Impacts on your health and environment
It isn’t only animals that suffer from factory farming. There are serious costs to human health and the world we live in.
Global meat production and consumption is rising. By 2020, industrial countries will consume 100 kilograms of meat per person by 2010 - that's the equivalent of a side of beef, 50 chickens, and one pig each. People in developing countries will consume more than 39 kilograms per person, twice as much as they did in the 1980s.
We're already aware of the costs of this "production line" farming of animals for the animals themselves. But what effect is industrial farming having on our health and the environment?
Healthy eating?
In Canada, farmed animals receive more drugs than people do. They are regularly given antibiotics to force quicker growth and keep them alive – they could not survive their appalling conditions without medication.
Overuse in farming is one reason why more and more humans are becoming resistant to antibiotics – our bodies become accustomed to residues of these drugs in meat and other animal products.
Animal overcrowding also helps spread infectious diseases such as BSE. These foodborne diseases can then be passed to humans.
Food for thought
Factory farmed chickens are restrained in cages and fed high-energy foods, meaning their meat contains more fat and less protein than free range chickens. High-fat foods are linked to diabetes, obesity, cancers, heart disease and strokes.
Arsenic and other substances are sometimes added to the feed of animals that are eventually consumed by humans.
Environmental damage
Factory farming forces animals together in unnaturally large numbers. The waste produced can cause environmental health problems.
Water: The huge amounts of manure produced by factory farming can seep into human water supplies, contaminating it with nitrogen. The planet's population of pigs and cattle produce almost three times the amount of waste nitrogen than humans do. The resulting nitrate contamination may cause greater risk of miscarriage. Heavy metals pollution is likely to affect embryonic development.
Air: Decomposing manure releases a range of chemicals, and when manure is present in huge quantities these chemicals can cause serious illnesses. Communities near factory farms report higher than normal rates of respiratory problems, headaches, nausea and fatigue.
Soil: Fertilizers and pesticides are needed to grow the huge amount of feed necessary to supply factory farms. These are linked to the worldwide loss of soil fertility. The huge amounts of manure produced also contaminates soil with antibiotics and hormones, which can disrupt the reproductive systems of wildlife and humans.
This pollution particularly affects people living in developing countries, who are also fighting poverty.
Register your protest
Tell the farming industry you want food that is better for you, better for the environment and better for animals – buy and request organic and free range products. Your purchases will create a demand for humanely-raised food.
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