four or five, at which point their bodies are so worn out that they are considered “spent” by the industry and sent for slaughter. Across the board, female farmed animals have their offspring torn away from them, often within just days, or minutes, of their babies’ births. Through selective breeding, the bodies of egg-laying hens become unnaturally distorted, producing eggs at unnatural and harmful rates, causing a host of debilitating, chronic health conditions.
Within this broken system, the interests and preferences of innocent animals are suppressed entirely. Cages and barns are often filthy and frequently without any windows. Legions of animals are born into relative darkness, never to feel the sun on their skin.
Who Benefits From Factory Farming?
Those who benefit most from factory farming are the executives of multinational corporations responsible for the spread of CAFOs worldwide. Tyson Foods’ top six executives earned a combined 38 million dollars in 2019 alone, with CEO Noel W. White banking a 10 million salary. Meanwhile, many workers in their facilities are paid minimum wage or not much higher, and remain largely unionized. David W. MacLennan, CEO of factory farming giant Cargill, apparently doesn’t see any issue with using prison labor for their products, while he continues to enjoy a cushy salary.
Why Should You Care If Your Food Comes From A Factory Farm?
If you live in the United States and you eat any animal products at all—eggs, cheese, butter, fish, chicken, and more—it is sadly guaranteed that you are eating products from a factory farm. Not only are these operations perpetrators of the ruel and unethical treatment of animals, they are unfair and harmful towards their own employees and their communities, as well. As CAFOs increasingly dominate the agricultural landscape, trends have been observed linking factory farms to the economic and social decline of surrounding communities, including an increase of poverty and economic inequality. Farm workers endure dangerous working conditions, including those associated with regular exposure to hazardous, toxic chemicals. Those who work in meatpacking facilities, including slaughterhouses, endure some of the most dangerous working conditions of any sector in the country.
Factory farming has a negative impact on everyone except the industry’s top executives. Here are some further examples of why animal products from these environments should be avoided wherever possible and replaced with a healthier plant-based diet.
Climate Change
Animal agriculture is one of the most major drivers of the climate change emergency. The top 20 meat and dairy corporations produce more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire nation of Germany, beating out even major oil and gas companies like Exxon, Shell, and BP. Globally, it’s estimated that 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture. By removing meat, dairy, and eggs from your diet, it’s estimated that you can reduce your dietary carbon footprint by 73 percent.
Waste And Pollution
According to a Food and Water Watch report issued in 2020, factory farms produce an estimated 885 billion pounds of manure every single year. Hogs on factory farms in one county in North Carolina produce as much manure in weight as the entire city of Boston. Compounding the polluting effects of hog waste is the frightening fact that it isn’t even treated before being released into the environment, as human waste is.
Broiler chicken operations generate an estimated 97 billion pounds of waste each year in the US. This waste, including their feces, is high in nitrogen and phosphorus, which can then contaminate waterways and cause algal blooms and devastate entire ecosystems.
Animal Suffering
It is fair to assume that each day in the life of a factory farmed animal is one of unending pain, suffering, and sadness. Because animals are sentient beings—possessing the ability to feel fear, love, despair, and joy—when they are unable to have space to be alone, or to feel the pleasures of the sun on their skin or grass beneath their feet, they experience tremendous suffering. This, of course, is in addition to the more direct abuses inflicted on them, such as forced insemination and tail docking, in which the tails of piglets are cut off without any anaesthesia. Farmed animals even receive beatings and other mistreatment perpetuated by workers who are then often traumatized themselves due to the level of suffering they witness on a daily basis.
Antibiotics
Some factory farm corporations tout their ability to keep their animals healthy for the short periods of time they are housed within factory farms as an indication that animals are not suffering. However, the reality is that high levels of pharmaceuticals and antibiotics are used, often liberally, throughout an animals’ lifetime. These drugs are then passed onto humans, either directly, through the consumption of animal products, or indirectly, through contact with water contaminated with factory farm pollution. Animal agriculture is responsible, in large part, for the crisis of antibiotic resistance, which the World Health Organization calls a “silent tsunami” and a major threat to global health.
Many of us want to believe that the meat, eggs, and dairy products available on grocery store shelves originate on small family farms within pastoral landscapes—and that animals on these farms live healthy and happy lives. Sadly, the grave reality is much more difficult to swallow. Yet, it is critical that the world wakes up to the truth of factory farming in order to stop the ongoing assault caused on animals, people, and the environment.
