Humans have been consuming other
animal’s flesh since human beings and animals were in the same place, it is a
primal instinct. The ancient Neanderthals knew they were more powerful then
select animals and hunted them to provide food for themselves and their
communities. In the early 1920’s, the first factory farm came to life, due to
an over shipment, a farmer-wife duo was left with over 400 chicks. They decided
to try to raise them all at the same time. They probably could have never
imagined what the industrial agriculture industry would evolve into: disease,
greed, inhumanity, pollution, and death, all because of an over shipment of
chickens.
Many people
do not see, or care to think about the issues with factory farming. Those who
do not care about animals will not care about animals, no matter how many sob
stories are told. Most of them need logic because their empathy is not in
check. Well it is more than just this helpless animal with its big round eyes,
that’s confined to a cage no bigger than itself. Here is some logic for those
nonbelievers, an article from the Us Library of Medicine and National Institute
of Health titled, How sustainable
agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of industrial
agriculture, a collaboration between Leo Horrigan, Robert S Lawrence, and
Polly Walker,
“The industrial
agriculture system consumes fossil fuel, water, and topsoil at unsustainable
rates. It contributes to numerous forms of environmental degradation, including
air and water pollution, soil depletion, diminishing biodiversity, and fish
die-offs. Meat production contributes disproportionately to these problems, in
part because feeding grain to livestock to produce meat--instead of feeding it
directly to humans--involves a large energy loss, making animal agriculture
more resource intensive than other forms of food production. The proliferation
of factory-style animal agriculture creates environmental and public health
concerns, including pollution from the high concentration of animal wastes and
the extensive use of antibiotics, which may compromise their effectiveness in
medical use. At the consumption end, animal fat is implicated in many of the
chronic degenerative diseases that afflict industrial and newly industrializing
societies, particularly cardiovascular disease and some cancers.” (Horrigan,
Lawrence, Walker 1)
Allow me to
elaborate. A typical family owned small farm lets their cows graze, these cows
only eat the grass that grows, which allows more the grow back. They drink the
water that is set out for them and are able the move as they please. These
kinds of cows are happier and much healthier than those confined to a metal
building, eating protein enriched food that is not meant for their palate. They
are often fed using AFO’s or Animal Feeding Lots, the EPA states that these
lots,
“…are farms or feedlots where
animals are kept and raised in confined areas for at least 45 days over a
12-month period. AFOs cluster animals, feed, manure and urine, wastewater, dead
animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the
animals rather than the animals grazing in pastures, fields, or on rangeland.”
(EPA.gov).
This creates mass amounts of
wastewater and animal fecal matter, that all ends up in some ones water source,
because the land cannot properly break it all down. Factories in general are
synonymous with pollution, we imagine these tall dusky towers that produce
awful smells, gases and various wastes. As factory farming is often referred to
as Industrial Agriculture, that’s is just it; an industry whose only concern is
making top dollar profits. Similarly they are factory like buildings, producing
smog, mass amounts of animal waste and contaminated water. The problem with
this is animal waste contains nitrate and phosphorus, which is fine in small
doses, but when you have thousands of cow, pig, and chicken waste entering the
environment, the environment can not naturally break it down fast enough.
Factory farms are not only
inhumane, leaving the farm animals with massive tumors, sores, and deadly
illness’. But the workers are still using their bodies for meat even though
they are contaminated. People who are not concerned with animal lives, are
surely concerned with their own lives, and if “Industrial Agriculture”
continues to grow at the rate it is, there will be no healthy meat left in this
country. In addition we are an example to other countries that need to feed
more people with less, if they pick up on the way we raise farm animals, there
will be no healthy meat left in the world.
It is incredibly important we change the way we raise farm animals, we
should take a lesson from the hard working farmers from centuries ago, who knew
the only way to get the best meat, best milk, or best eggs, is treat the animal
with the upmost respect and compassion that they so deserve.
Word Count (804)
Horrigan, Leo, Robert S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker.
"How Sustainable Agriculture Can
Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial
Agriculture." Research Review. NCBI, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2013
"What's the Problem?." EPA. Environmental
Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
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