Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
high-speed automated machinery moving
chickens and carcasses past them at a hard-
to-imagine velocity: four hundred head of
beef per hour, one thousand hogs per hour,
thousands of broilers per hour, all the time
workers pulling and cutting with sharp hooks,
knives, and other implements. Meat and
poultry workers interviewed by Human Rights
Watch and by other researchers consistently
cite the speed of the lines as the main source
of danger. “The chain goes so fast that it
doesn't give the animals enough time to die,”
said one beef plant worker.
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have been thirty thousand chickens sitting silently on the floor in
front of me. They didn't move, didn't cluck. They were almost like
statues of chickens, living in nearly total darkness, and they would
spend every minute of their six-week lives that way.”
Due to the many health risks posed to both workers and neigh-
bors of factory farms, the American Public Health Association has
called for a moratorium on the construction of new factory farms.
Factory farms are notoriously understaffed, with underpaid
workers being tasked with unachievable responsibilities. Said one
undercover investigator employed at a massive egg production
facility: “Each worker here is responsible for monitoring between
120,000 to 170,000 hens every day. Even if we had no other duties,
it would be impossible to check on each bird or even thoroughly
look inside each cage. . . . [T]here are so many mechanical prob-
lems (primarily with the egg collection system) to attend to that
there is even less time to look after the birds. I try to spend as much
time as possible looking for birds stuck in the wires of their cages
