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Factory farming, also known as intensive farming, industrial agriculture, and intensive agriculture, refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. Farms producing animals this way are also known as confined or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and intensive livestock operations (ILOs).

The methods deployed are designed to produce the highest output at the lowest cost, using economies of scale, modern machinery, modern medicine, and global trade for financing, purchases and sales. To produce high yields of crops, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and plant growth regulators are used. To increase the yield of animals, they are kept in strict confinement, while growth hormones speed growth, and antibiotics mitigate the spread of disease exacerbated by crowded living conditions.

The practice is widespread in developed nations. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way. In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 60 percent of pigs, and 50 percent of chickens; according to its National Pork Producers Council, 80 million of its 95 million pigs killed each year are reared in factory farms.

Proponents of factory farming argue that it makes food production safer and more efficient, while opponents argue that it harms the environment, creates health risks, and abuses animals. Germany's chancellor, Dr Gerhard Schroeder, has called for an end to factory farming in response to Europe's BSE crisis, which British scientists have blamed on factory farming methods.

Origin and use of the term "factory farming"

The origin of the term factory farm is not clear, although the Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first recorded use to an American journal of economics in 1890, while it did not enter pejorative use until the 1960s. A 1998 documentary film, A Cow at My Table, showed the term being used within the agricultural industry as descriptive of "factory-like" farming operations. It is now used widely by mainstream news organizations.

Webster's New Millennium dictionary calls it "a system of large-scale industrialized and intensive agriculture that is focused on profit with animals kept indoors and restricted in mobility." The Encyclopaedia Britannica writes that "capital investment in ... factory farms is high, and production is carried on by giant companies."

History

The practice of factory farming is a relatively recent development in the history of agriculture, and the result of scientific discoveries and technological advances. Early examples include terracing, rice paddies, and various forms of aquaculture.

Innovations in agriculture beginning in the late 1800s generally parallel developments in mass production in other industries that characterized the latter part of the Industrial Revolution. The identification of nitrogen and phosphorus as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, making possible more intensive types of agriculture. The discovery of vitamins and their role in animal nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which in the 1920s allowed certain livestock to be raised indoors, reducing their exposure to adverse natural elements. The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in larger numbers by reducing disease. Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made long-distance distribution of agricultural produce feasible.

Animals

File:Factory-farm-exterior.jpg

File:Factory-farm-dairy-barn.jpg

"Confined animal feeding operations" (U.S.) or "intensive livestock operations", can hold large numbers (some up to hundreds of thousands) of animals, often indoors. These animals are typically cows, hogs, turkeys, or chickens. The distinctive characteristics of such farms is the concentration of livestock in a given space. The aim of the operation is to produce as much meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost.

F.J. "Sonny" Faison, the CEO of Carrolls Foods in North Carolina, the second-largest hog producer in the U.S. (recently purchased by Smithfield Foods) has said: "It's all a supply-and-demand price question ... The meat business in this country is just about perfect, uncontrolled supply-and-demand free enterprise. And it continues to get more and more sophisticated, based on science. Only the least-cost producer survives in agriculture." At one of Carrolls's farms, Farm 2105, twenty pigs are kept per pen, each pen is 7.5 square feet, and each confinement building or "hog parlor" holds 25 pens. As of 2002, the company kills one million pigs every 12 days.

Carrolls' Farms switched to the total confinement of animals in 1974. According to Faison:

They're in state-of-the-art confinement facilities. The conditions that we keep these animals in are much more humane than when they were out in the field. Today they're in housing that is environmentally controlled in many respects. And the feed is right there for them all the time, and water, fresh water. They're looked after in some of the best conditions, because the healthier and content that animal, the better it grows. So we're very interested in their well-being — up to an extent.

Food is supplied in place, and artificial methods are often employed to maintain animal health and improve production, such as therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements and growth hormones. Growth hormones are not used in chicken meat production. In meat production, mechanical methods are also sometimes employed, such as debeaking of chickens and physical restraints, to control undesirable behaviors.

The designation "confined animal feeding operation" in the U.S. resulted from that country's 1972 Federal Clean Water Act, which was enacted to protect and restore lakes and rivers to a "fishable, swimmable" quality. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified certain animal feeding operations, along with many other types of industry, as point source polluters of groundwater. These operations were designated as CAFOs and subject to special anti-pollution regulation.

Issues

The large concentration of animals, animal waste, and dead animals in a small space poses ethical and environmental problems. Animal rights and animal welfare activists have charged that intensive animal rearing is cruel to animals. As they become more common, so do concerns about air pollution and ground water contamination, and the effects on human health of the pollution and the use of antibiotics and growth hormones.

Public health concerns

One particular problem with farms on which animals are intensively reared is the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Because large numbers of animals are confined in a small space, any disease would spread quickly, and so antibiotics are used preventatively. A small percentage of bacteria are not killed by the drugs, which may infect human beings if it becomes airborne.

In 24 states in the U.S., isolated cases of groundwater contamination has been linked to CAFOs. For example, the ten million hogs in North Carolina generate 19 million tons of waste per year. The U.S. federal government acknowledges the waste disposal issue and requires that animal waste be stored in lagoons. These lagoons can be as large as 7.5 acres. Lagoons not protected with an impermeable liner can leak waste into groundwater under some conditions, as can runoff from manure spread back onto fields as fertilizer in the case of an unforseen heavy rainfall. A lagoon that burst in 1995 released 25 million gallons of nitrous sludge in North Carolina's New River. The spill allegedly killed eight to ten million fish.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), farms on which animals are intensively reared can cause adverse health reactions in farm workers. Workers may develop acute and chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal injuries, and may catch infections that transmit from animals to human beings.

The CDC writes that chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds from animal waste may travel in the soil and water. Residents near such farms report nuisances such as smell and flies, as well as adverse health effects.

The CDC has identified a number of pollutants associated with the discharge of animal waste into rivers and lakes, and into the air. The use of antibiotics may create antibiotic-resistant pathogens; parasites, bacteria, and viruses may be spread; ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorus can reduce oxygen in surface waters and contaminate drinking water; pesticides and hormones may cause hormone-related changes in fish; animal feed and feathers may stunt the growth of desirable plants in surface waters and provide nutrients to disease-causing microorganisms; trace elements such as arsenic and copper, which are harmful to human health, may contaminate surface waters.

Crops

Intensive farming alters the environment in many ways. Features are:

• large scale — hundreds or thousands of acres of a single crop (much more than can be absorbed into the local or regional market);
• monoculture — large areas of a single crop, often raised from year to year on the same land, or with little crop rotation;
• agrichemicals — reliance on imported, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to provide nutrients and to mitigate pests and diseases, these applied on a regular schedule; the use of fertilizer recycled from toxic waste and other hazardous industrial byproducts is common in the US.
• hybrid seed — use of specialized hybrids designed to favor large scale distribution (e.g. ability to ripen off the vine, to withstand shipping and handling);
• genetically engineered crops — use of genetically modified varieties (GMOs) designed for large scale production (e.g. ability to withstand selected herbicides);
• large scale irrigation — heavy water use, and in some cases, growing of crops in otherwise unsuitable regions by extreme use of water (e.g. rice paddies on arid land).
• high mechanization

Issues

Critics of intensively farmed crops cite a wide range of concerns. On the food quality front, it is held by critics that quality is reduced when crops are bred and grown primarily for cosmetic and shipping characteristics. Environmentally, factory farming of crops is claimed to be responsible for loss of biodiversity, degradation of soil quality, soil erosion, food toxicity (pesticide residues) and pollution (through agrichemical build-ups and runoff, and use of fossil fuels for agrichemical manufacture and for farm machinery and long-distance distribution).

• Removal of buffers to make large fields for maximum efficiency leading to lower food costs and greater food avaolability to the poor. But it also limits the natural habitat of some wild creatures and can lead to soil erosion.
• Use of fertilizers can alter the biology of rivers and lakes. Some environmentalists attribute the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico as being encouraged by nitrogen fertilizaiton of the algae bloom.
• Pesticides can kill useful insects as well as the those that destroy crops.

Arguments for and against

In favor

Proponents say that large-scale intensive farming is a useful and proven agricultural advance. Their arguments in favor include:

• Low cost — Intensive agriculture tends to produce food that can be sold at lower cost to consumers.
• Efficiency — Animals in confinement can be supervised more closely than free-ranging animals, and diseased animals can be treated faster. Further, more efficient production of meat, milk, or eggs results in a need for fewer animals to be raised, thereby limiting the impact of agriculture on the environment.
• Economic contribution — The high input costs of agricultural operations result in a large influx and distribution of capital to a rural area from distant buyers rather than simply recirculating existing capital. A single dairy cow contributes over $1300 US to a local rural economy each year, each beef cow over $800, meat turkey $14, and so on. As Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff states, “Research estimates that the annual economic impact per cow is $13,737. In addition, each $1 million increase in PA milk sales creates 23 new jobs. This tells us that dairy farms are good for Pennsylvania's economy.”
• Industry is responsible and self-regulating — Organizations representing factory farm operators claim to be proactive and self-policing when it comes to improving practices according to the latest food safety and environmental findings.
• Food safety — Reducing number and diversity of agricultural production facilities results in easier management. Smaller facility numbers permit easier government oversight and regulation of food quality. Processing foodstuffs through centralized mediums leads to standardization, which protects general food safety, removing unsafe rogue elements.
• Animal health — Larger farms have greater resources and abilities to maintain a high level of animal health. Larger farms can make use of expert veterinarians, while smaller non-industrial farms are limited to farmer's ability to care for his livestock. Under certain definitions of industrial agriculture, industrial agriculture also permits the use of antibiotics to prevent and treat diseases, while non-industrial agriculture, to minimize cost and meet certain other goals, often will not prevent or treat bacterial diseases but will instead hope illness clears up without intervention.
• Pollution control — Large farms can maintain and operate sophisticated systems to control waste products. Smaller farms are unable to maintain the same standards of pollution control. By consolidating waste products, farmers can efficiently manage waste.

Proponents also dispute the foodborne illness argument. They note the fact that E. coli grows naturally in most mammals, including humans, and that only a few strains of E. coli are potentially hazardous to humans. They also note that diseases naturally occur among chickens and other animals. Properly cooking food can effectively remove risk factors by killing bacteria. Proponents argue that there is widespread demand for a cheap, reliable source of meat.

Against

Opponents say that what they refer to as factory farming is cruel, that it poses health risks, and that it causes environmental damage.

In 2003, a Worldwatch Institute publication stated that "factory farming methods are creating a web of food safety, animal welfare, and environmental problems around the world, as large agribusinesses attempt to escape tighter environmental restrictions in the European Union and the U.S. by moving their animal production operations to less developed countries."

Arguments include:

• Mad Cow Disease — Factory farming techniques may lead to a higher incidence of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, which in turn is claimed to cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. In light of recently discovered cases of mad cow disease, Germany's chancellor, Dr Gerhard Schroeder, called for a stop of the practice of factory farming, in favour of a more 'consumer-friendly' policy, while British scientists called for farmers move away from intensive agriculture, saying the end of factory farming was the only way to kill mad cow disease.

• Other diseases — Overpopulation may lead to disease. In natural environments, animals are seldom crowded into as high a population density. Disease spreads rapidly in densely populated areas. Animals raised on antibiotics are breeding antibiotic resistant strains of various bacteria ("superbugs"). Use of animal vaccines can create new viruses that kill people and cause flu pandemic threats. H5N1 is an example of where this might have already occurred.

• Air and water pollution — Large quantities and concentrations of waste are produced. Lakes, rivers, and groundwater are at risk when animal waste is improperly recycled. Pollutant gases are also emitted. Dust, fly, and odor problems can be created for people living in the immediate region.
• Cruel — Crowding, drugging, and performing surgery on animals. Chicks are debeaked hours after hatching, commonly by slicing off the beak. Confining hens and pigs in barren environments leads to physical problems such as osteoporosis and joint pain, and also boredom and frustration, as shown by repetitive or self-destructive behaviour known as stereotypes.
• Resource overuse — Concentrated populations of animals require a commensurately large amount of water and are depleting water resources in some areas.
• Destruction of Biodiversity — Industrial farming wipes out large areas of land to house a single variation of one species, usually foreign to the region, thus eliminating the entire local ecosystem.
• Tracking — With the intensive farming system it is difficult to track the source of food, let alone food borne disease, back to particular animals. Sometimes food purchased on one side of the country may have been produced on the other side. Hamburger meat may contain the meat of as many as 1000 cows. This causes concern among consumers concerning the origin of foods and among government officials concerning the origin of disease. The National Animal Identification System is one proposed way the USDA is attempting to remedy this problem. With "traditional" farming techniques this problem is eliminated because the consumer can buy directly from the producer. This can lead to other problems, however, as food purchased directly from farmers does not have to be processed according to industrial standards and undergoes no official quality evaluation.

Alternatives

Critics of factory farming advocate decentralized approaches to food production, such as guerilla gardening, smaller farms serving local farmer's markets or community supported agriculture, and the reduction or elimination of synthetic agents in agriculture.

A number of countries, including the United States, have legislated organic production standards, which preclude some of the practices that characterize factory farming. The United States Department of Agriculture has made detailed regulations which cover many aspects of agricultural production, processing, storage and transportation. However, terminology used by the USDA in regards to many of its regulations, including those concerning animal welfare, is vague and may be construed in the farm's favor. (see Organic certification#Manipulation of regulations)

Some have proposed genetically modified foods as a way to address certain issues in industrial agriculture, particularly concerns with excess use of pesticides and fertilizers.

See also

• Agribusiness
• Animal welfare
• Bernard Matthews
• Concentrated animal feeding operation
• ConAgra Foods
• Environmental vegetarianism
• Extensive farming
• Feedlot
• Intensive farming
• Intensive pig farming
• List of United States foodborne illness outbreaks
• Maple Leaf Foods
• Organic farming
• Permaculture
• Smithfield Foods
• Sustainable agriculture
• System of Rice Intensification
• Tyson Foods

Notes

1. "Photo gallery", factoryfarming.com.
2. ^ Kaufmann, Mark. "Largest Pork Processor to Phase Out Crates", The Washington Post, January 26, 2007.
3. "An HSUS Report: Welfare Issues with Gestation Crates for Pregnant Sows", The Humane Society of the United States, January 6, 2006.
4. ^ "EU tackles BSE crisis", BBC News, November 29, 2000.
5. ^ "Commissioner points to factory farming as source of contamination", CBC, July 28, 2000.
6. ^ "Scientists: factory farming drop could end mad cow", CNN/Reuters, December 4, 2000.
7. Gregor, Howard F. "The Large Farm as a Stereotype: A Look at the Pacific Southwest," Economic Geography, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1979), pp. 71-87.
8. "Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOS)/Factory Farming", Library of Michigan Bibliography.
9. ^ "State of the World 2006," Worldwatch Institute, p. 26.
10. ^ "Concentrated animal feeding operations", Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States Department of Health and Human Services.
11. ^ Comparative Standards for Intensive Livestock Operations in Canada, Mexico, and the United States
12. "Is factory farming really cheaper?" in New Scientist, Institution of Electrical Engineers, New Science Publications, University of Michigan, 1971, p. 12.
13. "Factory farming," Encyclopaedia Britannica concise, 2007.
14. Testimony by Leland Swenson, president of the U.S. National Farmer's Union, before the House Judiciary Committee, September 12, 2000, cited in Scully, Matthew. Dominion, St. Martin's Griffin, p. 29.
15. Scully, Matthew. Dominion, St. Martin's Griffin, p. 29.
16. ^ Blaine Harden (December 28, 2003). "Supplements used in factory farming can spread disease". The Washington Post. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
17. ^ A. Dennis McBride, MD, MPH (December 7, 1998). "The Association of Health Effects with Exposure to Odors from Hog Farm Operations". North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
18. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Ed. - factory
19. Factory farming, Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6). Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. (accessed: April 04, 2007).
20. "History of the organization of work: Factory farms," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007.
21. Scully, Matthew. Dominion, St. Martin's Griffin, 2002, pp. 255-256.
22. Scully, Matthew. Dominion, St. Martin's Griffin, pp. 259.
23. ^ Scully, Matthew. Dominion, St. Martin's Griffin, 2002, p. 258.
24. Sweeten, John et al. "Fact Sheet #1: A Brief History and Background of the EPA CAFO Rule". MidWest Plan Service, Iowa State University, July 2003.
25. Orlando, Laura. McFarms Go Wild, Dollars and Sense, July/August 1998, cited in Scully, Matthew. Dominion, St. Martin's Griffin, p. 257.
26. Duff, Wilson. "Fear In The Fields -- How Hazardous Wastes Become Fertilizer ...", The Seattle Times: July 3, 1997.
27. Dairy in Pennsylvania: A VITAL ELEMENT FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
28. "Cruelty to Animals: Mechanized Madness", PETA
29. Comis, Don, USDA Agricultural Research Service. "Settling Doubts about Livestock Stress." in Agricultural Research. March 2005. p. 4-7.
30. Smith, Lewis W., USDA Agricultural Research Service. “Forum – Helping Industry Ensure Animal Well-Being.” in Agricultural Research. March 2005. p. 2.
31. Nierenberg, Danielle. Factory Farming in the Developing World World Watch Magazine: May/June 2003.
32. "Agricultural Antibiotic Use Contributes To 'Super-bugs' In Humans", ScienceDaily, July 5, 2005.
33. According to the CDC article H5N1 Outbreaks and Enzootic Influenza by Robert G. Webster et. al.:"Transmission of highly pathogenic H5N1 from domestic poultry back to migratory waterfowl in western China has increased the geographic spread. The spread of H5N1 and its likely reintroduction to domestic poultry increase the need for good agricultural vaccines. In fact, the root cause of the continuing H5N1 pandemic threat may be the way the pathogenicity of H5N1 viruses is masked by cocirculating influenza viruses or bad agricultural vaccines."(CDC H5N1 Outbreaks and Enzootic Influenza by Robert G. Webster et. al.) Dr. Robert Webster explains: "If you use a good vaccine you can prevent the transmission within poultry and to humans. But if they have been using vaccines now for several years, why is there so much bird flu? There is bad vaccine that stops the disease in the bird but the bird goes on pooping out virus and maintaining it and changing it. And I think this is what is going on in China. It has to be. Either there is not enough vaccine being used or there is substandard vaccine being used. Probably both. It’s not just China. We can’t blame China for substandard vaccines. I think there are substandard vaccines for influenza in poultry all over the world."(MSNBC quoting Reuters quoting Robert G. Webster) In response to the same concerns, Reuters reports Hong Kong infectious disease expert Lo Wing-lok saying, "The issue of vaccines has to take top priority," and Julie Hall, in charge of the WHO's outbreak response in China, saying China's vaccinations might be masking the virus."(Reuters) The BBC reported that Dr Wendy Barclay, a virologist at the University of Reading, UK said: "The Chinese have made a vaccine based on reverse genetics made with H5N1 antigens, and they have been using it. There has been a lot of criticism of what they have done, because they have protected their chickens against death from this virus but the chickens still get infected; and then you get drift - the virus mutates in response to the antibodies - and now we have a situation where we have five or six 'flavours' of H5N1 out there."(BBC Bird flu vaccine no silver bullet 22 February 2006)
34. "Facts about Pollution from Livestock Farms". National Resource Defense Council. Retrieved 2006-05-30.
35. "The Welfare of Intensively Kept Pigs - Report of the Scientific Veterinary Committee - Adopted 30 September 1997, European Commission, and "Opinion of the AHAW Panel related to the welfare aspects of various systems of keeping laying hens", European Food Safety Authority (7-Mar-2005)
36. Scholosser, Eric, interview with Morgan Spurlock;
37. Schlosser, Eric, Fast Food Nation;
38. Eisnitz, Gail, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry
39. USDA PDF

Further reading

Government regulation

• Brief History of CAFO Regulations - from the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture

Commissions assessing industrial agriculture

• National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Independent commission studying the effects of intensive animal production

Proponent, neutral, and industry-related

• Journal of Extension, article on case studies of the impact of large scale agriculture
• US Farm Bureau, Farm and Ranchers association
• Coalition to Support Iowa Farmers
• Dairy Today magazine
• USDA food safety
• Purdue University food science extension

Criticism of factory farming

• Anti-agricultural FAQs on Factory Farming
• Fatal Harvest - The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
• Ask For Change resources for consumers
• A critique of factory farming
• FactoryFarming.com
• Cruelty to Animals: Mechanized Madness - Article with links to photos and videos of factory farming
• foie gras production - Video of Foie Gras production
• Husbandry Institute Promoting sustainable, responsible, and ethical animal husbandry
• Information about factory farming from The Humane Society of the United States
• Inside the California Egg Industry: An Undercover Investigation - Video of hens in battery cages at various intensive egg farming facilities. (2/4/06)
• The Meatrix - a parody of The Matrix
• The Meatrix 2: Revolting - the second installment of the Meatrix parodying The Matrix
• Meet Your Meat - a PETA-produced factory farm tour narrated by Alec Baldwin
• Factory Farms Blamed for Spread of Bird Flu
• See inside an egg factory farm
• See inside a chicken factory farm
• One of PA's largest egg farms charged with animal cruelty
• TorturedbyTyson.com - Undercover investigation of a Tyson Foods processing plant

• Agriculture
• Livestock
• Poultry farming
• Animal rights
• Meat processing