Factory farming
Introduction
Factory farming is a farming practice where livestock are raised at high stocking density within a confinement. The farm will basically operate as a factory and this is a common practice in industrial farming. Factory farms exist because of several reasons. The first reason is based on the growing need to have reduced prices of food. Factory farms have the potential to produce a large quantity of food at a cheaper cost. The technologies used and economies of scale have enabled consumers of these products to save a significant amount on food. The second reason is based upon sustaining the growing global population. The world population is fast increasing and there is need to sustain it through large scale production of food. Factory farming offers the sustainable opportunity for mass food production to feed the global population. Factory farming is also efficient and creates employment opportunity for many people. But despite the need for factory farming, there are several moral and ethical issues that arise relating to animal rights, environmental pollution and human health.
Animal rights
The animals placed under the confinements of factory farming, live in miserable conditions. The animals are subjected to prolonged and intense suffering in order to make the highest output out of them. Industrial farming has proven to be highly profitable for decades and this is simply at the expense of the lives of the livestock. By spending their entire lives in narrow stalls, overcrowded sheds, crates, and cages, the animals live short and barren lives. There is no guarantee that the animals would have humane deaths. The factory farmed animals are subjected to conditions that prevent them from behaving naturally. For instance, they cannot perform normal activities such as eating and relating amongst themselves in a natural way. In some instances, the animals are even denied daylights. These conditions, in most cases, lead to the animals developing ailments.
According to Williams (2008), people have chosen to act ignorant about the ethical issues involved with factory farming and as a result the practice still continues. She says that that the practice is conventional and socially acceptable in the current society. However, people have chosen not to talk about the moral issues involved. Many people argue that farmed animals enjoy their animal lives more than when they are left on their own in the wild. It is argued that leaving animals on their own has potential hardship and constant struggles. But within the farms, the animals get to graze on fields with lush grass. Williams (2008) says that there are a lot of comforting images portrayed about the animal farms. However, these images are not the true picture of reality. A large percentage of animals are not reared within the peaceful family farms but on factory farms. Huge corporations within the agribusiness industry, rely on factory farms to produce mass food. These businesses only focus on maximizing their profits considering the fact that cost of production is low and there is a ready market for the farm produce. Williams (2008) further points that factory farming has resulted to extremely low prices for dairy products, eggs, and meat. But the largest cost is felt to the animals. Furthermore, the practice also affects the environment and human health. Despite all these alarming issues, there is still little public outcry against the immoral nature of factory farming.
The animal rights issue mainly focus on their inability to live naturally because once they born, they are confined and manipulated biologically so that they either grow fast to be slaughtered or produce large amount of milk or eggs for human consumption .
Environmental pollution
Environmental pollution is another ethical concern of the factory farming. When the animals are confined in within the farms, they produce too much animal waste. The waste, which is known to a goo dorm of manure, is sometimes too much for the soil to handle. The wastes also produce noxious gases, thereby polluting the air as well. In addition, these wastes contaminate water suppliers especially when there is a leak or overflow within the water storage facilities. The article by Weeks (2007), gives an overview of the situation inside a gestation burn where there are over 400 pigs penned mainly for pork. She describes that sows are placed in very tiny cages where they cannot freely move around. The animal wastes produced are periodically flushed out into lagoons. But one thing noted by Weeks, is that out of the accumulation of the animal waste, come out fumes of ammonia gas, which is highly noxious and toxic; thus affecting the environment. Weeks further develops a discussion on the issue of pollution. Concentrating large numbers of animals in a small confinement degrades the environment in many ways. One such way is through the need to use intensive methods such as fertilizers and pesticides to grow feeds. There is also pollution of water, soil and air especially through the use of agrochemicals and animal waste manure. The practice also requires use of large amount of water for animal production.
Factory farming is harmful to soil especially when the already polluted agricultural water comes into contact with soil. Hazardous gasses produced from the large amount of manure include: methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. These gases pollute the air in addition to contaminating sources of water with nitrogen, phosphorus, and pathogens. The characteristics of soil are changed by substances such as excess nitrogen and phosphorus. At the same time, once these substances are absorbed in soil, runoffs into rivers and streams are caused and hence the agricultural water sources are polluted. Farm crops depend on these agricultural water sources to grow. But because of the negative impacts of factory farming, it becomes imperative to maintain quality agricultural soil and growing healthy crops.
The factory farmed animals are usually given a lot of vitamins and antibiotics so that their growth can be accelerated and also prevent them from contracting diseases from the unsanitary conditions. The vitamins and antibiotics have negative impact on the environment in addition to the ethical issues involved. These chemicals affect their soil. Once their steroids are fed to the livestock, they remain in their animal system and eventually come out as part of the animal waste. As earlier mentioned in this paper, large amount of manures already has a negative impact to the soil. However, this is manure polluted with chemicals and steroids. The toll this manure has to the soil is even worse than freshly produced manure. Pluhar (2010) further says that the minerals and chemicals usually get absorbed into the soil and the impact of this can be seen over time as there is potential of changing the soil characteristics.
Human health
CDC has raised concerns over the lives of farm workers. There are certain infections that are known to transmit from animals to human beings. This includes lung diseases such as tuberculosis. The farm workers in these animal farms are prone to contracting such diseases and spreading to others. Weeks (2007) argues that when antibiotics is administered to the animals for too long, there is a possibility for generation of drug resistance bacteria which can eventual affect humans, especially the farm workers. The drug resistance microorganism can cause serious infections to both humans and animals. Looking at the chemical content of the antibiotics used on the animals, there is an almost similarity to those used on human beings. This therefore implies if the drug resistance bacteria affects humans, it can cause serious health issues to humans. The drug resistance bacteria can be passed on to humans not only in the farms but also through the food supply chain, manure, or direct contact with the animals. This implies that some of the meat supplied for consumption, if not thoroughly inspected, can have traces of the antibiotics resistance bacteria.
Based on this argument, the World Health Organization made recommendations in 1994 that antibiotics used for human medication should be different from that used to promote animal or livestock growth. In Europe, the EU in 1998 began placing stringent measures against antibiotics used to promote animal growth and in 2006 there was a total ban of these antibiotics. Since then, cases of resulting from mutating or drug resistant bacteria have dropped within the continent. In the US, regulations restrict the use of certain antibiotics for animal growth promotion however there is no complete ban of the antibiotics. At the same time, food retail chains known to sell factory farm produces require suppliers not to use certain antibiotics used for human medication to promote the growth of their animals.
The Center for Disease control also reports that the bacteria from the animal wastes within the farms can travel in water and soil putting the residence living nearby the farms at risk of contracting certain diseases. As mentioned earlier, there is noxious and toxic gasses produced from the farms due to the large amount of animal waste. These gases affect the residents nearby the farms. For instance, a gas such as hydrogen sulfide has an unpleasant smell that is difficult to stand. Exposure to these gases for long periods can lead to serious health issues in humans. Ammonia is also a source of pollution to water and air. Ammonia generated from the animal waste produced within the farms, contaminates drinking water by reducing the amount of oxygen present in the water.
Conclusion
This paper has developed a discussion based on the thesis: factory farms are unethical and not entirely sustainable as argued. Factory farms have been described to have serious moral concerns regarding animal rights, the environment, and human health. From the discussion, it is clear factory farms deny animals the rights to live naturally within a natural environment. Most of the animals are subjected to inhumane conditions. Concerning the environment, some of the practices done within the factory farms are unsustainable and have potential to degrade and damage the environment. Lastly, these same practices not only place risk to the environment but to human health as well.
References
Fromartz, S. (2006). Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew. Harcourt.
Kennell, D. (2007, November 10). Factory farming: a cruel destructive industry. Peaple's weekly world, pp. 10-11.
Pluhar, E. B. (2010). Meat and morality: alternatives to factory farming. Journal of agricultural and environmental ethics, 455-468.
Roosevelt, M. (2006, June 11). The grass-fed revolution. Time, p. 23.
The national Center for Disease control. (2012). Factory Farming: The Impact of Animal Feeding Operations on the Environment and Health of Local Communities. Retrieved from CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/conference/2006_conference/abstracts/session_D1.html
Weeks, J. (2007, January 12). Factory farms. CQ Research, pp. 17, 25-48.
Williams, N. (2008). Affected ignorance and animal suffering: why our failure to debate factory farming puts us at moral risk. Journal of agriculsture and environemtnal ethics, 21:371–384.
World Health Organization. (2007). The Medical Impact of Antimicrobial Use in Food Animals. WHO.
