Factory Farm Research Paper

Words: 903
Pages: 4

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a factory farm is a large industrialized farm; especially: a farm on which large numbers of livestock are raised in conditions intended to maximize production at minimal cost. The production of these factory farms first began in 1877, but after many years these farms became more prominent in the farming industry and the small-scale and medium-scale farms gave away to this brand-new generation of farming. The use of combining mechanization and technology into the agricultural business is a new era of farming from what has been done in the past. From the eye of a consumer, this is an uncomfortable way to farm that isn’t always seen as the most positive way. After looking over the issue of the treatment of agricultural animals …show more content…
Despite the fact most of the consumers are bothered about factory farming, in reality, each farm has only the amount of animals they can safely support. According to foodandwaterwatch.org, “Livestock units” is a way to measure different kinds of animals on the same scale based on their weight” (“Factory Farm Nation”). By using this scale inside the farm, it is able to ensure each and every animal gets their appropriate and humane amount of food. A beef cattle is a considerable amount larger than a hog or a chicken and as seen in foodandwaterwatch.org can, therefore, be comparable to about eight hogs or eight hundred chickens when using livestock units as a reference (“Factory Farm Nation”). “A factory farm only needs to have 500 beef cattle, 500 dairy cows, sell 500,000 chickens annually or house 100,000 egg-laying chickens” (“Why Factory Farming”). Those numbers can be used to illustrate how the inside of a factory farm might look like, instead of the consumers interpreting that the farm is tight, crowded cages holding them animals for their entire life. Even though a good amount of farms still hold