Never before in the United States have so many people had access to such massive quantities of food. However, this high quantity means that methods of food production are often careless, unsanitary and dangerous for the producers and consumers. The most destructive source of food production is factory farming, a large-scale industrialized kind of animal agriculture.

The goal of factory farming is, of course, to maximize profit although this comes with a high cost. Animals raised in these farms for commercial meat are kept in close confinement at the highest stocking density possible.

In the interest of increasing the yield of these animals they are often given synthetic hormones and exposed to pesticides, which often result in sick or disfigured animals. Not only do the animals run high risks of getting infections and diseases but many of those problems are passed on to the humans who consume them. Europe has begun to rely less on factory farming because of the high risk of swine fever, foot and mouth, bird flu and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, all of which are diseases that can be fatal when passed on to humans.

Even without these diseases present industrial meat can be detrimental to people’s health. Heart disease is a leading cause of death in America and many studies have shown that those with healthy plant-based diets are much less likely to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes.

The humans who work with these products are not exempt from being affected by these abhorrent conditions.

The slaughter house workers in this industry are often treated little better than the animals. They receive few to no benefits, make wages that fall well below the poverty line and have an extraordinarily high injury rate due to the fast-paced work with dangerous instruments. They often work in conditions that are extremely unsanitary.

Because they must process so many carcasses so quickly, fecal matter, blood and other bodily fluids from the animals often permeate the work environment.

Additionally, many people who work in meat processing factories are illegal immigrants who are exploited by their employers and treated as a sub-class. It seems that things are not so different from the days when Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle.”

Ecologically, industrialized farming is devastating beyond belief.

The huge concentration of animals produces millions of tons of waste which is frequently dumped into lakes, rivers and streams. In many areas rivers and streams have become filled with dead fish and harmful bacteria because of the waste runoff from factory farms.

On a global scale the damage is just as obvious.

Forests around the world are cleared out every day to make room to raise more animals for meat, including the lush Amazon rainforest. Several non-profit organizations have reported that grain sent abroad to aid poor countries is actually used to feed livestock that is later sold to the U.S. for very low prices.

An acre of land can support a much larger quantity of vegetables or grains than it can livestock so it seems that the current practice is not for the interests of the nations we claim to be helping.

Factory farms could be done away with if people were willing instead to buy meat from local farms or at least buy organic, free-range meat. This might mean that Americans would have to consume less meat but the quality would be superior and the American Heart Association suggests that most Americans already consume much more meat than is healthy.

The ecological, social and health benefits of doing away with factory farms would be astronomical.

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