Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Environment
Lauren Bush
For those of us who live in suburbs or cities, the idea of living near
a farm may conjure a warm image of borrowing cups of sugar from
the neighbors, who raise animals in healthy, open-air pastures
and are good stewards to the land. In stark contrast, as Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. said so eloquently—and startlingly—“the vast major-
ity of America's meat and produce are controlled by a handful of
ruthless monopolies that house animals in industrial warehouses
where they are treated with unspeakable and unnecessary cruelty.
These meat factories destroy family farms and rural communities
and produce vast amounts of dangerous pollutants that are con-
taminating America's most treasured landscapes and waterways.”
Hardly good neighbors, today's farmed animal factories are
devastating the environment as they inflict unacceptable cruelties
on those cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals confined in their
intensive facilities. Industrial meat, egg, and milk factories often
pollute the water, land, and air of the communities in which they
are located. One of the primary causes of rampant factory farm
pollution? Manure.
Confining so many animals—thousands, tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands, and even more than one million on some
factory farms—exclusively or primarily indoors generates an in-
credible amount of excrement. Unbelievably, some operations
Lauren Bush is the chief executive officer and co-founder of FEED Projects.
