group project final draft

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Table of Contents 1

Factory FarmingEng 183EW Group Project

Fall 2014

Professor: Browne, Donald G

Weltman, GershonGroup Member:

Feng, Jiawen

Hu, Bolun

Li, Yanxin

Shi, Xiaosong

Wang, George

Yin, Liren

Due Date: December 15, 2014


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Table of Contents 1

Table of Contents:Executive summary .. 2

Introduction .. 4

History of Factory Farming .. 5 Discovery of Vitamin A & D .. 6

Development of Antibiotics 7

Mechanization & Assembly Line ... 7

Genetic Engineering 8

Ethical Issue ... 9

Technical Issues . 10

Environmental Pollution ... 10

Water Pollution 10

Soil Pollution ... 12

Air Pollution ... . 13

Groundwater Depletion ... .. 14

Diseases ... ................................... 16

Diseases Directly Related to Human . .. . 16

Diseases In Livestock .. . 17

Solutions ... 19

Farmers Perspective vs. Collective Interest .. 19

Overview ... 19

Meat Consumption Trends 20

Collective Interests .... 21

Ethical Analysis . 24

Utilitarianism 25

Universality Principle ... 26

Reciprocity Principle 28

Food Quality .. 30

Introduction ... 28

Organic Food and GMO F ood .. 29

Solution . 32

Conclusion . 35


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Executive Summary 2

Executive summary:

This paper gives a comprehensive analysis on factory farming. Many people still think that animals

in factories are peacefully raised, and nicely treated. However this is not the case. With the fast growth in

population, supply for meat and other animal products cannot meet the demand. Therefore, animals today

are confined in tiny areas, and are treated in an inhumane way. Main problems addressed in this paper are:

diseases in farmed animals; farmers perspectives versus collective interests; water issues, environmental

contamination and their technical solutions; non-technical solutions and food quality issues.

The history introduces the problem and provides background for factory farming. In this way, we can

have a better understanding of how factory-farming style has evolved to such a poorly regulated stage.

Then, we provide some examples of prevalent diseases that appear in animals and have posed threats to

humans.

One of the most important methods of evaluation is analyzing factory farming with respect to the

ethical frameworks. This paper uses two ethical frameworks Deontology and Utilitarianism. More

particularly, within Deontology, this paper provides detailed scrutiny with respect to the universality

principle and the reciprocity principle. All definitions and detailed explanations can be found in the

ethical analysis part of this project paper. An important point that we established in this section is the

applicability of the ethical frameworks to animals. Animals are covered by the frameworks discussed

based on their ability to reason and think which gives them intrinsic value. After the analysis under the

ethical frameworks of value and duty ethics, we found the actions of the owners of factory farmers are

immoral.

Another method we use in this project paper is that we introduce genetic engineering as an exampleto investigate food quality, and we discuss the advantages and the disadvantages for genetically modified

food. We conclude that strict standards need to be set by government in order for genetic engineering to

go towards an ethical direction. It is generally good that engineers can use genetic recombination

technology to improve food quality to satisfy peoples needs and at the same time, eliminate the negative

effects of genetically modified food. However, genetically modified food can be disastrous if farms and

companies act unethically in order to maximize profit.

A third method we use is to compare and contrast the farmers perspectives with collective interests.

On one side, the increasing population is driving the mass demand for meat product. On the other side,more and more people are starting to realize the poor factory farming style, and they are beginning to

voluntarily call for farmed animal protection. The conclusion for the said aspect in this paper is that the

only solution is to figure out a way to solve this demand.

Because of the problems stated above, our group recommends several non-technical solutions. Both

humans and non-human animals suffer and the best course to promote a moral solution is to introduce


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Executive Summary 3

government regulations which would limit the worst aspects of factory farming, such as the pollution

brought to the environment and the suffering brought to animals and humans. First, all food in

supermarket should be labeled to accurately reflect the process that was used to create it. Based on

reciprocity principle, the public have the right to be informed on the things people buys as well as the

products people eat. Labeling can provide the public with needed information.

Second solution is federal laws in improving the farms condition. In this way, farmers are forced to

clean the animals environment on a regular basis. Moreover, federal laws for protecting farmed animals

do not currently exist. The organization for animal protection Animal Welfare Act does not take care of

farmed animals or livestock. Based on that fact, new federal laws and agencies should be created to

protect farmed animals.

Beside federal laws and regulations, state regulations, as well as rules by large organizations are

needed to solve the severe farmed animals condition. We recommend that states voluntarily forbid

importing animal product from farms that aggregate animals.To increase awareness of the problems, animal protection organizations should publicize the

horrendous reality that farmed animals are going through nowadays. In this way, more and more people

will pay attention in farmed animals. Supermarkets would be incentivized to stop buying meat from

unethical farms. Organizations such as FDA should also provide ethical courses for those engineers

working with genetically modified food.

Another method to alleviate conditions of factory farming is the use of a technical approach to

analyze issues and proposes solutions in this aspect. The technical issues of factory farming contain four

major parts: antibiotics usage (discussed in background and disease section), groundwater depletion,maintenance of animal waste, and environment pollution. Although technical solutions can not

completely fix the problems of factory farming, they do help deal with some of the symptoms

Based on the technical issues, our group recommends several technical solutions. For antibiotics, the

solution is to first generate complete toxic data for each kind of antibiotics, and then eliminate the

chemicals that are toxic in these antibiotics. The same solution applies to pesticides. According to

statistics, there are three million tons of pesticides used in farms every year, and more than fifteen

hundred different chemicals are used in these pesticides. As a result, the creation of new types of

pesticides is not a solution. Instead, efforts to regulate chemical usage and to eliminate toxic chemicalsshould be prioritized instead.

Solutions for groundwater depletion caused by factory farming are mainly based on an improvement

of water recycling efficiency. Many water recycle models can be built underground, in particular, under

the farms. Moreover, state government could put money into building water tower to store rain near the


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Introduction 4

farms. Other solutions include relocation of factory farms. And building more pipelines to gather water

from different places.

Solutions for maintenance include transferring animals to slaughterhouse first, and then make the

meat production into supermarket. One challenge to this solution is that animals die easily during

transportation. Therefore, better transportation services are required for maintenance. Other solutions

include relocating factory farms closer to slaughterhouse.

Finally, we propose solutions for environmental contamination. We present a system to store

animals manure underground and prevent ammonia gases from spreading in the atmosphere. The main

point in building manure lagoon is closed surface, which many lagoons nowadays lack. And planting

more trees could also help absorb toxic gases.

Introduction:

In the modern period of time, society has been suffering from population explosion. Followed by

the growth of population, the industrialization progress made people require greater quantity and quality

of foods. The traditional animal farming could not satisfy modern peoples need. In early 20th century,

people developed systematic industries to farm animals in order to gain enough meat for food supplying.

However, many techniques and drugs are used in the animal factory farming. Some of those techniques or

drugs are controversial and are still being discussed within the society, but some of the drugs are

definitely be harmful to human beings health are still being used in the industry. There are many ethical

issues in the food industry especially in animal farming part.

To pursue the mass production in the animal farming industry, people force the animals to residein small living spaces, which allow the animals little movement for their entire lives. Some animal

protectors address this way of farming animals as animal abuse. There also are some video tape online or

TV shows that animals were driven crazy by hitting the fences with their heads regardless the wounds on

them, biting whatever they could with their bleeding mouths and grubbing the grounds with severe

injured hoofs. These videotapes are very disturbing to say the least, and they are part of the reasons that

many people have become vegetarians. Many different kinds of drugs are used during the production of

animal farming. The drugs are being used to prevent the diseases in the animals since the animals are

living in small spaces and the diseases are contagious. At the meantime, those drugs especially theantibiotics, increases many diseases resist ance to drugs. Those diseases gained the stronger ability to

survive, and they became more dangerous to the animals and even human beings. Some drugs

manipulated animals genes so that the animals can grow faster to meet the mass production goal.

Nevertheless, the protein and the structure of meats have been. This may result in the long-term effect on

humans genetic structures, but solid evidence and research has not shown this to be the case yet. Animal


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History of Factory Farming 5

factory farming also raises another issue. Animal farms are a major consumer of water, which is largely

drawn from ground water sources. The overuse of groundwater will deplete the groundwater resource, is

harmful to our living environment, and causes land subsidence.

In order to provide the suggestions to solve the problems caused by animal factory farming, many

technical and non-technical had been advised. By urging the government set up strict regulations on

giving humane living condition to animals would be helpful to animals as non-technical solution. Such as

the Humane Society of the United States posted the undercover video of gestation crates in a food

company. Many countries like Dutch and France had passed the law of restricting gestation crates. By

developing good management, the pollutants can be reduced, and relocating the factories can help

reducing contamination of water resources, which are the main technical solutions suggested in this paper.

History of Factory Farming:

Factory farming began in

the 1920s. In the early stage of the

factory farming industry, poultry

farms were the main type of factory

farm. Soon after the development of

poultry farms, the factory farming

idea was generalized into broader

categories including meat, seafood,

and egg factory farms to meet the

needs of increasing population at

that time.

As the factory farms expanded both in number and scale, problems that seemed trivial before,

now became aggravated and troublesome. One of the first problems was the lack of sunlight and outdoor

activities. Factory farms normally allocated each animal a small and narrow compartment, where foods

and water are periodically offered during the day. The advantages of such arrangement is that it saves

space for the factory which in turn increases its overall productivity, and also makes the animals much

easier to be managed and fed. However, the disadvantage was also obvious: animals were not allowed to

get out of the compartments and thus were not able to receive the direct sunlight which is crucial for

animals health and normal growth. Therefore in order to de al with this problem, managers initially tried

to release the animals from their compartments once every week to ensure proper outdoor activities and

sufficient amounts of sunlight. But new problems arose: when animals are outside of the compartment, it

was impossible to control them and to the compartments. Moreover, the factory farming staff was more

Figure 1: Cloverland Farms Circa 1920s Baltimore

Source: htt ://www.kilduffs.com/Factor .html


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likely to be infected by the animal diseases when they tried to put the animals back into the compartments

one by one. It was obvious that a more effective solution was needed. (Susan Aldridge, 2011)

The discovery of vitamin A and vitamin D was revolutionary to the animal farming industry,

because it made outdoor activities and sunlight no longer mandatory. Vitamin A is crucial for the

hematopoietic cells to operate normally. Lack of vitamin A would result in hematopoietic malfunction,

which would further cause anemia and hypo-immunity. Moreover, vitamin A is also a critical nutrient for

animals eyes, with the ability to improve eyesight and protecting conjun ctiva from inflammation. Lack of

vitamin A would cause nyctalopia, a disease that makes animals bind during the night (Kingdomway,

2012). Vitamin D has the nickname of sunshine vitamin as our body naturally produces the vitamin

when the animals are exposed to sufficient sunshine. The most distinct function of vitamin D is its ability

to prevent rachitis, a disease that would cause osteoporosis, effect of which includes bone brittleness, and

muscle relaxation (National Institutes of Health, 2014). If animals in the factory farm lack outdoor

activities and proper sunshine, they would be soon blind and prone to fatal infections. Even if animalscould survive the massive disease, their market value would degrade substantially due to their low quality

meat. The discovery of vitamin A and D fully resolved the problems. With injection of vitamin A and D

into animals foods or directly into animals bodies, outdoor activities and sunshine became no longer a

necessary part of animals life and farmers could keep ani mals in dimly lit and crowded spaces.

The development of antibiotics in the 1940s-1950s was another monumental event in the history

of factory farming. First and foremost, antibiotics provided the ultimate solution for bacterial diseases at

that time, and thus became the foundation for massive production. Animals living in the factory farms

normally are in close proximity with each other because of the tiny compartments. The problems withsuch arrangement are that infectious bacteria could be easily transmitted through air and physical

contacts. As a result, when highly pathogenic diseases infected an individual, it would be hard to stop the

disease spreading to the entire animal factory (Susan Aldridge, 2011). The financial loss due to such

diseases could be catastrophic because it was almost impossible for workers to realize the existence of

diseases before massive animal deaths. Even worse, some fatal bacterial diseases like Meningitis could

even infect humans, thus making it almost impossible to rescue still healthy animals. The traditional

method to contain contagious diseases before the introduction of antibiotics was slaughter. Managers

normally would decide to kill a certain portion of animals to contain the disease. Such strategy oftenresulted in killing a large number of healthy animals and unnecessary financial loss. With the use of

antibiotics, factory managers were then able to cure the bacterial diseases under most circumstances, and

thus avoid the financial losses due to massive animal deaths.

Besides curing bacterial diseases, the non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics could increase the

production rate. By injecting small dose of certain antibiotics into animals, people found that animals like


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chicken grew faster and bigger (Evolution of Factory Farming, 2014). Such side effect significantly

increased the use of antibiotics in animal farming after 1940s. Animal farms used small dose of

antibiotics such as Avoparcin and Bacitracin to promote the growth at the same time keeping animals

protected from minor diseases. However, it is worth noting that since 1980s, more and more countries

have decided to ban the use of certain antibiotics as promoters due to drug resistance (University of

Minnesota, 2003). According to a journal published by Oxford, Sweden banned all food animal growth-

promoting antibiotics in 1986, and European Union banned Avoparcin in 1997 and bacitracin,

Spiramycin, Tylosin and V irginiamycin in 1999 (Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 2003). The

usage of antibiotics as a growth promoter is still a controversial issue today.

The development of assembly line and mechanization leaded factory farming into a new era of

massive production. Ford Motor Company first introduced the concept of assembly line in the car

production in the early 20 th century. Later, the factory farms adopted the same idea during the 1950s. The

advantage of assembly line and mechanization was lower operation cost and boost in productivity. Withthe help of assembly line and machinery, less skilled labors were able to work in the factory farms. Each

worker only needed to complete simple tasks such as injecting antibiotics and feeding animals. Thus the

total operation cost reduced. On the other hand, assembly lines and machinery sped up the entire

operation process including feeding, cleaning, medicine injection, slaughter, etc. Operations that would

take days to finish previously could be compressed within several hours with the help of the assembly

line. In other word, the assembly line and mechanization redefined the animal farms: animals were no

longer purely animals, but more like products waiting to be processed and sold. (Encyclopdia

Britannica, 2014)However, the assembly line and mechanization was not a perfect solution for factory farming.

The costs for the massive production were huge. Because of the large number of animals to process,

animal diseases could easily infect workers at the assembly line. Moreover, the use of assembly line and

machinery greatly tortured the animals living in the factory farms. Animals were not treated with care or

respect; instead, they were treated like packages, delivered from one place to another by assembly line.

Such inhumane way of treating animals raised peoples debate regarding the use of assembly line. Some

argue that since animals have rights and dignity, they should be treated with respect and care. However,

on the hand, some refute that the goal of factory farming is to maximize the food production with lowest possible cost. Thus as long as the methods used by animal farms are safe and economic, they should be

adopted. Today, the treatment of food-production animals is still a contentious issue.

The genetic engineering technology opens a new era for factory farming industry. Genetic

engineering began in the 1970s, and the main purpose of genetic engineering is, as the name suggests, to

modify animals DNA in order to develop certain physical and psychological characteristics that satisfy


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human needs. With the help of gene technology, scientists were able to modify the DNA of food-

production animals like chicken, cows, and pigs in order to increase their growing speed and meat

productivity. One famous example of genetic engineering is the genetic mutant chicken. Due to the

rapidly increasing demand for chicken wings and chicken breast, more and more food-production chicken

are being genetically modified by scientists to have traits that do not belong to normal chicken. For

instance, genetically modified chicken tends to grow much faster and bigger than ordinary chicken in

order to maximize the productivity and shorten the production cycle. Moreover, some concepts for

genetically modified chicken have six or eight wings in order to minimize the operation cost and space

needed. As a result, most of the genetically modified animals largely increase the economic profits of

factory farms, but unfortunately they normally have very short lifetime due to their unbalanced physical

traits.

The thriving of genetic engineering causes heated debate over the last few decades. From the

perspective of economy, the advantage of genetic engineering is apparent: it substantially lowers theoperation cost of factory farms and largely increases the food productivity with a much faster production

cycle. Also, the genetically modified food normally has more nutrients than organic food. However, the

disadvantages are also quite obvious. The genetically modified foods are potentially harmful to human

dieters. Although currently there is no absolute conclusion on the harmful effect from eating genetically

modified organisms, potential negative impacts including food allergy, increased toxicity, and antibiotic

resistance are continuously discussed among researchers (University of Minnesota). Therefore, today we

are still uncertain about the validity of the massive use of genetic engineering technology on food

production.From the perspective of animal ethics, the use of genetic engineering is controversial. On the one

hand, people supporting the use of genetic engineering claim those animals should not be treated equally

as human beings, and thus whatever we do on the food-production animals should be justified. The reason

behind such claim is that people believe animals living in factory farms do not deserve the basic

humanism. After all, they are animals not human beings. Thus food-production animals, in their opinion,

are born to satisfy human need. They argue that human use of genetic engineering technology for food

production is no different from eagles hunting rabbits for survival, because both share the same purpose

of living. Therefore according to the utilitarianism principle, the use of gene technology on animals will provide more goods to more people, and could be justified.

On the other hand, some argue that genetic engineering breaks the basic principle of animal

evolution and violates right ethics. Thus the use of gene technology on food-production animals should be

forbidden. People supporting this claim believe that food-production animals should be treated equally as

the wild animals in the way that all animals have the right to evolve in a natural way. Modifying animals


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DNA without their consent would be a serious infringement of their basic right. Therefore, before humans

have the ability to communicate with animals and have clear understanding of their feelings, the use of

gene modification would be a violation of animals basic right.

Furthermore, some believe that gene modification violate the categorical imperative. Firstly, gene

modification cannot be universalized. If we can modify the DNA of anything including us human beings,

then the world would be messed up. In good cases, some people would have super huge brains in order to

excel in science and mathematics, and some would have six arms so that they can become the number one

goalkeeper in the world. But on the other hand, some peoples DNA would be modified to have

propensity to violence. They may be easily agitated to initiate insurrection and create massive social

disorder. Thus gene modification cannot be universalized due to its potential harmful impact on the

society. Moreover, people believe that the gene modification of food-production animals violates the

reciprocity principle, because the action itself suggests that animals are only treated as food-producing

machines instead of animals with basic rights and value.In summary, factory farming is a rapidly growing industry, with a relatively short history. It

began with the poultry farms as the first type of factory farm in the 1920s. Soon after that, people

generalized the concept and built seafood farms and livestock farms. The discovery of vitamin A and D

was revolutionary to the industry, because animals no longer needed sunlight and outdoor activities to

grow healthily. The development of antibiotics in the 1940s further enhanced the productivity. Most

bacterial diseases were curable with injection of antibiotics. Managers no longer worried about the

financial losses due to the massive animal deaths caused by contagious diseases. Also, non-therapeutic

use of certain antibiotics could increase animals growth speed, so that animals were able to grow fasterand bigger. Later in the 1940s, the concepts of mechanization and assembly line were introduced into the

animal farming industry. Operation cost was significantly reduced and productivity soared with the help

of automated machinery. However, on the other hand, assembly line also caused great pain to the animals

and also injured many workers. In the 1970s, the gene technology was introduced. Scientists were able to

manipulate animals DNA in order to create physical traits that satisfy human needs. Hairless chick en

with 8 wings, 4 legs is a hypothetical example. The genetically modified animals largely lowered factory

farms operation cost and shortened production cycle. However, the use of gene technology on animals

also caused a heated debate on animal ethics. People argue that animals have the right to grow and evolvenaturally. Gene manipulation means nothing more than treating animals as food production machines.

Therefore, the use of gene technology on animals is a still controversial in todays society.


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Technical Issues 10

Technical Issues:

After the first factory farm has appeared, modern society heavily depends on it, because it

requires only a few workers, which saves a lot of manpower, and it can produce huge amount of food in a

very short amount of time, that the regular farm method cannot do. However, as the development

maturing, modern society has to face the technical issues of factory farming. More and more people are

questioning about the safety of factory farming, such as public health safety issue, animal genetic effect to

human. These problems were not significant in the early history of factory farming because the number of

factory farm was not very big. However, as the population is increasing so fast, our society requires a lot

food provided by factory farms, and as the number of factory farm grows, the problems are getting more

seriously. In addition to human health safety issue, factory farming has strong impacts on our planet. It is

playing an important role on global warming that thousands of animals in large farms are generating tons

of methane and ammonia (Shen, 2013). As the living environment is getting worse today, human have to

bring these problems on the table and find ways to solve them. The technical issue of factory farming

contains three major parts. They are unbalanced distribution, groundwater depletion, and environment

pollution.

Factory farms provide large amount of food everyday. This also results huge amount of excreta

from animals. Accounting to United States Department of Agriculture report, the factory farm industry

produces more than 61 million tons of animal wastes every year. This is 130 times of human wastes

(Horrigan, 1999). How to solve this large amount of waste is a big problem nowadays. These wastes can

directly impact our living environment and cause serious environment pollution. The environment

pollution is representing in three parts, water pollution, land pollution, and air pollution.Chemical compounds in the animal waste, such as artificial hormone, is contaminating water

source. The advantage of factory farming is that it can provide large amount of food in a very short period.

To achieve this goal, farmers have to cultivate large numbers of animals. However, this does not decrease

the cost and maximize income. Therefore, after artificial hormone has been developed, almost every

single factory farm is using it to maximize economic gain. With artificial hormones, animals only require

a few month before they can be sold. This has shortened the investment income period. Because these

chemical compounds are not expensive, a lot of farmers are over using them to achieve maximum gain. In

addition to cause animal health problem, animals can only absorb part of the chemical compounds. Therest of it excretes with manure. Since these chemical compounds were designed to be fast absorb, they

can be easily soluble in water and contaminate water source. The Associated Press is reporting that drugs

found in drinking water. 28 out of 62 water sources from different major cities have been reported contain

chemical compounds such as animal growth hormones. In the report, it also shows that at least 10% of

steroid chemical compound pass right through animals. If human absorbs these chemical compounds,


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Technical Issues 11

they can cause abnormal weight loss, infertility, sensitive to temperature, and cancer (Donn, 2008). This

report shows water pollution from factory farming is a world wide problem, and the animal growth

hormone has significant negative effect on human. The remainder compound has broken human immunity

system. Without intact immunity system, people can be affect by disease easily, and harder to recover.

These problems may not appear in a short time period, but it will cause long-term disaster.

Disease from animal manure is another factor of water contamination. Graphic design of most of

factory farms is an important factor to maximize economic gain. Animals are packed cloudy in farm. It is

really hard to clean farms with all kind fences. Small, cloud and dirty area is a perfect place to breed

bacteria. Most of animals carry different kinds of bacteria, and some of them can cause infectious disease,

such as cholera and dysentery. Some bacteria can propagate rapid in water and cause critical damage to

environment. There are some experimental evidences indicate that infected animals can transmit disease

through directly contact, or water source with waste material from animals (NYSDH, 2011). However,

water source providers do not usually test water sources (Donn, 2008). This has increased the chance ofhuman been infected from drinking and

using water. Since water source provider

delivery water from place to place, it

increase the rate and range of disease

coverage. It can make the pervasion

faster and harder to control. Water

pollution from animal waste is one of

the worst biochemical disasters.Animal waste can produce

chemical compounds and damage water

source and environment. Most of

farmers in Midwestern of U.S carry

animal waste from factory farms directly

into the Mississippi River. The

Mississippi River carries all the waste

into the Gulf of Mexico. The waste produces tons of nitrogen and depleted

oxygen level of the seawater. This has

killed thousands of fish and sea animals,

and creates a 7,000 square mile dead

zone near the coast of Louisiana. Most of sea animals, plants, and aquatic life cannot survive

Figure 2 Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico

Source: http://www.oceanographerschoice.com/2009/06/noaa-predicts-large-gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-this-summer/


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Technical Issues 12

(Schwartzman, 2011). See Figure 2. This area has taken great suffer from factory farming animal waste of

water pollution. Countless of aquatic life died because of the pollution. Reaction of chemical compounds

from animal waste had drawn most of oxygen from sea and killed these aquatic lives, and it will take

years for this area to be recovered. Moreover, chemical compounds from animal waste have strong

influence on human, especially children. During fermentation, animal waste can produce nitrate. Most

kind of nitrate can be dissolved in water. Nitrate will get flashed away or infiltrate into ground in raining

day, and contaminates water sources. Nitrate is a very danger chemical element that it can cause abortions

and blue baby syndrome. The blue baby syndrome is the main cause of death of infants. It is because the

immunity system of infant is not as strong as adults. If a infant drinks water that contains nitrate, his

stomach acid cannot digest nitrate, which will increase the number of bacteria that can convert nitrate to

nitrite. After nitrite been absorbed in blood, it will convert hemoglobin, which helps on carrying oxygen

to our body parts, to methemoglobin. Methemoglobin will block oxygen delivery in blood. And the worst

thing is the methemoglobin cannot be convert back to hemoglobin for infant (Beinecke, 2013). Becausenitrate is easy to be dissolved in water, it is very hard to control where it is flowing. As result, it may

contaminate large area of water source. The damage of animal waste to water source is significant.

Furthermore, animal waste is also causing soil pollution. Unlike urine from animal, stool does not

evaporate, and hard to decompose,

which means disease virus and parasite

can live longer in stool. Since animals

are producing 130 times of waste than

human, finding a place to store thesewaste is a big problem. Liquid wastes

can be transfer using waste pipelines,

but stool cannot. So, for most of time,

farmers accumulate stool somewhere

near farms. However, this is never a

clever way to do. Animal waste contains

element that animal cannot digest, for

example, heavy metals as Zinc andCopper. According to Windischs report,

annual manure from a pig will leave

over 0.7 kilograms of Zinc and 0.4 kilograms of Copper. However, this is about 4 times of Zinc and 20

times of Copper that maximum allowable of heavy metals of plants can be planted (Windisch, 2000). See

Figure 3. Plants cannot live on these lands, and it is impossible to purify these lands because it is very

Figure 3 Heavy metal poisoned soil

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/30/the-human-cost-of-chinas-untold-soil-pollution-problem


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Technical Issues 13

hard to remove those metal compounds. For most cases, engineers have to use chemical stuff to purify

these lands. However, this is a very expensive and danger way. First, it is dangerous to transfer chemical

stuffs. The cost of transportation can be very high. Second, the ending result still remains unknown

because the chemical reaction may produce more dangerous chemical compound. Without green plants,

human and animals cannot live.

In addition, chemical gas produced by animal waste is one of sources of air pollution. From

USDA reports, US farms produce more than 335 million tons of manure every year. After been stored for

long period, the waste decomposes and cause air pollution with hundreds of different chemical gases,

such as methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, and factory farming is responsible for the 68% of total

nitrous oxide produced by human activity (Food Program, 2005). As known today, the carbon dioxide

and nitrous oxide is the main cause of global warming by trapping heat in atmosphere. Global warming

can lead to more serious problems such as raising sea level. In addition, carbon dioxide can also cause

human breath shortness and dizziness because human body requires oxygen to function, and too muchcarbon dioxide can lower oxygen level in blood. Another known chemical gas from animals waste is

Hydrogen Sulfide. It is a very danger gas that can lead to human death. It can limit human body cells to

use oxygen, and exposes in high concentration level of Hydrogen Sulfide can cause skin and eye irritation.

Even low concentration level of Hydrogen Sulfide can cause low blood pressure and headache. Moreover,

95 percent of factory farm workers are experiencing bronchitis. Some studies show that most of indoor

workers with six years of experiences have dust inhalation problem (Food Program, 2005). All of these

are result of chemical gases from the huge amount of animal waste. Pollutions of factory farming is

snatching our living space.We can build closed surface lagoon with

very stable material to solve these technical

problems. See figure 4. The regular lagoon does

not solve it at all because it does not have

covered surface, gases produced by waste can

still spread out miles away and cause air

pollution. However, with new design, chemical

gases cannot exit the lagoon because it is closedsurface. In addition, we can use these gases in

more efficient way, such as burning them for

heating and cooking. After the ammonia been

generated and purified, it can produce 327 joules

Figure 4 Ideal manure lagoon

Source: http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/energy-sources/biomass/manure.php


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Technical Issues 14

every gram, which is 5 times efficient than coal. Also, dissociated ammonia can be used to purify metal

treating operations, such as annealing rate metals. The benefit of using ammonia other than water is

because water usually contains oxygen, which ammonia does not, that can interact with metal while

annealing. This decreases the quality of metal. Furthermore, ammonia liquid and vapor weights lighter

than water and air, which is not difficult to transport from place to place. The most important thing is

ammonia is cheap than other source that it does not require addition treatment (Shutske, 2005). As the

chemical gases been stored in closed surface lagoo n, they will not treating farm employees health

anymore. The chance of disease infection also decreases because disease virus cannot exit the lagoon.

Moreover, it is harder for chemical compound produced from animal waste to penetrate stabilized

material lagoon. These compounds can only be stored in the lagoon without further worry. So, it will not

cause any water and land pollution.

Groundwater depletion is another technical result of factory farming. As world population grows

so fast nowadays, it requires a lot of food. The regular farms cannot provide enough food on time.However, centralized urban population causes unbalanced distribution of factory farming is causing

serious groundwater depletion. To satisfy the food and economic demand, most of factory farms are built

near cities. However, the concentration of factory farms has brought up the groundwater depletion issue

on the table. Groundwater is a common source. Due to the geological reason, it is not well balanced.

Some places have more groundwater than others, which we can tell from figure 5. Because the western

region of Unite State is maritime

desert climate, groundwater storage

and recharge rate is very low (EPA,2012). Since factory farms are located

around major cities, such as Los

Angeles, they are drawing water from

one place. The water usage in Los

Angeles area is about 1 billion of

gallons of water daily. However, the

average water from rainfall, snow

water and other source is only 890million of gallons daily (EPA, 2012).

The water recharge rate is much lower

than the water usage. Using water

without recharging can only result in

groundwater depletion.

Figure 5 Water storage and recharge rate in U.S as of February 2009

Source: https://dabrownstein.wordpress.com/category/mapping-ground-water/


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Technical Issues 15

Since groundwater is a limited common source, factory farming is scrambling water source

against human need. Figure 6 shows the water usage of factory farming. However, static data from same

report has shown that a

person only use about 35

gallons of water daily

(Swistock, 2013). It is

obviously that animals in

factory farm are using more

water than human. Also,

due to public health safety

concern, farmers have to

clear farms periodically, and

it requires more water tokeep farms clean. As the

groundwater is depleting,

balance the water usage

between animals and human becomes a big issue. We must provide enough water for human daily use.

On the other hand, we cannot decrease the number of animals because we have to keep large number of

animals to provide enough food.

It is pretty simple to solve the groundwater depletion problem. First, because the concentration of

farms is one of the reasons for groundwater depletion, we can relocate factory farms to make them welldistributed. So, we are not drawing groundwater from one place. This gives time for groundwater

recharge. In addition, we can build more pipelines to delivery water from different place, for example,

groundwater from other places far away from major cites. Moreover, we can use additional water sources,

such as rain. Farmers can build water towers to collect water in raining day, and store it for later use.

Swistocks report indicates that more than 65 percent of rainfall water has been evaporated before it

merges into surface water and groundwater (Swistock, 2013). Saving this water will be very beneficial.

Building water towers is one way of doing it. However, it is not very effective way. It helps saving water

in long-term, but the result does always show results immediately. It is because water tower can onlycollect and store small amount of rainfall water. Building a dam is a better way. Dam can shorten the time

for rainfall water getting merged, and its great storage helps on storing huge amount of water. With

surface water been trapped in dam, engineers can purify water anytime. Moreover, flowing water does

more evaporation than still water. We storage more rainfall water by stopping it from evaporation. By

providing more water sources, we can reduce pressure on groundwater.

Figure 6 Animals water usage

Source: ht tp://extension.psu.edu/natural-resources/water/drinking-water/best-practices/water-system- planning-estimating-water-use


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Diseases 16

As the factory farming is growing bigger, technical issues have became more significant. We

must provide solutions to these problems before they become more serious. Building a very stable manure

lagoon helps us on protecting our living environment, and relocation factory farms and build more

pipeline can slow the groundwater depletion rate. With these solutions, we have more times to think better

solutions, because it is never easy to find solutions. Some solutions can only benefit one from the others.

For instant, relocate factory farms and build more pipelines helps on groundwater depletion, but it also

increases the cost. As an engineer, we have to think carefully and balance between cost and benefit.

Diseases:

Recently, health problems due to the proliferation of the livestock in factories are burgeoning. And

the diseases are the culprits, which can be transmitted to humans. And they are defined as the condition

that prevents the bodys well -working functions or at least some part of the bodys functions. All of the

living things, like animals, human being and plants could be succumb to diseases. Diseases in livestock

lead to food poisoning in consumers. Diseases directly related to human beings are mainly cardiovascular

disease due to high cholesterol and high saturated fat, diabetes, and pesticides in human body. Other

potential health issues are indirectly obtained from diseases on factory animals. And they are caused by

inhumane conditions in factories. Diseases in pigs, bovines, chickens, and fish are discussed below.

Diseases from the living things, such as animals, are disorders, for which they are able to affect

human beings health and abilities. Those diseases from animals have been a great concern for the whole

world for reasons. They have surely reduced the amount of productivity of animals, which is used to

produce daily food for human. Those diseases are identified as and divided into two types, infectious andnon-infectious. As people know that the condition that animals become ill could influence the national

economy. Most importantly, some of those diseases do kill humans.

In a technical point of view, the most common diseases occur in chickens. One of the recent

outbreaks is called Mareks disease. Mareks is caused by a kind of Herpes virus. It can infect the youth

birds since their first day of birth. Moreover, it stays the longest in Chickens body. In feather dust it can

survive on a farm for at least 12 months and it is this problem (Pereda, 2010) With todays aggregation

condition in chicken farms, diseases like Mareks can spread so fast, therefore control is hard. The factory

style that aimed at maximizing production of chick breasts is responsible for such diseases.However, instead of creating more space for individual chicken to prevent Mareks, most U.S. poultry

firms are administering antibiotics to their flocks far more pervasively than regulators realize, posing a

potential risk to human health. Internal documents fr om Reuters indicate that some of the nations major

poultry producers intentional feed chickens an array of antibiotics, even when the chickens are perfectly

healthy: it has been a standard practice over most of the birds lives. Although there is not any official and


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Diseases 17

scientific explanations for why feeding sub -therapeutic doses of antibiotics, such as tetracycline, to

animals can make them gain much more weight, there is some evidence to indicate that the antibiotics kill

the flora that would normally t hrive in the animals intestines, thereby allowing the animals to absorb

nutrition from their fodder better. Kennedy, president emeritus of Stanford University, said such

widespread use of the drugs for extended periods can create a "systematic source of antibiotic resistance"

in bacteria, the risks of which are not fully understood. "This could be an even larger piece of the

antibiotic-resistance problem than I had thought," Kennedy said. (Reuters)

Mass demand of eggs also causes problems. Diseases in eggs are getting more and more severe. Two

main viruses emerging in eggs recently are Salmonellosis and Staphylococcus aureus or Staph. The

bacteria of Salmonellosis are originally generated in hens, and are passed on from the hen to the egg.

Symptoms of eating Salmonellosis in eggs are usually stomach cramps, vomiting, fever and diarrhea

anywhere from 8 hours to three days after eating the infected egg. Although these symptoms are not fatal

in adult s, it could destroy infants immune systems. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 0.1%of the eggs contain Salmonella. And we cannot know if an egg contains Salmonella by looking at them,

since the bacteria enter through the ovaries and are inside the eggs. Egg color, size, shape, texture, taste

have no bearing on whether the egg has Salmonella inside. (Salmonella&eggs

) Assume in normal family, each dish serves two eggs at average, then one in five thousands egg dishes

that potentially contain Salmonella. In the 2010 egg recall, the risk could be even higher in eggs that come

from flocks and farms that are contaminated with Salmonella. Older adults, young children, pregnant

women, and person who with weak immune system have dramatically higher risks for serious sickness

once they are affected by Salmonella. In these people, a relatively limited exposure to Salmonella bacterialeads to severe illness and even death.

Staphylococcus is a bacterium in eggs that makes poison that causes the illness. In fact, the bacterial

of Staph can be found in many different of food product, but egg is the most common carrier, since it is

easier for people to eat raw eggs. Symptoms of staph illness include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, and

in severe cases people may have headaches or experience changes in their blood pressure or pulse rate.

(Horrigan, 2002) Technical solution is again antibiotics. Non-technical solution for this particular

problem is to fully cook the eggs.

One instance to illus trate the unnatural methods of raising animals is that The farmers addedvitamin D supplements to the chickens diet to raise chickens indoors without sunlight, reducing the space

requirements to raise chickens. However, vitamin D is not the only resourc es animals absorb from

sunlight, there are other supplement vitamins and other essential nutrients they need in order to grow

healthily. Depriving from sunlight results in multiple diseases, since lacking any of the required vitamin

would cause fatal diseases. Furthermore, when one of the animals died from diseases, numerous diseases


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Diseases 18

would generated in the whole farm, since contagious diseases spread very fast in the crowded factory.

Farmers could not use artificial element to replace the natural ingredient.

Aggregation and crowdedness in factory is becoming unethical. Statistics showed that Three -fourths

of the female chicks are raised in cages, and 98 percent of commercial layer hens in the U.S. are caged.

Eight birds are typically placed in each cage, giving each hen around 50 square inches of floor space(brave).

Disease in pigs is another major issue. When pigs are raised packed, they act aggressively, and bite

each others tail. The farmers action in response is chopping off the pigs tails. How ever, because of the

special formation of pigs, they cannot remove when their tails got chopped. Not only skeletal

deformities emerge in legs and feet, pigs are susceptible to pneumonia. Ammonia and other gases from

the manure irritate animals lungs. Statistics show that pneumonia like lesions on the lungs of 65% of

34,000 hogs they inspected. (Mason, 2006) Other diseases in pigs are Glasser disease, which is caused

by pleuritis and fibrin deposits, of which there are at least fifteen different types. It is spread out in theworld and organism are found even in high health herbs. Pigs usually become sub-clinically infected

when still protected by maternal antibody and then stimulate their own immune response. If however the

maternal immunity wears off before they become infected they may develop severe disease. (The pig site)

And the most recent outbreaks of H1N1 in pigs. (Mason, 2006)

Disease in cow is the third serious and burgeoning problem. Factory farms put chains around the

neck of bovines to prevent them from turning around, in order to make their flesh tendered. Moreover, in

order to make the meat production prized high in the market, famers restrict cows and bovines in

complete darkness for 4 months, and feed them iron deficient diet. (Daniels, 2003) By doing these, the bovines meat appear pale and clean in markets. However, these inhumane treatments for cows and

bovines make worms and bacterial easier to attack their bodies. For example, Dictyocaulus viviparous is

an emerging disease in bovine , which is caused by worms in bovines lung.

Moreover, in order to prevent more diseases spreading, animals such as chickens and cows are

feed with extra antibiotics and sulfa drugs. These drugs then appear in human food product, causing all

kinds of human disorders. When these antibiotics were eaten by pregnant women, there is high possibility

that the infants would be infected.

Diseases in fish has become a serious problem that falls into factory farming category. Since aquaticanimals are also raised in factory farming style nowadays, which is called aquaculture. Thirty percent of

annual global seafood production is made in farm. (Pereda, 2009) Fi sh are also raised in small, confined

areas, having many debilitating diseases and clear negative effects on the health of the fish.(Hrrigan,

2002) One example of fish disease is Pfiesteria piscicida, which is recently discovered, potentially toxic

microo rganism and it erodes the fishs body. This disease mainly occurs on the eastern coast. The factory


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Farmer s Perspective vs. Collective Interest 19

farming of fish severely destroyed the aquatic biodiversity; many fish species are even distinguishing due

to the contagious disease in fish farms.

Besides introducing more and more antibiotics, the most effective solution for preventing

diseases is to create federal laws. Federal laws for protecting farmed animals have not existed yet. The

organization for animal protection Animal Welfare Act does not take care of farmed animals orlivestock. Besides federal laws, State laws and regulation in preventing poor farming situation should

increase. One of the few example of laws that protect livestock is in Florida in 2002, a law was passed to

ban gestation crates for pregnant pigs by a 55 percent majority vote. It is considered the first U.S. law to

ban a particular factory farming practice on the basis of cruelty (Daniels, 2003). The only way to prevent

diseases in farmed animals is to improve their living environment. Antibiotics can just slow down the

spread of diseases, but they cannot prevent new diseases from emerging.

On a smaller scale, Solutions in individual families and companies is also important. Big

supermarket and other food production companies should set some rules on banning products from poorfactory farms. Farms that treat animals insanely would eventually find themselves not making profits

anymore, if all families and companies choose not to buy food product from those farms. It is also a good

solution that some organizations make the public aware of the farmed animals situations. Ethical people

would then voluntarily act against unethical farms.

Farmers Perspective vs. Collective Interest:

In the past, there were not too many people living in the world, and people were not wealthy

enough to ask for high quality and quantity of meat in their meals. Hence the traditional animal farmingcould no longer satisfy peoples needs of meat consuming. After been through two world wars and

several unstable eras, people finally live in a comparative safe international environment, and people are

finally capable to improve their food both in quality and quantity. Take a few other numbe rs. Across the

world agricultural production, including meat production, doubled between 1820 and 1920, doubled again

between 1920 and 1950, again between 1950 and 1965, yet again between 1965 and 1975, and continues

to grow exponentially. All of this, of course, to accommodate an increase in human population from about

a billion in 1800 to 6.5 billion today (Scully, 2002). As we can see from the data, the speed of doubling

the agricultural production has become shorter after entering the 20 th century because of the increasingrate of reproduction of human beings. As the society going into capitalistic society and the productivities

of modern industries had been speeding up, plus the high speed of population expansion, entrepreneur is

dedicated to pursue profits in all areas including the food industry. People are getting rich nowadays in

every corner of the world, and they are asking more meat in their meals quantitatively and qualitatively.

The traditional animal farming could not supply enough meat to modern families with their new life style.


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In order to maximize the profits in food industries especially in making meat or other relative products,

producers would certainly like to maximize the number of animals in a certain area because they can keep

lowering the expense of their rents, time and labors management within the smaller areas. Thats why the

animals would be kept in a very small space such cages and gestation crates. These cages can make

animal sick easier since too many animals crowded in such small spaces, and the diseases are contagious

and spreading out very fast. The gestation crates are torturing the animal in food industries because these

animals can barely move in their entire life. Keeping animals in small cages and gestation crates

maximized producers profits, but most of people with conscience blame these behaviors. Most people

believe that even human beings are standing at the top of food chain, human do not have right to torture

animals before killing them. Under this understanding, not torturing animals becomes the collective

interest nowadays. However, there are always conflicts between farmers perspectiv e and the collective

interest.

In the past, farmers breed the animals outside the cages. Animal lived in an open space. Theycould run and do anything they want in livestock farms. If there were sick individuals, the sick ones

would be kept separately. Farmers either gave special cares to cure the sick animals or killed them. The

antibiotic or any additional medical cares would be only used on the sick animals, and everything grew

naturally. After the first industrial revolution, vitamin was introduced. This discovery allowed the

nutrition industries produces chemical compounds with various vitamins mixtures, so the specific

vitamins for different livestock can be made, which allowed the livestock were capable to be kept indoors.

The livestock did not need the sunshine to combine the necessary vitamin, and the vitamins were injected

into the livestocks bodies. After the first industrial revolution, vaccines and antibiotics were alsoinvented. The drugs made the livestock having stronger resistance to contagious diseases, which made

keeping livestock indoors much easier.

The numbers can show how peoples habits incentive farmers willingness of improve the meat

production by means of anyways including the immoral ones. In 2012, NPR news randomly asked 3,000

adults about their meat consumption behaviors and thoughts in NPR-Truven Health Analytics Health

Poll. 64.1% said they hadnt changed the amount of red meat consumption in the past three years. 5.4%

said they had increased the amount of meat consumption. In addition, 69.6% people said they would not

decrease the consumption of red meat in the future. More interesting, 30.4% people decided to eat lessmeat in the future, however, among those people who decided consuming less meat in the future, 47.4%

of them said their concern is the cost of meat. As we can see from these numbers, the majority of people

in the United States like to consume much meat, and even though the population stops growing from now,

the meat consumption will still keep going up. If the cost of meat can be reduced, those who decided

consum e less meat because of the worries of cost will go back to consume more meat. Theres huge


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potential growth in meat market. The traditional can barely satisfy the demand today and not even talk

about improving the productivity to satisfy the future demands. The factory farmers are definitely willing

to and have confidence to solve the problem of high cost of meat production by using modern

technologies in their industry. They own the advantage of low rent as they do the factory farming because

they keep huge amount of animal in limited spaces. They can have higher productivity because they have

their livestock, sows and cattle fed by machines automatically when the fodder are mixed with variety of

chemical compounds, including synthetic vitamins, synthetic hormones and antibiotics. Synthetic

vitamins and hormones can speed up animals growth cycle, and antibiotics can lower the death rate.

Since computers and machines can replace almost everything, fewer labors are required in the factory

farming industry.

Many of factory farmers perspectives are violating many collective interests. Look back to the

poll in 2012 by NPR; among those 30.4% people who decided decreasing the consumption on meat,

66.2% said they worried about the food quality. As science and technologies develop so fast, not only themeat productivity had been improved, but also the media had been enhanced a lot. When the factory

farmers tried to improve the meat production, they have ignored many facts that they had sacrificed the

quality of meat. Some chemical compounds they injected in the animals are harmful to human beings.

Moreover, people not only care about the safety of the food, but also people care about animals feelings

since human beings now are living in a highly civilized society. There were also many scientific proofs to

the fact that animals have feelings.

People would like to have healthy food on their table especially for meats. Healthy meat should

be grown naturally, which means that everything in animals body should come from a natural way.Livestock synthesis vitamins in their bodies by expose themselves under the sun. They run around so that

they get hungry and eat more. Their bodies get bigger and bigger by eating more because they consume

energies while they run around. They get correct medical care when they get sick by injecting antibiotics.

In September 2013 and April 2014, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health

Organization (WHO) released detailed studies on bacterial resistance. The CDC report found at least two

million Americans are sickened by drug-resistant bacteria each year, 23,000 fatally. Additionally, the

WHO report cited estimations that superbug infections resulted in eight m illion additional days in

hospitals, which costs between $21 and $34 billion each year in the U.S. alone. (Jahagirdar, 2014) Theantibiotic was essential for diseases curing by killing bacteria. The bacteria with antibiotic-resistant gene

already exist in the nature at the very beginning. According to Darwin, the species that can accommodate

the harsh living environment will keep living. Applying the concept to bacteria, if we keep abuse using

antibiotic, we are creating antibiotic environment everywhere, and all the bacteria cannot survive are

killed, and the antibiotic-resistant bacteria is left over. Once the severe disease explode, we can no longer


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cure the people by using antibiotic which will be a huge disaster then. Under the framework of

utilitarianism, abusing antibiotic in factory farming is morally wrong because it will bring disaster to

human beings. Moreover, the artificial vitamins given to livestock were also having negative effects on

human bodies. Synthetic vitamins may produce harmful side-effects. The synthetic version of vitamin A,

retinol palmitate, for example, is significantly more toxic than the natural form (Stephens 2013). In thiscase, factory-farming companies only pursue their profit despite the fact that the chemical compound

injected in the food they are selling is harmful to humans health.

Animals like human being, have emotions and feelings. According to scientist Krista McLennans

research, she found that When heifers have their preferred partner with them, their stress levels in terms

of their heart rates are reduced compared with if they w ere with a random individual (Reporter 2011) .

Theres also another story that an elephant met its old fr iend after 25 years because they were separated

by the circus, both of elephants shed their tears, and they used their noses tap each other to show their

excitement. Like human beings, animals also feel happy, anger, pain and sorrow. Yes, human beings arestanding at the top of food chain right now because human beings are omnivore, but after many thousand

years of civilization, people should also realize that other animals have rights not to be tortured.

Nowadays, the sows are kept in the small gestation crates, and the livestock is kept indoors,

which is inhumane. The feeding system is fully mechanized and digitized. Tubes are installed across the

entire industrial farm for water supply, and each separation has one drinking end point for each sow. Food

for the sows is changed to fluid food. It is convenient to manage the quality and quantity of the food

supply to the sows by using fluid food running down the grooves on the ground. Many different kinds of

medicines for diseases curing and hormones for shortening the growing period are mixed in the fluidfood, and the quantity is also monitored and added by digital machines. Animals living in the gestation

creates are painful because they cannot even turn around as they are growing big rapidly. They can only

move their head up to drink water and down to eat fluid food. Animals have emotion as human beings.

Since they cannot move for a long time, they will become anxious. As we can see on the video

Undercover at Smithfield Foods shot in Smithfield Foods, thousands of sows were living in each of

their gestation crate inside a big room. The sows were screaming, and the noise in that farm was

incredibly loud. Some of the sows tried to escape from the iron gestation crates. They hit the iron bars

with their heads and bite the iron bars. Their faces and mouths were bestrewed with bloods, and they stillkept trying to escape in vain. The sick and the healthy sows still live in the same giant room separated by

iron bars. There is less opportunity for the diseases spread out to the entire room because many medical

substances are put in the fluid food to avoid the diseases spreading. Moreover, the sows are labeled by

numbers and monitored frequently, so people can easily discover the sick units and deal with them.


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Nevertheless, piles of dead sows bodies and the extreme bad sick sows can be seen on the video shot

within the farm.

As humans society has been becoming more civilized, people not only care about if the y can

have enough delicious food but also how the animals feeling before they are killed. Some conscious

people get together and form the organization in the interest of protecting animals, such as The Humane

Society of the United States. Even so the livestock are being eat eventually, they still reserve the rights

not being abused before they are killed while human beings are living on the top of food train. After the

video Undercover at Smithfield Foods shot in Smithfield Foods was put online, people d iscovered how

inhumane the food industry is and started think deeply on the ethical issues with the food industries.

Finally, the pressure was on the food company, and the food companies are trying to phase out the

inhumane gestation crates under the press ures. On December 8, 2011, Smithfield Foods is recommitting

to phase-out gestation crates confinement of pigs at all company-owned facilities by 2017, a policy the

company first made in 2007 but delayed in 2009 (The Humane Society of the United States). The ethicalissues apply not only to people inside the United States but also internationally, as it is a global issue, as

human beings get more civilized. Eight states and the European Union have passed laws to phase out

gestation crates (The Humane Soc iety of the United States). Virtue ethics can be seen in this case.

People think using gestation crates to confine pigs is not a virtuous thing.

Despite the fact that genetically modified meat is harmful to human beings bodies, this

technology is also inhumane to those animals. The animals survive today because of natural selection.

The specific mechanics of animals bodies keep them surviving on the earth. They can run or fly to

escape from dangers. They have thick furs to keep warm. They have strong muscles to find food. Nevertheless, people use gene modification technology to change the mechanics of some animals bodies

in order to gain more weight on them. The weight the animals gained is just the useless fat to them. The

fat they gained from gene modification is not good for their health, which is harmful to their health

instead. This is a photo on the website of Wakker Dier which is a Dutch animal welfare organization. In

the photo, there are two chickens. On the left, a normal chicken is standing on a table, which is 5.5 weeks

old, and its weight is 940 grams. On the right, there sits a larger chicken which is also 5.5 weeks, but its

weight is 2,900 grams. The larger one is a selectively bred and genetically modified broiler chicken, and it

the one people in the United States get at any supermarket right now. The genetically modified chickenhas almost three times larger body than the normal chicken. Their skinny legs cannot even stand their own

bodies. That means every minute this kind of animal living is torturing. The fat inside their bodies could

cause many heart diseases and troubles of breathing. In addition, they even cannot move to find

something to eat. Until they are killed, that will be the genuine release of their lives. In such an inhumane

way to produce meat, the factory farmers didnt feel any sorrow about it. All they care about is the money


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Ethical Analysis 24

can enter to their pockets. In such a highly civilized society, people cannot abandon eating meat which is

acceptable, but abandoning the inhumane way of treating animals should be on one of the many priorities.

Ethical analysis:

Animals experience life in a similar way to humans. They have basic needs and then some

advanced needs. Humans may not be able to understand exactly what the animals are saying but the basic

cues, expressing emotions, are recognized and connect humans to non-human animals. Based on this

understanding, non-human animals must be allowed certain rights and their treatment must fall within

reasonable boundaries. Following this line of logic, when interacting with animals, humans should keep

the ethical frameworks of virtue, deontology and utilitarianism. The farming and food industry are

especially prone to violating some of these frameworks.

One common point made by people who are not overly concerned with the welfare of animals is

that they are not human. Since they are not human, some people believe isnt necessary or e ven

reasonable to extend animals the same treatment that humans receive. Although this is true, that does not

mean that ethical frameworks do not apply to animals at all. The amount of biological similarities

between humans and non-human animals is staggering. By now, the genetic and molecular differences

between humans and animals cant be disputed. Since the beginning of the twentieth century research has

shown stunning results. Pigs share 98% of their genome with humans (Moran, 2010). With these

similarities, it is not surprising that animals have developed similar characteristics. These characteristics

have led to the development of social structures in many species of animals and all common farm

animals.For example, Cows live in a hierarchal social structure. A leader is present in each separate herd

of cows and his or her role is to initiate long distance migrations to but when the multiple individual herds

are crowded together, the leaders undergo severe stress, which is translated to the entire herd. Sometimes,

leaders of different herds can conflict with each other as feeding lots are crowded and different herds try

and squeeze into feed at the same time. Cows have been shown to remember friendships and grudges, and

mother cows cry urgently for their children after they are separated (Dumont, 2005). All of these

characteristics are common to human society. Not only do humans and non-human animals share many

biological and anatomical traits but they share psychological and societal traits as well. Animals are awareof their environment and have keen cognitive abilities to help themselves.

Pigs, chickens and turkeys are all raised in similar situations. Like cows, the businesss goal is to

maximize their profit while minimizing their cost, leading to cramped and unnatural conditions for the

animals. But, like cows, these animals are all similar to humans. When suffering injuries, animals have

shown that they will prefer bitter water containing painkillers to normal water (Balcombre). Undoubtedly,


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Ethical Analysis 25

pain exists in animals as an evolutionary adaptation developed in the common ancestor of both human

and non-human animals. With this link between humans and animals, one can see that applying ethical

frameworks traditionally reserved for humans to animals is only natural.

Under the framework of Utilitarianism, farmers and businesses should treat animals better. With

utilitarianism, the greatest value for the greatest number is the central tenet. The consequences of an

action are the only important aspect when considering whether or not that action is ethical. If only human

value and human numbers are considered, then factory farming does seem to be the best option at face

value. Consumers get many different kinds of meat from beef to pork to chicken all at low prices that

could not be seen with traditional free-range farming. In addition, farmers and businesses maximize

profits. However, there are many hidden costs that may tilt the argument in favor of alternatives to factory

farming. The first, and most obvious cost, are the environmental impacts.

When animals are concentrated in such a small area, not only do they themselves suffer but the

people living in close proximity also feel the effects. As the animals defecate, the feces flow onto massivewaste lagoons. Not only do these lagoons emit noxious and dangerous gases into the atmosphere in large

quantities but the waste itself often leaks out of the reservoirs threatening people living close by and

polluting the water supply when rains wash over them. Hydrogen sulfide is one such chemical that is

released from the large amounts of decomposing animal waste. Relatively small amounts of exposure to

Hydrogen sulfide are irritating to the throat and can cause headaches. Larger dosages can cause seizures

or even death (NRDC, 2013). In such conditions, both non-human and human animals have an obvious

lack of happiness that actions, under utilitarianism, are meant to maximize.

Work place safety is often neglected as well. The nature of factory farms demands that workersdeal with a high volume of animals in highly crowded and dimly lit spaces. All of these factors make

accidents and even deaths more prevalent. Since 1992, there have been over 9,000 workers and laborers

deaths related to the workplace (Truglio, 2012). One anonymous factory worker described how he had to

hang live chickens by their feet on an assembly line set-up at 35 birds a minute. The job sounds simple

enough, but the continuous action combined with the pecking and clawing rec eived turns the workers

fingers and knuckles sore and fills them with scabs. The worker goes on to describe that in the birds

moments of terror they defecate which ends up all over their protective suits and oozes into their goggles

and respirators after hours of work. Unsurprisingly, after working in such conditions for extended periodsof time, attention drops and thats when accidents occur.

All these negative impacts of factory farming show the other side of the matter. The money saved

by consumers and businesses does serve to improve the welfare of society, but when weighed against the

costs that workers bear from the bad conditions and society bears from pollution, the decision of how to


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act based on the terms of Utilitarianism would point towards ending or strongly modifying factory

farming.

In addition, although animals may not be entirely included under the traditional view of ethical

frameworks, they have some coverage on the basis of their similarity with humans. With this in mind, the

idea of utilitarianism doesnt hold. Animals suffer greatly at the hands of factory farming practices. Asdiscussed before, cattle show very obvious signs of discomfort at being put under the crowded conditions

and forced to feed on unnatural food. However, many other species also suffer similar conditions to the

cows. Turkeys have an average lifespan of two to three years in the wild. While turkeys in captivity are

only allowed to live five or six months when they are killed for meat. If these farm-raised turkeys are

allowed to live longer than that, they can grow too large to manage their own weight (Mason, 2006).

Chickens and other fowl face a similar situation on the factory farms. Living in such a fashion, where they

arent allowed to live a natural lifespan with desirable body parts growing at a disproportional rate is

stressful and makes the life of the fowl-animal miserable. As discussed before, the human populationdoesnt necessary derive the greates t happiness. When the happiness of the animals is factored in the

action of continuing factory farming is unethical under the ethical framework of utilitarianism.

Looking at the problem under the system of duty ethics gives another perspective. The main

foundation for this ethical framework is the categorical imperative, which are a set of principles that form

the foundation for moral judgments. The universality principle and reciprocity principle are principles

under the categorical imperative. The universality principle states that an action can only be morally

acceptable if that action can be made into a universal action (De Poel, 2011). Under this principle, the

mindsets of the individual or individuals performing the actions are important. The intentions are whatdetermine whether an individual or a group of individuals follow the reciprocity principle. An important

part of this principle is moral autonomy. The other component principle of the categorical imperative, the

reciprocity principle, states that an action is considered immoral if it uses another human as a means to an

end rather than an end in itself. A similar but more common way to think about this principle is the

Golden rule which states that one should treat other people the way that he or she wants to be treated.

In his assertions, Kant bases a good portion of his arguments on the fact that all people have an

equal and intrinsic worth. This equal and intrinsic worth is based on the ability of humans to reason and

think, which is an ability some people believed that objects and animals do not posses. However, animalsare now known to have the ability to reason and think. Their ability to do so may not be on the same level

as humans but the principles under the categorical imperative should still apply to some extent.

When the principles are applied to non-human animals, the relationships are more complicated

than that of humans. The conditions of the animals are terrible as discussed previously and to universalize


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these actions to humans would be unthinkable. But, on the opposite side of the spectrum, humans have

been eating animals for thousands of years. This action also is immoral under the universality principle as

applying the use of animals as food to the use of humans as food would be completely unthinkable.

Therefore, under the universality principle, the only moral action would be to avoid eating anything that

can reason or think. Not only is this idea infeasible but also it is unnatural as many animals in nature

historically ate and currently still eat other animals. For a completely moral world, society would need to

somehow stop animals from eating each other at all. So, before applying the universality principle in this

situation, the extreme of prohibiting any consumption of animals has to be looked at more closely.

The best way to think about this is to consider the natural orders of life, such as the result of

evolution and the natural food webs outside human ethical constructs. Eagles, wolves and other

carnivores must eat meat as their evolutionary history has resulted in a diet consisting of meat. Their

consumption of meat and killing of other animals is considered moral under the universality principle of

Kants categorical imperatives, because we can universalize the action of allowing an organism to eatother organisms that they would normally eat. In fact, if these top predators were removed from the

ecosystem, chaos would ensue, as the organisms underneath them are free to overpopulate which could

strip the local ecosystem of needed resources.

This has been seen in multiple systems. One example has been seen in the American Yellowstone

National Park. Wolves were initially hunted to the verge of local extinction in the Yellowstone Natural

Park. This was largely due to cultural factors and the belief that wolves were dangerous to humans. With

the wolves gone, the deer in the Yellowstone no longer had a major predator. As a result, the deer

population jumped up. There was almost an immediate effect on other species. New trees, saplings, weresoon very rarely found as the deer could feed on them without fearing any predators (US National Park,

2014). Without any new trees, areas of forest started to shrink. Initially unsure about the cause of the

problems, researchers soon found that the source of the problem was the overpopulation of the park by

deer. Reintroducing the wolves soon restored the ecosystem to a natural balance.

People may think of humans as transcendent of our environment and the ecological systems of

the world, but this isnt true. Every one of our actions has enormous consequences as examples such as

global warming have shown. Therefore, if humans were to suddenly stop eating meat, there could be

severe consequences similar to what happened to the forests of the Yellowstone national park. Therefore,Allowing humans to continue to eat meat is still ethical under this line of thinking.

Humans are, in many ways, the apex predator of the worldwide ecosystem and if everyone were

to completely stop eating meat there would be widespread consequences. Yet, the current method, which

used by humans to acquire food, must changed. No other animals acquire food in the same fashion as

humans. Before agriculture, humans hunted and gathered food much like any other animal, but then they


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found that cultivating their own populations of plants and animals was much more efficient than

searching and hunting for food. Then one advance built on another, and now there is factory farming.

While eating and killing animals can be universalized, raising animals under the horrendous conditions of

factory farming and concentrating all the waste from factory farming cant be universalized to other

animals. Another factor to look at is the environmental impact that was previously discussed. The waste

lagoons and noxious gases that come with factory farming are an intrinsic part of factory farming.

Universalizing the amount of pollution that factory farms synthesize from the running of the farms to

other farming institutions would lead to more strain on an already over-taxed environment. Therefore,

based on the universality principle, factory farming is immoral.

Although the workers in the factory farms suffer from the conditions imposed on them, there have

been cases where

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