Why factory farming should be banned

In , only 6 percent of US hens were cage-free. Now, over 30 percent are. And as noted above, around one-third of US sows are crate-free for most of their lives.

Getting to a critical mass that would make a federal ban feasible, however, will not be easy. The same goes for pork from confined sows. Still, with the EU taking this step forward, it might be only a matter of time before others, including the US, will follow suit. Jonathan Moens is a freelance journalist based in Rome. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic, and Undark. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.

Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.

Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The worst horrors of factory farming could soon be phased out in Europe.

Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: The worst horrors of factory farming could soon be phased out in Europe. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Hens sit in cages inside an egg farm in the West Flanders region of Belgium. The caging of hens and pigs could be banned across Europe as soon as Next Up In Future Perfect.

Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. For more newsletters, check out our newsletters page. The Latest. How a simple solution slashed child mortality in rural Kenyan villages By Dylan Matthews. Why Biden has disappointed on immigration By German Lopez.

Hating work is having a moment By Rani Molla. However factory farms are a huge industry that raises a large amount of animals for food. Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Factory farming should be banned Can you imagine spending your whole life in a cage?

This is the reality that animals face daily on a factory farm. Factory farming needs to be stopped. This should be a serious concern because animals from factory farming can harm human health, it also harms the environment and it is not an ethical way to treat the animals. The first reason why factory farming should be banned is that it can cause health issues for people who eat them.

These animals can harm the health of the human eating them. The fact that there are chances for people to get sick from their most desired foods shows how bad these factory farming can be. Health will be a great issue if people do not take action soon. Not only will factory farming harm human health, but it will also harm the environment. Furthermore, factory farming can also be very dangerous for the environment. They will also have a cleaner air to breath Living life only to be tortured and slaughtered alive is a really horrible thing to experience for the animals.

It is obvious that factory farming should be banned. They used antibiotics on the animals and produces harmful meats to eat. Furthermore they contribute a lot to pollution and cause health problems. Finally they treat the animals badly, torture and kill them alive.

Clearly, from all this evidences mentioned, factory farming should be banned. Get Access. Good Essays. Read More. Satisfactory Essays. Essay On Factory Farming. The owners of factory farms do not pay these costs; they are paid by the communities in which these operations are located, by taxpayers, and by society as a whole. This intensive type of farming brings meat down to a price affordable to the poorest in our community on a regular basis. Historically, classes in industrial societies have always been demarcated not only by wealth but also the consequent effect on diet and health.

Intensive farming has done much to stop that disparity, ensuring that high-protein, nutritious food is available to all at low cost. Consumers are much cleverer than you think. They have a right to make that choice. But animals are conscious and aware and know pleasure and pain. Even if we are to continue eating meat, which on a utilitarian judgement may be necessary, we should nevertheless treat them humanely, and with dignity. Factory farming does not.

It is true that we are capable of higher thought and animals are not — but this means that we have a duty of stewardship and of care for them — how terribly we fail in fulfilling that duty. This is sentimental nonsense.

Many of these animals exist because we eat them, anyway — pigs, cows, sheep, chickens — all animals that are bred in their millions because we want to eat them. Factory farming is effectively ending the practice of healthier, traditional farming methods that were more in tune with nature, and which were the backbone of a whole rural way of life, now being destroyed. The countryside as we know and love it was created by traditional farming methods, particularly grazing, not vast sheds full of imprisoned animals fed on imported feed.

Health risks to humans are also greatly magnified by factory farming, with epidemics swiftly spread between overcrowded animals and antibiotic resistance encouraged by medicated feed. Again, sentimentality is interfering with logic. Farming has always been the imposition of artificial, man-made patterns on nature. This is just another part of that.

As for farmers losing jobs — there are plenty of people employed in the new process of factory farming — why is that any less worthy? And many farmers have sold off their land for enormous profit. Large-scale beef farming has significantly added to the damage to the ozone layer, as cows and their manure produce vast quantities of methane. It also erodes topsoil at an alarming rate.

Are we really supposed to believe that cow-produced methane is even in the same league as pollution from big business and industry?