Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the spread of disease, and fed highly processed feed sup-
plemented with hormones and vitamins. Even though they
are completely dependent on crop agriculture for the pro-
duction of feed, CAFOs are disconnected — spatially and
functionally — from the fields in which the feed grains
are grown.
Factory-farm livestock production is another mani-
festation of the specialization trend in agriculture. In
many ways, factory farming is for pigs, cattle, and poul-
try what monoculture is for corn, wheat, and tomatoes.
The livestock in CAFOs are more susceptible to disease,
just as monocropped corn plants are to pest damage,
and both require chemical inputs (pharmaceuticals for
livestock and pesticides for crops) to compensate. Both
factory farming and monoculture encourage the use of
organisms bred or engineered for productive efficiency
and dependent on the artificial conditions of the indus-
trial process.
Factory farming is criticized by animal rights groups
as cruel and inhumane. Laying hens and broiler chickens
are routinely de-beaked to keep them from pecking each
other; hogs are often kept in pens so small they cannot
turn around; beef cattle commonly suffer slow and painful
deaths at the slaughterhouse.
There are many other reasons to be critical of the
industrial approach to raising livestock. CAFOs, for
example, have serious impacts on the environment. Dis-
posal of the massive amounts of manure and urine gen-
erated by the confined animals is a huge problem, usually
dealt with by treating the wastes in large anaerobic
lagoons that leak nitrates into surface streams and
groundwater and allow ammonia to escape into the atmo-
sphere. This problem arises because CAFOs by their very
nature cannot recycle nitrogen within the system, as is
the case on smaller traditional farms where animals and
crop plants are raised together. Thus nitrogen becomes
a problematic waste product instead of a valuable plant
nutrient.
The rise in factory farming is coupled with a world-
wide trend toward diets higher in meat and animal
products. As demand for meat increases, industrialized
methods of animal food production become more prof-
itable and more widespread, replacing more sustainable
pastoral and mixed crop-livestock systems.
FIGURE 1.3
A confined animal feeding operation in California's Central Valley.
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