Eating for the Environment |
 |
As factory farms intensively confine greater numbers of animals, the toll of such industrialized practices weighs heavily on the environment, depleting resources and contaminating habitats. Toxins, chemicals, gases, and uncontainable amounts of manure from these facilities pollute the soil, water, and air, causing massive environmental degradation and deteriorating public health.
Inefficient Use of Land and Food
| |
|
Factory Farms and Public Health |
|
"In 1999, a University of North Carolina study found that neighbors of a 6,000-head hog factory, compared with a group of people in an area with no large-scale confinement units, reported more headaches, runny noses, sore throats, excessive coughing, diarrhea, and burning eyes."(a)
"Recent studies have found that children who attend schools near pig factory farms suffer elevated levels of asthma."(b)
"In February 2002, Iowa State University and the University of Iowa released a joint report finding that hydrogen sulfide and ammonia emissions from large-scale animal confinement facilities can pose a health risk to humans and that Iowa should develop air quality standards to stop factory farm air pollution."(c)
"In January 2004, the American Public Health Association passed a resolution urging government officials to adopt a moratorium on factory farms. Air quality near a factory farm is so poor that nearby residents experience respiratory problems, nausea, and severe headaches."(d) | |
Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. land area is used to grow feed for animals raised for meat, and another 32 percent is used for grazing cattle, making livestock production the largest single use of land in the country.(1)
To produce a single pound of meat, egg, or milk protein, depending on the species, 3–12 pounds of feed protein are needed.(2) Producing all of this feed for farm animals uses more land, water, fertilizer, pesticides, and energy than would be used if we simply ate plant foods directly.
Production of chicken meat, for instance, requires 14 times as much energy and 40 percent more cropland per unit of protein as the production of soybeans.(3)
Polluting Air, Water, and Land
Annually in the United States, farm animals produce 1.4 billion tons of feces and urine,(4) and much of this waste—millions of gallons—eventually finds its way into neighboring ecosystems, devastating the environment and wildlife:
» In 2006, Premium Standard Farms was ordered to pay $4.5 million in damages to three families affected by odors from one of its hog factory farms in Missouri.(5)
» About 13 percent of the domestic drinking-water wells in the Midwest contain unsafe levels of nitrates from fertilizers and manure lagoon spills or leaks.
» In 2001, the EPA forced five hog factory farms to supply bottled water for local residents because activities at the farms had contaminated the local drinking water.(6)
» A 1997 study found that 82 percent of animal farming operations producing nitrogen in excess of land capacity and 64 percent with excess phosphorus were poultry operations.(7)
» A recent report by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation identified chicken manure as the primary cause of pollution in the bay.(8)
|
Worse Than Vehicles |
|
According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector damages the climate at a rate that surpasses emissions from cars and SUVs.(e) | |
|
» Tropical rainforests are being clear-cut primarily to produce pasture or cropland for growing animal feed, devastating threatened animal and plant species.
» A U.S. Senate report noted, "Spills of liquid animal waste directly into water have an immediate environmental impact, choking out fish and other aquatic life."(9)
» One study estimated that between 1990 and 2000, farm animal manure was responsible for 74 percent of fish kills caused by agriculture and led to more fish kills than municipal and industrial sources of pollution, combined.(10)
» Aquaculture destroys coastal habitats and produces fish waste and harmful chemical pollutants.(11)
Wasted Resources
| Resources |
To Produce
One Pound of
Processed
Soy Protein |
To Produce
One Pound of
Processed
Animal Protein |
| Land Needed |
1 |
6 to 17 |
| Water Needed |
1 |
4.4 to 26 |
| Fossil Fuel Needed |
1 |
6 to 20 |
In this table the amount needed to produce one pound of processed soy protein is arbitrarily given the value of 1; the amount needed to produce one pound of processed animal protein varies by species and so is shown in a range. |
A plant-based diet requires far fewer resources to sustain life than the typical American diet, which is heavy on animal products. For perspective, compare how many more resources are needed to produce one pound of processed animal protein compared to one pound of processed soy protein (see the table at left).(12)
|
|
| What Environmentalists Say |
|
Union of Concerned Scientists—"Over the last 50 years, the way food animals are raised and fed has changed dramatically—to the detriment of both animals and humans. Many people are surprised to find that most of the food animals in the United States are no longer raised on farms at all. Instead they come from crowded animal factories, also known as large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)."(f)
Natural Resources Defense Council-"Factory farms, which mass-produce animals in assembly-line fashion, have harmed aquatic life, human health and ecosystems across the nation. As industrial-sized farms stagger under the vast burden of manure they are generating, environmental disasters are inevitable."(g)
Waterkeeper Alliance-"[T]he vast majority of America’s meat and produce are controlled by a handful of ruthless monopolies that house animals in industrial warehouses where they are treated with unspeakable and unnecessary cruelty. These meat factories destroy family farms and rural communities and produce vast amounts of dangerous pollutants that are contaminating America’s most treasured landscapes and waterways."(h)
Sierra Club-"Animal husbandry practices that accommodate the natural ways of animals tend to be much more in tune with sustainable and non-polluting farm practices."(i)
Worldwatch Institute-"[A]s environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future—deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease."(j)
United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development-"A report from the International Water Management Institute, noting that 840 million of the world's people remain undernourished, recommends finding ways to produce more food using less water. The report notes that it takes 550 liters of water to produce enough flour for one loaf of bread in developing countries...but up to 7,000 liters of water to produce 100 grams of beef."(k)
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization-"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency."(l) |
Previous Page | Contents | Next Page
1. Vesterby M and Krupa KS, "Major Uses of Land in the United States, 1997," USDA, Economic Research Services Statistical Bulletin No. 973, 2001, www.ers.usda.gov/publications/sb973.
2. Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), "Animal Agriculture and Global Food Supply" (Ames, IA: CAST, 1999): Tables 4.17–4.24.
3. Pimentel D and Pimentel M, Food, Energy, and Society (rev. ed.) (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1996): 83, 126, 127; Smil V, Feeding the World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000): median values, Table 5.2.
4. Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, "Animal Waste Pollution in America: An Emerging National Problem," report compiled for Senator Tom Harkin, Dec. 1997.
5. "P.S.F. to Pay $4.5 Million in Odor-Related Lawsuit," Meat & Poultry, October 2006: 5.
6. The Sierra Club, The Rap Sheet on Animal Factories, 2002.
7. Kellogg RL, Lander CH, Moffitt DC, and Gollehon N, "Manure Nutrients Relative to the Capacity of Cropland and Pastureland to Assimilate Nutrients: Spatial and Temporal Trends for the United States," USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Economic Research Service, Dec. 2000.
8. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, "Manure's Impact on Rivers, Streams and the Chesapeake Bay," 2004, www.cbf.org/site/DocServer/0723manurereport_noembargo_.pdf?docID=2143.
9. Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, "Animal Waste Pollution," op. cit.
10. Hopper R, Going to Market: The Cost of Industrialized Agriculture (St. Paul, MN: Izaak Walton League of America, 2002).
11. Goldburg R and Triplett T, "Murky Waters: Environmental Effects of Aquaculture in the US," Environmental Defense Fund, 2007, www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/490_AQUA.pdf (accessed February 21, 2007).
12. Reijnders L and Soret S, "Quantification of the Environmental Impact of Different Dietary Protein Choices," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 78(3), Sept. 2003: 664S–68S (www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/664S).
a. Brad Trom, "Say No to Factory Farms: Health and Prosperity of Rural Communities at Stake," Grand Forks Herald, Feb. 28, 2005.
b. Mirabelli MC, Wing S, Marshall SW, and Wilcosky TC, "Asthma Symptoms among Adolescents Who Attend Public Schools That Are Located near Confined Swine Feeding Operations," Pediatrics 118 (2006): 66–75; Sigurdarson ST and Kline JN, "School Proximity to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and Prevalence of Asthma in Students," Chest 129 (2006): 1486–91.
c. Brad Trom, "Say No to Factory Farms," op. cit.
d. Ibid.
e. Steinfeld H, Gerber P, Wassenaar T, Castel V, Rosales M, and De Haan C, “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options” (Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2006), www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.pdf (accessed February 19, 2007).
f. Union of Concerned Scientists, "The Reality of Feed at Animal Factories," 2006, www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/sustainable_food/they-eat-what.html (accessed November 2, 2006).
g. Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network, "America's Animal Factories: How States Fail to Prevent Pollution from Livestock Waste," 1998, www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/factor/cons.asp (accessed March 6, 2006).
h. Kennedy RF Jr., "Good Food versus Green Eggs and Ham," Waterkeeper Magazine, Spring 2006: 4–5, www.waterkeeper.org/magazines/WK%20Sp%2006%20WHOLE.pdf (accessed November 2, 2006).
i. Sierra Club, "Inhumane Treatment of Farm Animals," www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/factsheets/inhumane.asp (accessed March 6, 2006).
j. Worldwatch Institute, "Meat: Now, It’s Not Personal!" Worldwatch, July/August 2004: 12–20, www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2004/174 (accessed March 8, 2006).
k. United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, "Water: More Nutrition Per Drop," as referenced in: "Is Meat Sustainable?" World Watch, July/August 2004, www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2004/174.
l.
