By Gene Baur
Farming has been drastically altered in the U.S. over the last 25
years. Small farms have been replaced by large, industrialized factory
operations, and animals and the natural world have become mere
commodities in the process. While agribusiness has mastered the art of
“growing” and killing animals faster and on a larger scale than ever
before, the costs and negative results of this so called “cheap” food
system are severe for us all.
The
Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP), which included experts like former
USDA
Secretary Dan Glickman, conducted “a comprehensive, fact-based and
balanced examination of key aspects of the farm animal industry.” This
research concluded: “Industrial farm animal production systems are
largely unregulated, and many practices common to this method of
production threaten public health, the environment, animal health and
well-being, and rural communities.”
Against Our Better Natures
Factory farms confine animals by the thousands in massive warehouses,
treating them like production units rather than as living, feeling
individuals. Millions are packed in cages and crates so tightly that
they can’t walk, turn around or even stretch their limbs. Mahatma Gandhi
was correct when he said, “The moral progress of a nation can be judged
by how its animals are treated.” We have some soul searching to do here
in the U.S., where we currently subject more than 9 billion farm
animals to appalling cruelties. Acting with callous disregard for the
feelings of other animals undermines our empathic natures and humane
sensitivities.
Recent research conducted by representatives of the meat industry
surfaced our feelings on this matter. More than 40% of consumers
surveyed agreed that our country was on the wrong track in terms of how
we produce food, with another 20% uncertain about the soundness of our
food supply. We feel that there is something wrong but we may be too
busy, tired or confused to do much about it, so we have accepted the
status quo without appreciating its long term implications.
Agribusiness counts on our complacency.
Against Our Better Interests
Animals who are raised for food are denied their most basic needs and
suffer both physical and psychological disorders as result. Stressed
and confined in filthy, cramped quarters, the animals we eat are
constantly at risk for disease. In response, agribusiness depends on
regular quantities of drugs and other chemical inputs to keep the
animals alive and productive. The majority of the antibiotics sold in
the U.S. are given to farm animals. This excessive and irresponsible use
of antibiotics has contributed to the development of virulent,
antibiotic-resistant pathogens, which render these formerly life-saving
drugs useless for treating illnesses in people.
The spread of disease from factory farming is exacerbated when waste
products, including manure and the remains of animals who have died, are
used to feed animals being raised for meat, milk and eggs. Hundreds of
millions of farm animals die in the factory farming system each year,
and by turning their carcasses into feed, the animal agriculture
industry can save on disposal costs and feed costs at the same time. The
whole system is unhealthy and irresponsible. Disease is so rampant,
that the U.S.D.A. explicitly allows diseased animals to be slaughtered
and sold for human food, because excluding these animals would result in
financial losses for agribusiness.
We subject animals to unnecessary suffering and early deaths, and in
turn, we experience the same. Food-borne sicknesses infect millions of
Americans every year, killing thousands, and whether these illnesses
spring from animal products or other foods, the source of the
contamination is often traceable to factory farms. Consuming too many
animal products also clogs our arteries and leads to heart disease,
which is our nation’s number one killer. We suffer from preventable
illnesses and premature deaths, while heath care costs skyrocket.
Leading health experts estimate that 70% to 80% of U.S. health care
costs could be eliminated by replacing animal products with a whole
foods, plant-based diet. We eat food that makes us sick, then take drugs
to keep us alive. This system makes no sense.
Against Our Future
Factory farming is one of the top contributors to our planet’s most
significant environmental problems according to a report by the United
Nations, which cited “problems of land degradation, climate change and
air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of
biodiversity.” The report said that the livestock industry is a greater
contributor to global warming than the transportation industry. It’s
important to lessen our transportation footprint, but we could have an
even larger impact by changing the foods we put on our plates.
Stock photo by Scott Bauer/USDA
Raising animals for food is terribly wasteful. It demands vast
quantities of increasingly scarce resources, including water, topsoil
and fossil fuels. Growing plant foods and consuming them directly is
much more efficient and sustainable than growing corn and soybeans to
feed animals before we consume them. Industrial animal farming depletes
and squanders precious natural resources, and pollutes what remains. The
amount of manure generated by animals in factory farms is too much for
the environment to absorb. It poisons the land and water, and sends
noxious fumes into the air, threatening ecosystems, wildlife and people
who live nearby.
For Change
Our food system is in desperate need of reform; people, animals and
the Earth are suffering. Thankfully, we are beginning to pay attention.
Many citizens are demanding more transparency around how food, and
especially animal products, are produced. We are no longer comfortable
accepting how agribusiness keeps animals who are raised for food hidden
from us. When agribusiness has introduced legislation to ban the average
person from documenting abuses on factory farms, their proposals have
triggered widespread popular revulsion and have been defeated. We are
waking up to the cruelty inflicted on animals and demanding better for
them, and for ourselves.
And, we should continue to press producers, distributors and our
government representatives for even more transparency about animal
agriculture and healthier food options. Each of us should speak out
about local legislation exempting factory farms from environmental
standards, subsidies in the upcoming Farm Bill that favor producing
crops for animals on factory farms instead of for people, and the lack
of legal protections for farm animals, which allows the meat industry to
neglect cows, pigs, chickens and other animals in ways that cause
contamination, illness and egregious suffering. Encourage your grocery
store to carry more plant-based alternatives to common animal products.
Choose a veggie burger, instead of a beef one; soy milk, instead of
cow’s milk. These individual actions can make a tremendous difference.
Stock photo by Scott Bauer/USDA
In fact, more people are opting out of our industrialized food system
in favor of local and sustainably produced foods. Farmers markets and
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs are sprouting up across
the U.S., while restaurants and other food retailers are providing more
sustainably produced healthful plant food options. As I drove across the
country earlier this year, on a culinary tour of vegetarian eating, I
also saw community gardening projects sprinkled among urban and suburban
areas. These programs allow us to grow healthy foods and recreate a
sense of community. I am very happy to see more citizens thinking about
their food choices and making decisions that are more aligned with their
values and interests.
By learning about factory farming’s impact on your local community
and our country, urging our elected representatives to support reforms
and requesting more plant-based foods in our grocery stores and
restaurants, we will be the change our food system needs. Through our
farmers markets, CSAs and community gardens, we can share foods, recipes
and meals that represent a better, healthier and more humane food
supply. One that centers on eating plants instead of animals; one that
supports our health instead of undermining it; and one that helps us
preserve the natural world, and our relationship to it, in a way that
connects us to our better natures and the best we have to offer each
other.
Photo of Gene Baur by Derek Goodwin
Gene Baur, president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary,
campaigns to raise awareness about the negative consequences of
industrialized factory farming. He has conducted hundreds of visits to
farms, stockyards and slaughterhouses to document conditions, and his
photos and videos exposing factory farming cruelty have been aired
nationally and internationally, educating millions. His book, Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food
,
a national best-seller, is a thought-provoking investigation of the
ethical questions surrounding beef, poultry, pork, milk, and egg
production — as well as what each of us can do to promote compassion
and help stop the systematic mistreatment of the billions of farm
animals who are exploited for food in the U.S. every year.
Baur, and more than 30 experts
from across the public health, environmental, and animal welfare
movements, will be speaking about the consequences of factory farming at
the first-ever National Conference to End Factory Farming: For Health, Environment and Farm Animals in Arlington, Virginia on October 27-29. Click here for more information.
