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Carly Anders

4/14/13

Factory Farming

Factory Farming is one of the largest and fastest growing problems in not only

America, but in the world. Humans have eaten meat since the beginning, and that is not

going to change any time soon; yet the majority of people dont know where their meat

comes from, what has been done to it, or what is really in it. With the rise of the

industrial age, farms became more and more like the factories in the cities. Now, these

factory farms have become so focused on efficiency that more important qualities are

being left behind. People should be more informed about the meat industry because they

would be more likely to fight against factory farms that abuse, genetically mutate, and

harvest animals in a way that is harmful to the world.

Everyone loves their beef, pork, and chicken, just as they always have. However,

that meat no longer comes from the healthy animals it used to. According to the research

done by Jonathan Safran Foer for his book Eating Animals, 99% of all animals eaten in

America come from factory farms (Foer 12). These factory farms are run like businesses,

cutting all the corners they possibly can. Animals are raised in high density in a

confined, barren environment. Practically the entire fleet of animals the country

consumed, are mistreated, tortured, unhealthy, and abominated. Factory farms are

genetically mutating animals to enhance production by mere fractions. The typical cage

for egg laying hens is 67 inches, about the size of a piece of printer paper (Foer 47).
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These cages are packed in tight, one after another, to achieve the maximum amount of the

product. Those kind of practices are used across the board. Pigs are mutated to

reproduce offspring that do not have a stress gene, thus selective breeding pigs that can

tolerate the maximum amount of suffering (Foer 159). Turkeys are given so many

growth hormones and fed so much that they cannot reproduce on their own. To gain a

sense of the radicalness of this change, imagine human children growing up to be three

hundred pounds in ten years, while eating only granola bars and Flintstones vitamins.

(Foer 107). Cows fall under their own weight due to illness or overweight (Foer 56).

Perhaps if people could witness the atrocity of the meat industry, they would at least think

twice about what they are eating.

The problem is no one wants to know. Most people recognize that their meat

doesnt come from a red barn down the road anymore, but as long its convenient, cheap,

and appears to be healthy, they dont care where it comes from. The truth is that these

red barn farms barely exist anymore for the mass consumer. Instead, the majority of the

population purchases meat from factories that are chemically engineering breeds of

unnatural, unhealthy (for consumers as well as the animal), and inhumane animals for

unnecessary mass consumption. If the public knew about where their meat is coming

from, what was really inside it, or what it could do to you, maybe they could make a

smarter decision about what they are getting

Perhaps the most shocking facts of factory farming are the effects on the

environment. Animal agriculture uses 765 million tons of grain and corn per year, 7 times

the amount that the UN calls a crime against humanity for the mere 100 million tons of
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grain used for ethanol (United Nations xxi 112). That is more than enough to feed the

near billion people starving all over the world. According to the UN, research has shown

that globally, farmed animals contribute to 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,

which is 40 percent more than all transportation cars, trucks, boats, trains, and planes

combined (Metz). The biggest contributor to deforestation of the Rainforests is livestock

and agriculture.

The change to a more organic way of farming meat can be daunting and there are

many who support the factory farm process. The argument supporting factory farming

brings to attention the inexpensive cost of raising animals in this way and the amount of

money needed to make a change. However, people dont realize that its not only the

animals being treated poorly, its themselves. The hormones in meat negatively affect the

health of everyone who eats them, including the children you feed it to. When people

realize the health risk outweighs the cost of change, they will demand an organic agenda.

Ideally, a perfect solution would to be for the world to go vegan, yet this is

practically impossible. The world would be properly fed, without a doubt, and it would

more likely than not, reduce obesity, heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, and

other poor diet diseases (Forks Over Knives). Yet this proposition would never work,

due to corruptions in the government, the meat industry, and peoples opinion in general.

The best solution is to inform more people about the truth about where their food is

coming from, perhaps by showing documentaries in schools, requiring meat packaging

and restaurants to show where they get their meat, as well as any additives inside. If
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governments can reform their corruptions about agriculture, crack down on animal waste

disposal, and change policies on deforestation, we could improve our harmful effects on

our people and our planet.

As a nation, we need to understand what we are consuming and protect

our children from the harmful affects of cheap corner cutting. The American people need

to uphold the value of quality over quantity and rise up against those who seek to destroy

the nature of the very food we eat. The government needs to treat factory farming as a

domestic threat to the nations health. Polices on educating the public of the meat

industrys atrocities should be made, informing people of the abuse, genetic mutation,

harmful environmental consequences of harvesting animals in the cheapest way possible.

Only then can the people fight for the change we deserve.
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Works Cited

"Deforestation." National Geographic. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.

<http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-

warming/deforestation-overview/>.

Fraser, David. Animal welfare and the intensification of animal production: An

alternative interpretation, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations, 2005. *Turner, Jacky. "History of factory farming", United Nations:

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and, 2009. Print.

Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestocks Long Shadow, xxi, 112

Forks over Knives. Dir. Lee Fulkerson. Perf. Joey Aucoin, Neal Barnard and Gene Baur.

Monica Beach Media, 2011. Documentary.

Metz, Bert. Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change: Contribution of

Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ., 2007. Print.