...Negative Effects of Factory Farming on Animal Welfare and the Environment In this paper, I will argue in favor of bettering the conditions for animals in factory farms while maintaining a natural balance. First, the economic benefits obtained from factory farming should be weighed against the devastating environmental effect it has. The real cost of factory farming is not only paid by the producer and the consumer, but also includes a cost in the degradation of our natural resources, health effect, and adverse impacts felt by the communities where these facilities are located. Second, the inhumane conditions and the amount of artificial chemicals put in an animal are a serious health and ethic problem. Several major human health problems are associated with factory farming, these millions of animals stuck in boxes next to each other are the perfect incubators for viruses and diseases. Advocates of factory farming disagree. They claim that factory farming is a fundamental factor in our economic welfare because, without it, we would not be able to feed all our people. Factory farming has been a result of the elevated demand for...
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...traditional family-farming techniques are fading away as the years go by. The lives of the animals are becoming devalued while the demand for their bodies increase. Factory farmers have been restricting the lives of their live-stock. Animals in factory farms are living lives which are far from the lifestyles that nature had intended for them. After reading many articles about the negative effects factory farming has on animals, I now know what truly goes on behind the walls of factory farms. I’ve been so disgusted by this that I’ve decided to eat less meat and consume organic products. Consumers of meat need to be aware of this foul practice. This not only affects the animals, but it also affects the consumer and the environment. Factory farming is not only inhumane,...
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...15 December 2015 Should Factory Farming Be Acceptable in Our Society? Since the past fifty years, farming operations in the United States have developed from individualized production to mass production, which is known today as factory farming. Factory farming is a method of food and fiber production which exploits animals in a confined environment (Marcus). As the demand for meat continues to increase, the modern agricultural practice of factory farming also continues to increase to meet the food consumption of humans. Factory farms consist of a large number of animals confined in small spaces to minimize operation costs; this mass production has decreased the price of meat as the factories produce an excess amount of meat to satisfy the demand. However, although Americans are fulfilled with the abundant amount of cheap meat, the practice of factory farming causes serious consequences for animals, humans, and the environment. This unhealthy practice has led to problems such as pollution, inhuman animal treatment, and human illness. Therefore, for all these reasons, many people have stated that factory farming is morally and ethically wrong. Since factory farms wield tremendous power in our society, they have become a controversial topic, with many people questioning whether they are detrimental or beneficial to our society. While opponents believe that the costs of factory farming outweigh the benefits, supporters rather believe that factory farming is needed in our current...
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...America is steadily declining through the practice of "factory farming." Factory farming is performed by the few large companies controlling food processing in America, it is vile and takes away humanity from those who continue to do it. It is the process in which farms "manufacture" food in unhealthy environments rather than safely breed livestock. It negatively affects the welfare of animals and the companies put the value of efficiency and profit before the health and safety of the animals. The repercussions of the choice to make these environments unhealthy by large corporations and keep them that way without trying to fix them further the damage to the treatment of livestock and the nutritional damage to America. It is imperative that America takes a stand as a nation to stop the process of factory farming and its effects, before the corporations go too far to the point where it is unstoppable. Factory farming is an increasing epidemic in the world of farming, we need to stop this before it is no longer preventable. A large portion of the population in America actually have no idea how livestock is taken care of by the corporations that they buy from. They do not know that the animals are so carelessly handled, that the animals are looked at as materials rather than actual living produce. In the documentary "Food, Inc." (2010) the producers of the movie actually get an inside view of the process of factory farming. The scene from Chapter 1: "Fast Food to All Food"...
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...5 December, 2011 Factory Farms: Meatiocre Food When a person is eating a hamburger and thinks about where it came from, he or she probably imagines a healthy cow grazing in a luscious green pasture. Unfortunately, this is the present, and free-roaming animals used for their meat are a thing of the past. Today, a vast majority of the livestock and poultry purchased comes from animals that live in a small space their entire life, and never get to see the light of day. The places that house these tortured animals have come to be known as “factory farms”. In the 1920s, an astonishing discovery was made by a group of scientists – Vitamins A and D. Farmers eventually learned that if they put these two vitamins into the animals’ feed, then exercise and sunlight would not be required for these animals to grow. With factory farmers not having to let their livestock and poultry roam freely, they started to fill up the factory with as many animals as possible, and could keep their businesses running year round. However, with the tightly packed areas, diseases were plentiful. With science constantly managing to find new discoveries, scientists concocted antibiotics specifically for these diseases in the 1940s. Society is quick to jump on somebody when they treat somebody like a piece of garbage, but they simply turn their heads when this happens to animals. Farmers had found a way to increase productivity and lower operating costs and this was by using an assembly line. Basically,...
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...When one pictures a farm they probably imagine a wholesome family with a red barn and a chicken coup, regrettably that is not what the average American farm is nowadays. Modern farms are enormous, impersonal, and industrial. These “factory farms” have been America’s main source of meat and dairy for half a century and are ever-growing. The vast majority of meat - 78% of cow products, 95% of pork, and 99% of poultry - sold in stores today are from factory farms. Unlike freely wandering livestock on the picturesque farm alluded to earlier, the animals in the industrialized system are packed in and only seen as a product. The exponential growth of these modern farming practices has had negative effects on more than just the wellbeing of the animals. The environment has been negatively impacted. Waterways and the atmosphere have been polluted. Resources are being redirected to livestock instead of going straight to the people. Factory farming’s impact on the environment via...
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...Today’s farms not only abuse the animals but also produce harmful diseases and environmental hazards to each and every one of us, regardless whether you consume these animals of not. The U.S. government should ban the use of factory farming animals Factory farming should be illegal in the United States because the food produce is poor quality food. The meat from the animals in factory farms is mechanically removed, which means it it ripped from the bone and other parts of the body by a machine(Hurst). Factory farms even use parts of the body that most people wouldn't use such as: lips, eyes, testicels, and anal tracts are included in sausage and patties(Hurst). The excess meat is then blended up and added in with the other meat to make a larger profit. The food from factory farms may be cheaper the nutritional foods. Organic food continues to cost on average several times more than food from factory farms, but no one goes to farmers’ markets for bargains. But not all costs can be measured by a price tag. Once you become sick with health problems due to the poor quality of the food and have to pay for treatment. The animals are injected with a variety of drugs and hormones to increase growth and production ("Natural resources defense council"). Which is then passed onto the consumer in the food or meal making the food unhealthy for your body ("Natural resources defense council"). The drugs and hormones that are in the food that you ingest can disrupt the human hormone balance...
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...What's better than burgers on the grill, or crispy bacon with breakfast? To most Americans, nothing. In fact, in 2012, Americans consumed approximately 50 billion burgers and 627 million pounds of bacon. Contrary to popular belief, all this meat is not raised on Old McDonald's farm ("Factory-Farming.com", 2010-2015). As arable land has declined over the last 100 years along with farmers as a percentage of the U.S. population, factory farms have taken their place ("How is Land in The United States Used? A Focus on Agricultural Land", n.d.). However, while factory farms produce more food optimizing economies of scale, modern technologies, and genetic engineering, factory farming more often than not incorporate abusive treatment to the animals. Factory Farming is an inhumane way of producing meat and dairy products due to its common practices of confined living conditions, wide usage of antibiotics and genetic engineering, and slaughterhouse practices. One of the most common forms of animal cruelty in factory farms is the overcrowded and confined living areas of the animals. Chickens are the most confined animal in Factory Farming with up to 120,000 birds on one farm. (Madhani, 2015). Both egg-laying hens and fryer chickens are housed in “battery cages”. Battery cages hold between five and ten hens with each hen allotted between 67 - 76 sq. inches (less than the size of a standard sheet of letter paper). Being confined to such a small area creates multiple physical and mental...
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...What Are the Effects of Animal Cruelty? Dalvi Herrera English 135 Professor Michael Gurin August.25, 2012 Do you know what animal cruelty is? This is a common question where people would probably answer with the same response. The thing is that do you really know what animal cruelty is? Animal cruelty is not only physical abuse that animals receive but also on many other factors. This type of animal cruelty mostly occurs on industrial farms. You’re also probably wondering what an industrial farm is. Well let’s just say that it’s a bad thing. A traditional farm is a farm where they raise livestock the original way. What I mean by the original way is that the animals have freedom. Animals have the ability to roam around in big spaces and live how they want with human maintenance. With this freedom, they can grow up to be healthy. An industrial farm is the opposite farm. The purpose of an industrial farm is to raise livestock and then ship them out to be slaughtered. Animals here have no freedom and no right. Animals are made to live under very harsh conditions. The living conditions are very poor. They are forced to live in a small environment with the same kind of animals. It’s so small and crowded that animals could barely move. With so many animals living in a small area, they all live in their own manure. There is maintenance in the farm but sometimes animals just live in such a long period of time in their own manure. This causes many effects but I will explain them...
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...The main concern regarding Americans health and environment is not oil and gas drilling and refineries, but the massive unsustainable increase of factory farming in the United States. Around nine billion land animals are farmed and slaughtered to satisfy consumer demand in the United States each year, and according to the ASPCA, 99% of these animals are raised on factory farms. Factory farming is one of the main causes of climate change, water pollution, and leads to widespread health problems leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. The regulations that are being enacted do not do enough. Public opinion is not on factory farming’s side, and despite rapid production and demand for meat and dairy products, the average farmer is...
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...Karen Anglin Mrs. Kerber CRN 25486 30 April 2015 The Dangers of Factory Farms Factory farming is something that many people overlook because of the way it is portrayed in the media. It is shown as a way of feeding the people of the world efficiently, with little to no consequences. This leads many people to argue that factory farming is an important and cost-effective way of feeding our world's population. While factory farms do help feed the world at an affordable price, the damage they do is far more harmful to the world’s population, than the benefits are good or helpful. Factory farming (or concentrated animal feeding operations) damages the environment with the excessive amount of waste being produced, puts small towns and farmers...
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...Introduction This paper discusses the effects the Industrial Revolution had on the economy, politics, and society. Also this paper will talk about five different groups affected by the Revolution. In addition, this paper reviews the effects the Industrial Revolution had on the average working American. The Industrial Revolution brought many changes to America as a whole; it seems as though no stone was left unturned. The Revolution affected everything in its path, including government, people, and way of life in general. Three Aspects of the Industrial Revolution Three aspects of the Industrial Revolution include society, the economy, and politics. The American economy began to change during the Industrial Revolution; this change was mainly due to the increase of productivity. Productivity increased by using the out work system. This system consisted of people completing jobs in their homes (Economic Growth and the Early Industrial Revolution). Another way the economy changed was through the factory system. This system allowed a large scale of work to be completed in one location (Economic Growth and the Early Industrial Revolution). Society was another aspect that changed through the Industrial Revolution. Society went through two major transitions during the revolution. One of the major changes was that many Americans left farming, and went to find jobs in factories (Shultz, 2014). Factories were where most jobs were being found since the factories were creating machines to make...
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...patches of cereal grasses and to domesticate animals for meat, labor, skins and other materials, and milk. The earliest civilizations all relied primarily on cereal agriculture. Cultivation of fruit trees began three thousand years later, again in the Middle East, and vegetables and other crops followed (Zohari 1986). Cultivation of rice began in Asia about 7000 years ago (Stark 1986). HISTORICAL BACKGROUND In 1884 Arnold Toynbee coined the phrase ‘the Industrial Revolution’ to describe the great changes in the organization, methods and productivity which took place in late eighteenth-century England. Not surprisingly historians soon dubbed the parallel changes in agriculture ‘the Agricultural Revolution’ … approximately 1760 and 1820 the farming of this country underwent and equally abrupt and radical change (Grigg, 1967). As humans began to form permanent settlements and gave up traveling in search of food, agriculture was born. The foods we eat, the clothing we wear, the materials we use in our everyday lives is agriculture. The term agriculture refers to a wide variety of things, it is the science, art and occupation of cultivating the soil, producing crops and raining livestock. Agriculture refers to financing, processing, marketing, and distribution of agricultural products, farm production supply and service industries. This new way of providing food and other raw materials developed slowly, but because it made life much easier for many people, it became the preferred way...
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...Andrew Jerzewski Kayleen Schumacher Eng 201 (6:30) 22 October 2013 You Are What You Eat; The Benefits of Being a Vegetarian There are only 7.3 million Americans who are vegetarians (“Vegetarian Statistics”). Many people either know a vegetarian or are one themselves. A vegetarian is defined as a person who does not eat or does not believe in eating meat, fish, or fowl (Shravan). Not only does vegetarianism help one’s body become healthier, it actually helps society as a whole as well. Becoming a vegetarian is quite straightforward and the health and social benefits can be extremely positive. The need for vegetarians is becoming increasingly crucial because farmers are going out of business everyday. Meat eaters should start taking action and gradually cut meat out of their diets in order to become financially stable and have overall better health. Many people go as far as saying that eating meat is a fundamental liberty and it must be defended. It may be part of the cycle of life, but many vegetarians will argue that it is unethical to kill animals for food when other options such as vegetarianism and veganism are available ("Should people become," 2013). A meat-eater would contend that this is just how nature works; that it has been part of human evolution for 2.3 million years. Vegetarians will counter by stating all warm-blooded animals can feel pain, fear, and stress ("Should people become," 2013). Animals should not have to be slaughtered to fill an unnecessary...
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...Through a steady chain reaction, fast food has slowly changed factory farming and agriculture. Corporate ownership, harsh working conditions, and new ways to produce food have risen out of the fast food industry and are now prominent in all aspects of agriculture. Although agriculture affects many, those who witness its negatives first hand are workers. Agriculture in today’s terms can no longer be called farming. Regarded as “agribusiness” by an environmentalist group known as Grace Communications, factory workers are often employed and controlled by corporate owners. These corporations have an unexplainable upper hand over workers and other farmers. Two types of corporate farming are common in the U.S: contract farming and vertical...
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