The case against factory farms
IU Kokomo hosts environmental law specialist during Sustainability Week
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The world is running out of food. By 2050, the global population will grow to 10 billion, and the agricultural industry will not be able to keep pace. That is the message being sent, but the reality is much different.
Indiana University Kokomo held a discussion on global food supply and the effect of factory farms during its Sustainability Week on April 11. The talk was led by Kim Ferraro, an environmental public interest lawyer who has performed advocacy work for the past 15 years.
Ferraro asserted that the majority of food produced is actually used to feed livestock in large, confined operations, causing a host of challenges and threats to the environment as well as global food supply.
Ferraro is a member of the Hoosier Environmental Council, the state's largest environmental advocacy organization. There, she serves as a legislative advocate at the Statehouse, supporting environmental policies. Last year, Ferraro took a position with the IU Maurer Law School at Indiana University in its Environmental Law Clinic. And over the course of her legal career, she has taken numerous environmental cases, representing environmental justice communities.
Ferraro has the expertise and experience to speak to the topic, and her message is that the global community must change its ways when it comes to agriculture if the worst predictions for the future are to be avoided.
“One of the most devastating environmental justice impacts I have witnessed personally over my career is that imposed by the state's factory farmers,” said Ferraro. “One of the things that I've heard throughout Indiana is that factory farms are really sort of the inevitable end result of the industrial revolution; that we need them in order to feed the world.
“The truth is that is a myth. The only way we're going to actually be able to feed the world sustainably, without destroying our planet and ourselves, is to do away with factory farms and transform our industrial system.”
Ferraro explained that the world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people annually. However, much of that food is used to feed livestock in factory farms. A huge amount of the world’s resources – land, water, energy – is devoted to growing corn and soybeans, but very little of it is actually consumed by humans.
“As a result of this hugely inefficient system we now have, we feed billions of farm animals to ‘feed the world,’” said Ferraro. “It not only doesn't feed the world very well at all, it's a leading cause of the most serious environmental problems that we face at every scale from local to global, including climate change.”
The world hasn’t always relied on factory farms. Ferraro explained that, following the Great Depression in the 1930s, corporate America pushed for greater automation and efficiencies in farming, largely so that more families would leave the farm and move to cities where they could earn a better living working in factories where there was a shortage of workers.
Major corporations such as Sears and Roebuck, Ford Motor Co., Johnson and Johnson, and Eastman Kodak successfully lobbied Congress to adopt policies in support of this effort, and by the 1950s, their efforts began to bear fruit.
“They formed the Committee on Economic Development, which is still with us today,” said Ferraro. “It's a policy think-tank that came up with an adaptive program for agriculture. The purpose of this adaptive program was to address what these corporate leaders saw as the American farm. Namely, they thought there were too many farmers and not enough factory workers and laborers in other sectors.
“They characterized this as the ‘inadequate flow of resources,’ which was undermining economic growth and their corporate financial interests. So, to fix this farm problem, these corporate leaders proposed reducing the farm labor force by one-third over a five-year period.”
To accomplish this, the committee lobbied government to dramatically lower the price supports for farmers put in place during the Great Depression. Small farmer no longer were able to make a living, and in just five years more than 2 million farmers left the country life and joined the urban labor pool. There were many great benefits to the corporate world.
“It depressed wages and led to cheaper labor costs for them,” said Ferraro. “It lowered the cost of raw materials, and it increased the return on corporate investment in agriculture. This whole plan wasn't about farming; it was about protecting corporate interests. The instructions to farmers was to get big or get out, which they did in droves.”
By the 1970s, Ferraro stated, the U.S. lost more than 3 million small farms. Corporate consolidation of farms followed, allowing large companies to control food production. Today, nearly 90 percent of agricultural subsidies go to the largest farms, leaving small farmers with few options to remain independent. Many have been forced into serving larger corporate interests, surrendering the largest share of profits to “Big Ag.”
“Just a handful of large corporations control food production, especially in the meat industry,” said Ferraro. “Tyson Foods, Cargill, JPS, and National Beef Packing Company control more than 83 percent of beef production today.
“Through a process called vertical integration, these corporations control all stages of production from genetics, birthing, feeding, transport, slaughter, processing, and grocery store packaging. This has not only squeezed out the small farmer, but it has decimated rural farming communities by eliminating the local infrastructure and businesses that once served farming. One need only drive through some of the small farm towns in Indiana to see the lasting effects of that.”
Ferraro explained that there are approximately 25,000 industrial scale livestock operations in the U.S. – 1,800 in Indiana -- which produce the majority of the 9.8 billion farm animals that are raised and slaughtered each year. According to the most recent USDA Ag Census, approximately 70 percent of cows, 98 percent of pigs, 99 percent of turkeys, and 99 percent of chickens are raised in factory farms.
“Why should people like us who live in cities care about the fact that most of our meat, dairy, and poultry products come from factory farms?” asked Ferraro. “Livestock in the United States generate more than 40 times as much urine and feces than is produced by the human population.
“In Indiana, our livestock generate as much animal waste as is produced by 87 million people; 114 times the population of Indiana. The USDA tells us that animal waste is arguably more harmful than human waste because of the concentrations of E. coli pathogens. Even so, livestock waste is allowed under our current laws to go untreated versus human waste which is treated before it's ever released into the environment.
“As a result, about 98 percent of Indiana’s stream and river miles are not suitable for fishing and swimming because of E coli and pathogen contamination, mostly due to the runoff and spills from the very uncontrolled and unregulated stream of animal waste finding its way into our waterways, along with fertilizer sprayed on the vast amount of crops of corn and soy that go to feed the farm factories.”
A second damaging by-product of factory farming is the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, which has given rise to new strains of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, such as MRSA. Ferraro stated than 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to livestock in factory farms to promote faster growth and to ward off diseases which would decimate entire populations of animals which have been crammed into these confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.
And then there is the issue of climate change.
“The meat industry is now the leading cause of climate change,” said Ferraro. “According to the most recent from the United Nations and our federal Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, meat and dairy production is the No. 1 source of all human-caused greenhouse gases. The meat industry is also the largest user of land. Thirty percent of the land surface of the planet goes to raising livestock.
“About 70 billion farm animals are raised every year worldwide; more than 10 billion in the U.S. alone. It takes 16 pounds of grain to make just one pound of meat. In the U.S. alone, livestock eat more than 50 percent of all the grain we produce. Raising 70 billion animals requires a lot of water. Animal agriculture is responsible for nearly 30 percent of all freshwater consumption in the world, and nearly 50 percent of water use in the United States.”
Ferraro also urged that people should care about how the animals raised for consumption are treated. She claimed that these animals are legally abused in the name of feeding the world.
“Another reason to care about our industrial food system is the systemic and legal torture of farm animals,” said Ferraro. “Just like our dogs and cats, the billions of animals raised and killed each year for meat are sentient, complex beings and capable of feeling pain, frustration, joy, and excitement. Yet they're abused by the meat industry. They suffer a myriad of physical, mental, and emotional abuses.
“Unfortunately, there are a number of federal laws and the majority of states, including Indiana, which exempt the industry’s accepted agricultural practices, including factory farms, no matter how abusive. The treatment of factory farmed animals is inhumane and cruel, but it is perfectly legal.”
To illustrate her claim, Ferraro explained that in the poultry industry, male chicks are considered “useless by-products” because they are unable to lay eggs. Millions of baby chicks are gassed and thrown into garbage bins where they are left to die from dehydration and asphyxiation.
“If none of this moves you, another reason you should care is that the meat industry is costing us our health in terms of obesity, cardiac disease, and other illnesses related to consumption,” said Ferraro. “Today, we eat roughly 200 pounds of meat per person every single year, which is more than six times what the average American consumed in the 1930s.
“You might ask yourself why. It might be due to the fact that it's a lot cheaper now to eat a double bacon cheeseburger than it is to eat a salad. And this goes back to the government supports that we give to big conglomerates. The meat industry is heavily subsidized, but fruit and vegetable farmers only get the tiniest little sliver of taxpayer dollars. From a nutrition standpoint, these food subsidies are completely out of whack. We're not putting our money where we believe our healthy diets should be.”
The problems may seem too large for any one individual to solve. But Ferraro posited that everyone can impact the situation by making decisions that encourage better agricultural practices.
“What can we do?” asked Ferraro. “We have to demand that our lawmakers undo those bad policies that got us here. And we have to enact policies that will level the playing field for small independent farmers. We need to use regenerative instead of degenerative agricultural practices, which do not include factory farms.
“So how do we do that? End the massive taxpayer subsidies that go to the meat industry and reallocate that support to farmers using regenerative practices to grow diverse crops, fruits, vegetables, grains, and livestock sustainably. Give support to rebuild local rural communities and local infrastructure. We have to reinvest in our rural communities.
“It's up to you to decide whether to support an industrial food system or a sustainable system, and you don't have to wait around for policy change. You can create consumer demand for sustainably produced food by voting with your food dollars. Go to food co-ops and farmers’ markets. Know the farmer. Know where the food comes from.
“One of the most impactful things you can do is reduce your consumption of meat, poultry, and dairy. If you don't know where to start, give meatless Mondays a try. That will reduce your meat consumption by 15 percent, along with all of the harms that go along with that. Ultimately, reducing the global demand for meat dairy is the only way that our food system can be sustainable because at current rates of consumption, it'll take the resources of several Earths to feed us by 2050.”