Factory Farms

Housing hundreds or thousands – and in some cases millions – of animals in one concentrated location creates sweeping and devastating impacts throughout the natural and human environments, polluting soil, air and water. Animal factories devour energy and water resources and harm workers, animals and nearby communities by poisoning water and releasing hazardous air pollutants like hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide. By sourcing animals, feed, and supplies from across the country and processing in distant locales, animal factories rely on truck transport to function, contributing to carbon emissions and climate change.   

An animal factory itself is but one cog in the failing industrial food animal production machine. The existence of animal factories also demands significant environmental impacts of the upstream commodity chains, such as those incurred by monocropping of grains to feed animals and high energy inputs for industrial pharmaceutical production to treat them. Downstream effects such as environmental pollution, foodborne illness, loss of family farms, wildlife destruction and contributions to climate change all strain and negatively impact the food system. What’s more, the companies behind the meat, egg, and dairy industries go to great lengths to seek exemptions to environmental laws, which are often adopted by complicit authorities.

Center for Food Safety uses litigation and advocacy to stop harmful environmental pollution by animal factory farms. We also push for better and more accurate environmental reporting, and for agencies to be more vigilant in requiring animal factories to turn over significant information. Accessibility to this information is necessary for EPA to do its job and for the public to know what pollution these facilities cause.

Water, air, and noise pollution from factory farms deeply impacts local communities; low-income and marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted. Those working in factory farms and residents living near these operations face headaches, nausea, and higher risks of respiratory issues like asthma due to air pollution from these facilities. Excess nutrients in CAFO runoff, like nitrogen and ammonia from animal waste can leach into drinking water and lead to blue baby syndrome (a serious heart condition in newborn babies).

Animal factories rely on antibiotics, arsenic, hormones, feed additives and vaccines to accelerate animal growth rates and prevent them from getting sick while housed by the thousands in cramped conditions ripe for breeding disease. The overuse of these pharmaceuticals greatly compromises public health. Over 80% of antibiotics used in the U.S. are purchased by the agricultural industry, and their consistent use in livestock selects for antibiotic-resistant superbugs that are infecting humans at an alarming rate. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also approved animal feed containing cancer-causing arsenical compounds to increase animal weight gain, feed efficiency and muscle pigmentation. Increased hormone use for the purpose of faster growth and more milk production has been linked to public health problems, including disrupted child development, reproductive complications and cancers.

Center for Food Safety seeks to create a safe and healthy environment in which local communities’ air, water, land, and environment are not polluted by mega-factory farms and in doing so create communities where everyone can thrive.

Confining animals indoor and packing them into dense living conditions creates a number of serious hazards for animal welfare. Animals often live among their own waste and carcasses of their dead friends. They may be caged, chained, or tethered, unable to turn around or lie down. Poor ventilation causes buildup of toxic gases that threaten their health. This crowded, toxic environment is conducive to virulent strains of bacteria. The aggressive behaviors brought about by the high-stress environment often cause animals to severely injure one another, causing bruises, lesions, broken limbs, or even death. These are clearly not systems that protect the well-being of the animals. These harms outweigh any alleged benefit of increased production and are simply not a viable, humane, sustainable, or intelligent way to produce our nation’s meat and animal products.

Animals in animal factories also often suffer inhumane treatment from their handlers. The high risk of injury from other animals’ aggressive behaviors (caused by their living conditions) means that many producers resort to painful physical alterations, such as cutting off tails, clipping teeth, or sawing off horns, to prevent injury rather than addressing the root causes of the violent behavior. Brutal treatment by handlers, such as beating, stabbing, kicking, or dragging, has also been well-documented at animal factories.

Animal factories also rely on the rampant use of antibiotic drugs and feed additives to produce rapid weight gain and to suppress the negative health effects of concentrated confinement. Not only does rapid weight gain stress the animals’ bodies and immune systems, but several of the approved drugs have terrible health impacts on the animals. Ractopamine is known to cause muscular skeletal tremors, cardiovascular problems, increased aggression, increased risk of nerve paralysis, fractured vertebral columns, and increased risk of “downer” animals, a general term given to animals that cannot stand or walk on their own due to physical impairment. Another growth promoter, the steroid melengestrol acetate, is associated with higher risk of pneumonia and other diseases in cattle. The overuse of these drugs props up a system of animal factory farming that commits horrific animal welfare abuses and that would otherwise be untenable. Moreover, the overuse of animal drugs has resulted in the spread of drug-resistant bacteria and toxic runoff that further contaminates environmental resources and harms animal, human, and environmental health.

Center for Food Safety’s Animal Factories Program works on multiple fronts to challenge the factory farm system:

• Taking legal action against factory farms for violations of environmental, animal welfare, and other laws
• Educating consumers through advocacy campaigns, reports, and fact sheets to help people take action against polluting operations, stand up for animal rights, and support humane, sustainable producers
• Monitoring and petitioning relevant agencies to ban the use of toxic chemical inputs, and to take actions to reduce the environmental and human health harms of factory farms
• Challenging ag-gag laws and other legislation that limits public access to information about factory farm conditions
• Pushing for stronger environmental regulations and reporting requirements to hold these facilities accountable
• Legislative advocacy and coalition-building to stop factory farm pollution and expansion in particular regions