Cafos Research Paper

CAFOs: A Meat Production Facility or an Animal Torturing Dungeon?
Across the nation there are many factories with animals tightly confined in solidarity to await their death and kept in miserable conditions unforeseen by humanity, while emissions of hazardous gases and wastes slowly leave these buildings to pollute the environment. This is the despicable reality behind poultry and meat the consumers buy at their local grocery stores. Quality is no longer a priority for these slaughter houses, as quantity is their only goal. These slaughter houses, better known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs, are factories that house as many as hundreds of thousands of animals, predominantly pigs, to slaughter and commercially sell to markets …show more content…
With the increase in demand for meat, ex. Pork, chicken, etc. the amount of meat production facilities or CAFOs have increased over decades. As animals are kept in horrid conditions, the evolution of viruses transmitted from these animals are rampant as well. “The concern about CAFOs is the harboring and providing a rich environment for the evolution of new strains of influenza.” (Hollenbeck 205). Pigs are able to transmit the viruses with each other, which means that an infected pig can pass on the virus to a healthy pig (Hollenbeck 206). This means that the rate at which the virus can spread increases and the amount of meat the virus will contaminate increases as well. Another case of viruses spreading due to inter transmission is in poultry CAFOs, which have increased in amount as well, where avian influenza is more common in the animals (Hollenbeck 206-207). However, the research conducted inside CAFOs does not focus on the new spread of viruses in the animals. The research is more focused on water run-off and odor control (Hollenbeck 207). Hollenbeck, who has documented viruses inside CAFOs for Trakia Journal of Sciences, states, “The massive populations of animals should force researchers to move beyond odor based studies to that of one encompassing research of composition and potential health risks to humans” (207). The general public should know what is actually inside the meat they consume, as well as the effects of consuming CAFO produced meat. The presence of viruses in CAFOs needs to decrease by vaccinating animals, leading to better worker training (Hollenbeck 208). If these viruses are more easily identified, then the health of both the animals and the consumers will be at a lower risk. Because who would want to eat meat that

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