JingJing Lin
Professor Jason Smith
ENG101
21 May 2014
Impact of Factory Farming
Being a human instinct, people keep the dog, the cat and other cute meek
animals to be their pets; raise the rare and protected ones in the zoo to make
sure they do not extinct or die out. Moreover, have you ever thought of
how the factory farmed livestock and poultry that we get meat and dairy
from are being treated during their short lives? Can you imagine the working
conditions of workers who work with those animals every day? Factory
farming is a high profit farming method which raise and keep a high density of
livestock and poultry in narrow spaces that can merely keep them alive but can
still produce a large amount of products. Meanwhile, the animals are also producing
a great amount of manure that is going to be transferred to manure lagoons
without doing any appropriate treatment. Factory farmed livestock and poultry
desire better living environment and humane treatment, since the intensive and
confined farming method is generating a huge amount of untreated manure which
can cause serious impacts on aquatic environment and human
community. While the factory farms are generating a massive
amount of manure each and every day, manure in the lagoon is stored up and directly
exposed to the environment. Additionally, the manure is not simply manure
because in the manure, there are unspecific amount of different plant
nutrients, pathogens, growth hormones, antibiotics, chemical additives, animal
blood, silage leachate and copper sulfate, and etc(Hribar). Once the manure that composes of various
components exposes to the waterways and the air it will ultimately cause
serious and harmful impacts on aquatic ecosystem and our community.
The density of animals in factory farms should be
lowered down because the tons of waste that the concentrated environments
produce are containing chemicals that would threaten the quality of groundwater
and surface water. Some of the chemicals that the manure contains are ammonia,
nitrate and phosphorus. Ammonia is a chemical that would take way oxygen in the
water once it is leaked to surface water sources such as rivers, lakes and water
steams. Also, having a large amount of phosphorus in water would cause an
excessive growth of aquatic plants like weed and algae, which are also going to
use up the oxygen in the water. As a result of not having enough oxygen in
water, the fish that live in the water may die out and the aquatic ecosystem would
be destroyed (Hribar). According to a data from nrdc.org, a hog farm in Illinois spilled about 200,000 gallons of
untreated animal manure into a creek at the year of 2011. The spilling results
in killing of over 110,000 fish in the creek ("Facts about Pollution from
Livestock Farms."). From the data, we can clearly see the level of impact that
the animal manure have on human beings and aquatic lives and we must realize the
importance of changing a farming method within factory farms.
In addition to ammonia and phosphorus, the presence
of nitrate in the manure is risking the health of local communities. The reason
is that nitrate is very soluble in water which it can easily penetrate through the
soil and then goes into the ground water that local people used to drink.
Drinking water that contains a high level of nitrate will decrease the ability
of red blood cell to carry oxygen among human body. This would lead to nitrate
poisoning which may cause methemoglobinemia, spontaneous abortion in woman and
increasing the risk for getting cancer (Hribar). Methemoglobinemia is a blood
disorder that occurs when red blood cells are unable to convey a proper amount
of oxygen to body organs (“Metheoblobinemia”). The major group of people who
have methemoglobinemia are infants under six moth old and one symptom of the
blood disorder is having blue skin, so an alternative name for
methemoglobinemia is called “blue baby syndrome”. The blood disorder may cause
death of infants and even adults (Hribar). Since the chemical additives are
having serious impacts on human and aquatic lives, the factory farms should
increase the living condition of their animals in order to decrease the amount
of manure produced and therefore to protect aquatic lives and ourselves.
The
factory farms must stop using their current method or techniques to generate
products because the confined feeding environment may cause various health
issues among factory farm workers. While the senior staffs of the factory farm
are making money out of the products that the animals produce, the bottom
staffs are here working with the animals in the confined environment and taking
a risk of inhaling harmful chemicals and pathogens that spread from animal
manure. Factory farm workers are victims of factory farming since they are the
group of people who work the closest to the animal and are the ones who
actually showing the respiratory symptoms from inhaling particulate matters
(Hribar). The particulate matters come from feed, animal dander/leather, and
dry manure etc. A data from sustainabletable.org indicates that 97%
of farm workers have suffered from either chronic or acute bronchitis during a
period of time while they are working at the farm (“Workers.”). To lower the
percentage of workers who are impacted by the animal manure, the factory farms
should provide larger living space for their animals limit the amount of manure
produced and decrease the risk of exposing their workers under the harmful
chemicals and pathogens.
Surprisingly, animal manure from factory farms
has a potential to contain over 150 pathogens that would tend to have impact on
human health. Several common pathogens that exist in manure are Escherichia
coli, Salmonella, and cryptosporidium. Some of the pathogens can even survive
in water up to one year. Once any of these pathogens escape from manure lagoons
to drinking water and then goes into a human body, it would cause severe
diarrhea, fever and other fever-like symptoms. However, it may cause death on
young kids and adults who are having weak immune systems (Hribar). A recorded
data illustrates an example of cryptosporidium outbreak that happened during April,
1993 in Minnesota. 400,000 people were having diarrhea and showing fever –like
symptoms. Sadly, 100 people with weak immune systems were killed by
cryptosporidium. However, people later found out that a possible source of the
pathogen outbreak is animal manure (“Cryptosporidium”). Besides this, there was
a recall of Ready-to-eat salads in 2013. About 181,620 lbs of salad were being
recalled after 33 people were infected in four different states. And scarily,
all the samples that The California Department of Public
Health collected from Atherstone were shown to be negative for E.
coli O157:H7 test. However, later people checked out that near the
vegetable field, there are two cattle operations ("Lettuce: FDA
Investigation Summary - Multistate Outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 Illnesses Linked
to Ready-to-Eat Salads."). This means there is a great possibility for the
cattle operation to be the origin of the pathogen E. coli O157:H7.
The farmer may used the E. coli O157:H7 containing manure
as a fertilizer to fertilize the vegetable field or the manure may leak from
the manure lagoon to goes into either groundwater or surface and later reaches
the farmland and caused the E. coli O157: H7 outbreak. The best way to protect our lives from the pathogens is to
provide a larger living environment to the factory farmed animals in order to
decrease the density of animal and to decrease the amount of animal manure.
Another way for animal manure to disturb human
community is through the air. Manure from manure lagoons decreases and pollutes
the local air quality by the emission of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane and
particulate matters (Hribar). The two chemicals that really bother the local
residents and bring discomfort to them are ammonia and hydrogen sulfide,
because these two chemicals are having unpleasant orders. The stench odors
often restrict the outdoor activities of the local residents and made it hard
for them to open their windows for exchanging fresh air. In short, the
unpleasant odors created by the factory farms declined the living quality of
local residents. In consideration of local residents’ welfare, factory farms
should limit the manure that their farms are producing by reducing the number
of animals in the farm.
There are many more details can be told, however,
it is more important to have an actual action than just keep and keep talking
and analyzing about animal manure. Please think back and find out the root
cause for the existence of factory farms. Why there are factory farms existing?
And why they are still running while they are polluting the air, ground water, and
surface water. They are indirectly murdering aquatic lives and even human
lives! When in fact, there is only one action that ordinary people could do to
reduce the impact of factory farms on aquatic ecosystem and human community,
which is to get away of the meat and dairy products that is made by the factory
farms. And, this requires us to read labels on food carefully and correctly when
purchasing food on supermarkets. First of all, we have to make sure if the
label is certified or approved, since the non-certified labels are not so reliable
and they may mislead us when we are deciding what to buy for food. The names on
some common certified and approved labels are “USDA Organic”, “Animal Welfare
Approved”, “Certified Naturally Grown”, “Fair Trade”, “American Humane
Certified”, “Non-GMO Project Verified” and “Grassfed” ("Food
Labeling: Organic, Fair Trade, Natural and More Explained."). It is
beneficial for us to look up the labels when buy food, thus we know what are we
eating. Meanwhile, we are also protecting ourselves and the environment to from
being attached by the exceeding amount of animal manure.
In order to reduce the production of animal
manure, factory farms should stop using their current farming method and
increase the living space for the animals. So that the density of animals will
be lowered and less manure will be produced. To help the poor animals out, we must
stop buying products that came from factory farms. Instead, we can buy products
with certified labels, buy meat products that from local farms and/or just
simply eat less meat. Overall, the principal cause of the series of pollution
and pathogen outbreaks is simply treating farmed animals inhumanely in confined
spaces, what we can do is to help them out and help ourselves out.
Works Cited
"Cryptosporidium." health.state.mn.us. Minnesota
Department of Health, n.d. Web. 22 May
2014.
"Facts about Pollution from Livestock
Farms." nrdc.org. Natural Resources Defense Council,
n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.
"Food Labeling: Organic, Fair Trade, Natural
and More Explained." farmaid.org. FarmAid, n.d.
Web. 22 May 2014.
Hribar,
Carrie. "Understanding Concentrated environmental health Animal Feeding
Operations
and Their Impact on Communities." cdc.gov.
National Association of Local Boards of
Health, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.
"Lettuce: FDA Investigation Summary -
Multistate Outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 Illnesses
Linked to Ready-to-Eat
Salads." fda.gov. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 11 Dec.
2013. Web. 22 May 2014.
"Methemoglobinemia." nlm.nih.gov. U.S. National Library
of Medicine, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.
"Workers." sustainabletable.org. GRACE
Communications Foundation, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.
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