Essential essays on the environmental impacts of factory farms on public health. The rapid—and relatively recent—concentration of food animal production into factory farms makes meat plentiful and cheap, but this type of agriculture comes at a great cost to human health and the environment. In Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health, editors James Merchant and Robert Martin bring together public health experts to explore the most critical topics related to industrial farm animal production. The environmental impacts of these concentrated animal-feeding operations endanger the health of farm and meatpacking workers, neighbors, and surrounding communities. Factory farms create public health hazards such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria due to the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, as well as water polluted with nitrates, microbes, and other harmful chemicals. Despite the clear need for greater worker protection and oversight to mitigate the environmental harms of these practices, factory farms are notoriously difficult to regulate. Industrial animal operations are located predominantly in rural areas, often next to poor communities and communities of color. Food companies have driven independent producers nearly to extinction, sapped the economic vitality of rural communities, and amassed sweeping political influence at both the state and national levels to effectively prevent mitigation efforts. Essays in this volume cover pertinent topics such as the history, structure, and trends in the factory farming industry; water and air pollution; infectious disease health effects; community and social impacts; environmental justice and sustainable agriculture; and the impacts of COVID-19 among meatpacking workers.

Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacterial contamination. Recent public health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market. In Animal Factory, bestselling investigative journalist David Kirby exposes the powerful business and political interests behind large-scale factory farms, and tracks the far-reaching fallout that contaminates our air, land, water, and food. In this thoroughly researched book, Kirby follows three families and communities whose lives are utterly changed by immense neighboring animal farms. These farms (known as "Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations," or CAFOs), confine thousands of pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry in small spaces, often under horrifying conditions, and generate enormous volumes of fecal and biological waste as well as other toxins. Weaving science, politics, law, big business, and everyday life, Kirby accompanies these families in their struggles against animal factories. A North Carolina fisherman takes on pig farms upstream to preserve his river, his family's life, and his home. A mother in a small Illinois town pushes back against an outsized dairy farm and its devastating impact. And a Washington State grandmother becomes an unlikely activist when her home is invaded by foul odors and her water supply is compromised by runoff from leaking lagoons of cattle waste. Animal Factory is an important book about our American food system gone terribly wrong---and the people who are fighting to restore sustainable farming practices and save our limited natural resources.

Essential essays on the environmental impacts of factory farms on public health. The rapid—and relatively recent—concentration of food animal production into factory farms makes meat plentiful and cheap, but this type of agriculture comes at a great cost to human health and the environment. In Industrial Farm Animal Production, the Environment, and Public Health, editors James Merchant and Robert Martin bring together public health experts to explore the most critical topics related to industrial farm animal production. The environmental impacts of these concentrated animal-feeding operations endanger the health of farm and meatpacking workers, neighbors, and surrounding communities. Factory farms create public health hazards such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria due to the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, as well as water polluted with nitrates, microbes, and other harmful chemicals. Despite the clear need for greater worker protection and oversight to mitigate the environmental harms of these practices, factory farms are notoriously difficult to regulate. Industrial animal operations are located predominantly in rural areas, often next to poor communities and communities of color. Food companies have driven independent producers nearly to extinction, sapped the economic vitality of rural communities, and amassed sweeping political influence at both the state and national levels to effectively prevent mitigation efforts. Essays in this volume cover pertinent topics such as the history, structure, and trends in the factory farming industry; water and air pollution; infectious disease health effects; community and social impacts; environmental justice and sustainable agriculture; and the impacts of COVID-19 among meatpacking workers.

Can we talk about agriculture? -- Confinement, concentration, and integration: what is industrial agriculture? -- It all started in Delmarva -- The "chickenization" of the world -- The coming of the drugs -- When you look at a screen, do you see lattices or holes? -- Antimicrobial resistance: how agriculture ended the antimicrobial era -- Collateral damage: taking and putting -- Have a cup of coffee and pray -- Food safety: redesigning products or consumers? -- Can we feed the world? -- A path forward, not backward

Over the last 50 years, the method of producing food animals in the United States has changed from the extensive system of small and medium-sized farms owned by a single family to a system of large, intensive operations where the animals are housed in large numbers in enclosed structures that resemble industrial buildings more than they do a traditional barn. That change has happened primarily out of view of consumers but has come at a cost to the environment and a negative impact on public health, rural communities, and the health and well-being of the animals themselves. The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) was funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to investigate the problems associated with industrial farm animal production (IFAP) operations and to make recommendations to solve them. Fifteen Commissioners with diverse backgrounds began meeting in early 2006 to start their evidence-based review of the problems caused by IFAP. -- Publisher description.

Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Health - Public Health, grade: 1, Egerton University, language: English, abstract: Agricultural production has over the years transformed from subsistence farming to more intensive commercial farming. It is apparent that industrial agriculture has been epitomized as an important way of promoting farming efficiency, as well as increasing agricultural production. This has led to increased food sustainability in developed countries. It has also played a significant role in addressing food shortages in developing countries. Although industrial farming has helped to feed more people around the world, it has brought harm to both people and the planet as a whole. Thankfully, biotechnology has begun to make industrial farming more environmentally friendly, and as a nation we need to more fully embrace the revolution it is bringing to agriculture. It is apparent that industrial farming has immense consequences on the environment ranging from environmental pollution to the phenomenon of climate change. Therefore, this paper will provide an aesthetic analysis of the harmful impact of industrial farming on the environment.

Silbergeld, Paul B. Thompson, Paul Willis, Sylvia Wulf