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Kari Rangel
Sean M. George
ENG 1010D.03
13 December 2015
Factory Farming: The Destructive Way to Farm
Imagine flying; down below theres a beautiful green, mapped out farm in a small area in
the state of Virginia. Its obvious its a farm because of the crops, and the flat land where the
animals graze. Theres an abundance of trees, and fencing to map the acreage. A two-story white
farmhouse is nestled on the side, and almost directly next to the farmhouse sits a tall red barn
with a brown roof. Now, imagine the work it may take to run this farm. The farmer will arise
early to eat a hearty breakfast, prepared with ingredients from his own harvest, providing him
energy to survive his day. Through the day, the farmer guides his animals to feed, graze, and
fertilize the land. The farm image described is called Organic Farming, and even though this type
of farming has been around for centuries, large food packing companies are taking over because
of the nations demand for food.
Since vitamin A and D were discovered in the 1920s, farmers started adding it to their
animal feed. Adding vitamin A and D in the feed no longer required animals to adhere to sunlight
and exercise for growth (Yahoo! Answers). Soon, this lead to confining large amounts of animals
in small, closed-in spaces, feeding them heavy, fattening grain with added supplements,
chemicals and toxins that would make them ready for slaughter faster. This is called Factory
Farming, and farmers thought this would increase productivity in feeding their community faster
and more efficiently. However, its actually caused more harm than good. In this essay I will

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show you that Factory Farming is destructive and causing more damage than anyone could
imagine. I will point out three ways factory farming is wrong, dangerous, and unethical; it
causes death and disease throughout the environment and society because of the added chemicals
and toxins in the crops, and animal waste; the requirements and regulations the large meat
packing companies force upon famers who produces the largest percentage of the nations meat
source; and lastly, the workers, who are employed in factory farming plants have resulted in
devastating situations that lead to sickness, unemployment and deportation.
Fast food chains, grocery stores, and restaurants purchase their meat between four beef,
poultry and pork companies in the United States and they decide how the meat is produced; from
the farm to the table. The process of this production has a lot of hidden problems; disease
outbreaks, massive contaminations and recalls throughout the nation. Food, water and land are
some of the most important things to society and factory farming is dangerously affecting our
food and water supply along with the land we live on. Even though big companies explain that
factory farming is cheaper and more efficient, its actually the opposite. In the article Factory
Farming is Not Cheap, Efficient or Healthy it states, Between spring 2007 and spring 2009
alone there were twenty five recalls due to the virulent E. coli and O157:H7 pathogen involving
44 million pounds of beef [and] over the last decade, E. coli contamination has cost the beef
industry an estimated 1.9 billion (par. 15).
When cows are given corn to eat, E. coli forms in their stomach, and mutates into the
O157:H7, type of E. coli (Food Inc.). Large factory faming is producing at such a massive rate,
going down the factory line to get the final product delivered to its destination and theres no
time to efficiently sanitize the meat from E. coli. The mass production of corn is cheap, making it
easy for farmers to feed their animals so that they gain sufficient weight at a much faster pace.

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Corn is harvested then reproduced among several foods; such as, sodas, cracker, breads, soups
and condiments, baked goods, to household cleaners, baby products and fast food. Processed and
fast food is cheap because the main ingredient is massed produced corn and soy allowing food a
long shelf life. Cheap food is attainable in Americans busy lives. However, the cost of cheap
food is more expensive in the long run. Barbara Kowalcyk is the co-founder of Director of Food
and Safety for Foodborne Illness. Her son suddenly died from the O157:H7 E. coli virus while
on a family vacation in a matter of twelve days from eating a fast food hamburger. Kowalcyk has
been on a mission to get Kevins Law to pass in which would force companies that repeatedly
have reports of the O157:H7 virus in their meat to immediately shut down production (Food
Inc.). Millions of other Americans suffer by drinking the ground water thats being contaminated
by nitrogen-containing pollutants from the agriculture fertilizers, and animal waste. Factory
farmed animals are causing so much waste, loaded with toxins that need to be hauled away. The
majority of this waste is landing in our landfills, and water sources.
Chickens have beaks and claws specifically to forage the ground for worms and insects.
Cows are herbivores and are designed to graze green grass in pasture. Goats, pigs, and horses
fertilize the land as they graze making it possible for the next season to be ready for the animals
in pasture again. Its how nature works, and it works well. Factory farms are confining animals,
and keeping them from their natural life process. The big meat packing companies want to sell a
product that is bigger and faster. When the chicken farmer questions why their chickens are so
diseased, such companies like Tyson, and Purdue demand the farmer to make large
improvements, willingly loaning the farmer hundreds and thousands of dollars, locking the
farmer to continually to raise chickens for them. In order to stay contracted with these large
companies, they require strict regulations for the farmer to follow. First, chemicals and

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antibiotics need to be added to the feed; corn, mixed with other grains and modified soy
products. Secondly, since chicken will be confined, their beaks and claws are cut off to prevent
them from picking and clawing each other. Peter Singer tells us chickens, reared in sheds that
hold 20,000 birds, now are bred to grow so fast that most of them develop leg problems because
of their immature bones cannot bear the weight of their bodies (par.3), in his article The
Treatment of Animals in Factory Farms is a Serious Moral Wrong. Additionally, chickens and
hens will never see the light of day because Tyson and Purdue require closed window chicken
farming. The dark spaces and added chemicals to their feed allows for the chicken to be ready for
slaughter in 49 days, rather than 76 days. Also, since restaurants and fast food chains desire
white meat over the dark meat, companies like Tyson wanted to design the chicken to develop
larges breast. These chickens can take a step or two, but then plop down because they are too
heavy to continue. Singer goes on to say:
Sometimes their legs collapse under them, causing them to starve to death
because they cannot reach their food. Some people think that factory farming is
necessary to feed the growing population of our planet. The truth, however, is the
opposite. No matter how efficient intensive pork, beef, chicken, egg, and milk
production becomes, in the narrow sense of producing more meat, eggs, or milk
for each pound of grain we feed the animals, raising animals on grains remains
wasteful. (Singer par.4)
Other big corporations like Smithfield continue to depopulate the family farms. These
corporations sell cheap food, but the animals, rural family farms, and the environment are paying
the high cost. The workers in the meat packing plants are processing meat at a ridiculous pace;

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some, 200 hogs an hour. Feces, urine, and blood are constantly in contact with the workers
fingers, and are being infected and their fingernails are separating from their fingers.
Michael Pollan from Food Inc. explains; By the 1950s, to be a meat packing worker
was like an auto worker. It was a good wage, good benefits, pension, and then what happened?
The meat packing companies got bigger in order to serve the needs of the fast food industry.
The fast food industry is the largest customer for the four biggest meat packing companies, and
they started following the fast food industries way of producing; factory line type producing.
Meat packing companies started to cut wages, benefits, and sped up the factory line which
caused problems that ultimately left employees sick or deported.
In the small economically depressed town of Tar Heel North Carolina, lies the pork
factory meat producing company of Smithfield Pork. They first recruited employees that were
the poor white and blacks among the community. Not long after those employees were struck
with sickness from working in the plant from constant diseased animals, they had to recruit from
Dentsville, South Carolina, all the way to Clinton, North Carolina. Soon after they exhausted
their 100 mile radius to recruit employees, they needed to look elsewhere. A million and a half
Mexican corn farmers found themselves out of work because they could no longer compete with
the United States cheap cost of corn. With the help of the Government, Smithfield began bussing
in illegal Mexican immigrants to work in the meat packing plant. Up until recently, the antiimmigrant movement forced the government and Smithfield to comply while slowly arresting
and deporting the illegal immigrant workers, but no more than fifteen each day, just so it didnt
affect the production line (Food Inc.).
The hardest part to understand is that the government is turning a blind eye on the
Smithfield officials, and only targeting the illegal immigrants Smithfield recruited.

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They have the same mentality towards the workers as they do towards the hogs.
The hog, they dont really have to worry about their comfort, because
theyre

temporary and will be killed, and they have the same view towards

the workers.

Theyre not worried about the longevity of the worker, because to

them,

everything has an end. (Pollan, Food Inc.)

Bottom line, the United States fast food industry is the problem. The reason these factory

farms exist is because of the fast food chains, and their desire to feed large quantities of food in
the cheapest way possible. In contrast to all the research proving that factory farming is wrong,
there are those who disagree and believe that in order to feed the nation, factory farming must go
on.
Ronald Bailey tells us, Synthetic fertilizers now supply forty percent of all the nitrogen
used by crop plants. Without this artificially produced fertilizer, farmers would simply not be
able to grow the crops necessary to feed the worlds population in his essay Organic
Agriculture Cannot Feed the World. Admittedly hes right; small organic farms cannot meet the
need for the thousands of fast food chains demanding cheap and fast produced food. However,
there wouldnt be a need for artificially produced fertilizer, if the animals were free to roam,
while fertilizing the fields. In the essay Factory Farming is Unethical, Bernard Rollin explains;
when pigs (or cattle) are raised on pasture, manure becomes a benefit, since it fertilizes pasture.
In industrial animal agriculture, there is little to maintain pasture [and], manure becomes a
problem, both in terms of disposal and because it leaches into the water table (par. 16). We, the
consumer, are in charge of changing this movement. We are giving our vote every time we
purchase fresh ingredients from the grocery store or buy a burger from McDonalds.

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In Katerina Athanasious essay, Most Factory Farms Use Healthy and Responsible
Animal Practices she explains,
Public view of animal treatment is caused by anthropomorphism, or the
allocation of human qualities to animals. For example, animal images
infiltrate

popular culture through the personification of animals in books and

cartoons.

From these sources, the public generates the notion that animals

have needs that

parallel those of humans. (par.4)

Most of society realizes that their food is coming from some kind of farm. We know that
it involves slaughtering of animals. Certainly, this can be considered a moral issue whenever the
topic is about the slaughtering of animals for human consumption. But this is not about the
slaughter of animals. Its about the respect we give animals for providing us the bounty and
health we are forever seeking. There is a fine line between slaughtering animals to consume that
harbors responsibility and the slaughter of animals that are sick with disease in how they are
raised and by the feed that they are given to consume. Furthermore, Bernard Rollin quoted
Ghandi saying: A society must ultimately be morally judged by how it treats its weakest
members. No members are more valuable and dependent than our societys domestic animals
(par.22).
Consumers can stop factory farming production simply by voting in what we buy. We are
an obese nation because what we choose to buy is loaded with ingredients that are rich in
chemicals and toxin fillers such as corn and soy that have been harvested with toxic pesticides.
Why does tomato sauce need corn? So that it can stay on the shelf for up to five years. We have
year-round tomatoes available, and this is only possible because of the gasses farmers use to
speed up the growing process and to keep it fresh from farm to supermarket. The United States

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have too many reports of sickness and death from E. coli from diseased cows, chickens, and
hogs. The big meat producing companies have the farmers tied to them because of all the debt
they owe. The farmers have no choice but to produce as fast as possible, just so that they can
make their yearly salary of only approximately $19,000.00. The meat packing companies know
that if they feed a cow grass (that was previously on a corn diet) for only five days, the cow can
fully expel the E.coli virus. But since this prolongs the weight of the cow, they simply choose to
solider on, allowing the E. coli to stay in the animal (Food Inc.). Factory farming causes more
harm than good, and should stop its production, but the only way this will ever happen is if we
stop demanding fast, and cheap food. Cook your meals at home, and buy from locals farms that
portray healthy and responsible farming.

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Works Cited
Athanasiou, Katerina. "Most Factory Farms Use Healthy and Responsible Animal
Practices." Factory Farming. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven
Press,

2013. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Ethics of Factory Farms."

www.cornellsun.com 31 Mar. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context. Web. 22

Nov. 2015.

Bailey, Ronald. "Organic Agriculture Cannot Feed the World." Global Resources. Ed.
David M. Haugen. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing
Viewpoints. Rpt.

from "Organic Alchemy: Organic Farming Could Kill

Billions of People." Reason

(5 June 2002). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 22

Nov. 2015.
"Factory Farming Is Not Cheap, Efficient, or Healthy." Factory Farming. Ed. Debra A.
Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Current Controversies. Rpt. from
"Three

Big Factory Farm Lies." CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Ed.
Daniel Imhoff. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Nov.

2015.
Food Inc.. Dir. Robert Kenner. Magnolia Pictures, 2008. Film.
John H. When Did Factory Farming Begin? Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo!, 2008. Web.
13 Nov. 2015.
Rollin, Bernard E. "Factory Farming Is Unethical." Animal Rights. Ed. Shasta Gaughen.
San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Contemporary Issues Companion.

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Rpt. from
Opposing Viewpoints

"Farm Factories." Christian Century 118 (Dec. 2001): 26.

in Context. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.

Singer, Peter. "The Treatment of Animals in Factory Farms Is a Serious Moral Wrong."
Factory Farming. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010.
Current
Minnesota Daily 22
2015.

Controversies. Rpt. from "Factory Farming: A Moral Issue."

Mar. 2006. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 22 Nov.