Factory Farming Cost

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The Real Cost of Factory Farming
I. Introduction
Within the United States alone, over nine billion farm animals are manufactured within the industrial agriculture environment to fill the immense demand for meat, eggs, and dairy products (Factory). Large quantities of animals are squished within a confining pen, some never able to see sunlight, until the day they reach slaughter. Surrounding the tortured animals are miles of commodity crops, including corn, squash, and soy beans. These monocultures corrupt the soils and diminish the hope of healthy soils. Both sides of industrial farming have led to critical side effects that need to be stopped. From the popularization of factory farming in the 1960’s, there have been many damaging side effects …show more content…
The Problem: Environmental
When looking at the impact of industrial farming on the environment, one needs to look at all aspects of the food chain. Production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste release emissions into the air, which contribute to global warming. Planting monocultures depletes the soil and decreases biodiversity; raising large numbers of livestock also ruins the soil and releases gases into the atmosphere.
Chemical farming creates an endless cycle of using fertilizers to promote plant growth, using modified seeds that are adapted to survive in low quality conditions, applying pesticides because the plants cannot fight off things on their own, and harvesting the yield at the end of the season. One problem with this is the amount of chemicals that are wasted; nearly half of the nitrogen fertilizer is not even taken up by the crop (Lappé, 2011, 16). This permits the nitrogen to enter the waterways or leaves them to evaporate into the atmosphere causing problems with the public and other creatures’ health, acid rain, and contributes to global warming. Chemical farming also depletes the soil’s fertility and makes it more prone to erosion. The consistent planting on land decreases the nutrients in the soils, which farmers compensate for by dousing them in chemical fertilizers, furthering the reliance on chemicals to keep constant yields. This makes it harder to build healthy soil again; the weakened soils are easier to erode when a rainstorm or other …show more content…
The United Nations even warns that the “environmental impact per unit of livestock production must be cut by half, just to avoid increasing the level of damage beyond its present level” (Lappé, 2011, 43). Livestock has become a large contributor to global warming in the past half a century with around 18 percent of all global greenhouse-gas emission (Lappé, 2011, 19). Part of the emissions come from the cows themselves; as cows digest their food, they produce methane that is released through their mouths and noses. This became a problem when large amounts of beef were produced and were consistently releasing methane. Another large portion of the emissions comes from transportation. The livestock need to be delivered to feed lots, taken to the processing plants, driven to the packaging plants, and finally, make it to the supermarket where costumers stuff their carts. Each section requires fossil fuels and releases hazardous pollutants as it destroys the planet’s atmosphere. Without limitations on livestock production, dangerous consequences will soon be
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