Factory Farming: The Fast Food Industry

We encounter it every day in supermarkets, in fast food restaurants, and even in movie theaters. Factory farming is a major agricultural crisis brewing for the last twenty or more years, but today consumers have options to help stop it. While the food industry profits from animal cruelty and massive pollution, ordinary farmers are sunk further into debt. The livestock are loaded with chemicals and antibiotics, thus making it unhealthy for humans to eat. Finally, the food industry is defiantly hiring illegal immigrants for labor in order to avoid labor unions. First and foremost, factory farming encompasses the most gruesome and archaic forms of animal cruelty towards chickens, pigs, and cows. Chickens are cramped in battery cages, …show more content…
The sheer amount of animals so densely compacted releases a significant amount of methane, a notorious greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Manure, fertilizers, and other chemicals used to raising the livestock are dumped into rivers. The water pollution goes right into the tap water, which most of us drink without second thought. Even traces of ammonia can be detected. Finally, the fertilizers used to raise the animals can damage the surrounding soil and ruin other crops. All of the damage sums up to an estimated $34.7 billion in annual environmental damage, according to the School of Economics at the University of Essex (“Farm Aid,” 2010, pg. …show more content…
I believe this is a large segment of the population that has all these concerns in common. A person who is interested in one of the above issues, is most likely to be concerned with all of them. The segments could be broken down however further by income level. Lower income consumers wind up eating less healthy creating health issues such as obesity due to the foods stuffed and forced with fats and cornstarches, but cost less. The middle and higher income consumer, which can be segmented by education level as well, are most likely willing to pay a little more money for a better and healthier product all around. By now, most Americans have heard about factory farming but some details need to be highlighted in the campaign, and many companies have started offering cage free, grass feed antibiotic free products. So the problem is identified as well as a solution, now we need to start a campaign combining the problem with the solution. As consumers we can create change by lowering sales and profits to the agribusinesses that practice factory