Conservation and Biodiversity
The Cruel Costs of Factory Farming
October 14, 2025
In 2023, nearly 350 million tonnes of meat were produced worldwide, equating to nearly 100 billion animals killed for meat and other animal products. With the human population growing, our seemingly insatiable demand for animal products is not slowing down.
The livestock sector is one of the most environmentally damaging industries on the planet. It uses around 70% of all agricultural land globally, either for grazing animals or to grow the feed they consume. The industry drives deforestation, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation. Tropical regions like the Amazon especially face environmental harm, where forests are cleared for cattle ranching and soy production.
Livestock production is also responsible for 11–20% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock are a major source of methane (CH₄), a greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than CO₂over a 20-year period. Methane comes primarily from manure and enteric fermentation, which occurs when ruminant animals like cows digest food. They also emit nitrous oxide (N₂O) from manure and fertilized soils, which has a global warming potential 298 times that of CO₂. Between 2000 and 2021, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture rose by 14%, with livestock responsible for over half of that increase.
In the United States alone, it is estimated that nearly 99% of all farmed animals are raised on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOS), also known as factory farms. In CAFOs, animals are kept confined indoors for 45 days or more within a one-year period. Oftentimes, these farms prioritize productivity over animal welfare. Large-scale farming operations often have major consequences for animal health, with cruelty almost hard wired into the process.
Poultry in Pain
While factory farming has dangerous effects for all animals, chickens and other poultry animals are especially subject to cruelty. In the United States, for example, existing protections for farm animals such as the Humane Slaughter Act enforce humane slaughter for all animals except for poultry.
Given that the vast majority of animals slaughtered every year are chicken, 9 billion a year in the U.S alone, this seems especially cruel. Globally, chickens are farmed in a way that maximizes efficiency with little to no regard for their welfare.
Factory farmed chickens often have their beaks clipped in a painful process to prevent them from picking at their feathers. Also, broiler chickens bred for meat have undergone selective breeding to make them grow faster. As a result, their bones become brittle and easily broken. 70 years ago, it took on average 63 days for a chicken to reach slaughter weight, but by the 1990s, that time was 38 days.
Broiler chickens often experience lameness and malformed cartilage due to both their breeding and lack of mobility in factory farms. Oftentimes they usually have around less than the size of an A4 sheet of paper to live in. These close conditions with other birds and contact with animal waste makes both broilers and egg-laying hens susceptible to upper respiratory tract infections. If poultry contracts dangerous viruses such as the avian flu, they are often killed with carbon dioxide poisoning or suffocation with firefighting foam. Because poultry animals are not protected in the Humane Slaughter Act, farms are not obligated to find more humane ways to slaughter poultry infected by the avian flu or other illnesses. Male chicks, which cannot lay eggs, are often killed at just one day old in a process called maceration, where they are thrown into meat grinders while still alive.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian.
Sir Paul McCartney
Livestock on the Line
Dairy cows undergo forced pregnancies to maintain constant milk production. After birth, calves are taken away from their mothers within hours to days, causing emotional distress. Male calves, unable to produce milk, are typically sent to slaughter for veal production while females are raised to continue the milk cycle. If cows are unable to give birth or consistently have issues during pregnancy, they are typically killed.
While the average lifespan of a dairy cow is 20 years, they are actually killed after about 4 to 6 years of producing milk due to the extreme physical toll of repeated pregnancies, high milk production, and health problems such as mastitis (udder infections), lameness, and infertility.
Globally, approximately 330 million cattle are slaughtered each year for meat. In the United States, around 30 million cattle are slaughtered annually. Pig farming is also extensive, with over 770 million pigs farmed worldwide as of 2022. China accounts for nearly 450 million pigs, followed by Europe and the U.S. Approximately 120 million pigs are slaughtered annually in the U.S. Pregnant sows are often kept in small gestation crates so restrictive they cannot turn around, leading to physical ailments and psychological distress. Piglets undergo painful routine procedures such as tail docking and castration without anesthesia.
Factory-farmed pigs have exceptional cognitive abilities similar to those of 3-year-old human children, with excellent long-term memories, spatial learning, problem-solving skills, and social intelligence. They quickly learn complex tasks, can recognize individual humans and other pigs, and experience empathy, joy, fear, and frustration.
Thousands of people who say they love animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living.
Dr. Jane Goodall
Studies also demonstrate that pigs can navigate mazes, remember food locations, and even play simple video games using joysticks, proving their ability to understand symbolic language and complex commands. Given their intelligence, industrial farming is especially hard on them. They are also contrary to myth, highly clean, so living in crowded and poorly maintained factory farms contributes to their emotional distress.
Similar to poultry farming, the emphasis on productivity results in a neglect of cleanliness and space in factory farms. Cows and pigs do not have enough room to lay down or move, and animals like pigs are fed through tight metal slats. Without enough room to freely roam, disease spreads quicker as livestock often release waste in the same areas they live in, allowing for exposure to harmful bacteria such as E. coli.
Not only are animals kept in poor living conditions, but they are also often slaughtered inhumanely despite existing protections like the Humane Slaughter Act. During the COVD-19 outbreak in the United States, millions of pigs were slaughtered through ventilation shutdown, in which they were packed into sealed barns and killed with high heat and steam. In the European Union, such methods of killing animals are illegal.
This is the world we currently live in, where humans believe that an animal’s life is worth less than one of our own… This is why I went vegan, to not support this barbaric behavior and slaughtering of millions of animals.
Sir Lewis Hamilton, six-time Formula One World Champion
Human Health and Factory Farming
While it may be easy to think that factory farming conditions only impact animals, the environment and health of agricultural workers and surrounding communities are harmed by the presence of factory farms.
Residents in communities surrounding factory farms have reported flu-like symptoms such as nausea, headaches, and difficulty breathing due to the poor air quality. Factory farms often release harmful pollutants into the air such as ammonia, which is able to easily enter the lungs and bloodstream. Particulate matter released from factory farms have been linked to asthma, bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, and leukemia.
In areas with industrial pig farming such as North Carolina, animal waste is stored in open air lagoons, which can contaminate nearby water sources with nitrate and have an unpleasant smell. Nitrate is a form of nitrogen, which when consumed can increase the risk of cancer. Workers exposed to gases and particulate matter may develop acute bronchitis, chronic bronchitis and asthma. Pollution caused by factory farming can also impact one’s mental health, with some individuals in local communities near swine CAFOs reporting more symptoms of depression, anger, and overall mood disturbances than those who didn’t.
Factory farms are often located around minority and lower income populations. Additionally, many in communities surrounding factory farms are less-educated and uninsured. This means that they do not have access to medical resources or the knowledge to take preventative measures against the pollutants released from farms. The pollutants released by factory farms disproportionately impact minority and low-income communities, who often do not have the resources to mitigate the adverse health effects from exposure to chemicals and other harmful materials.
Morality vs. Mass Production
It is easy to turn a blind eye to the conditions in factory farms and the impact it has on surrounding communities when you are enjoying your hamburger or chicken tenders. But the overcrowded living conditions and physical health of animals living in CAFOs raises serious ethical questions for us all. Is it morally right that another living creature should live in such poor conditions for our enjoyment?
There are many plant based protein alternatives these days. New research shows that one of the most powerful things we can do to combat climate change is eat more plant-based protein, so even swapping out one or two meat based meals a week for plants will benefit the planet. November is World Vegan Month, so why not plan ahead and give it a go on November 1st?
From United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to Sir Lewis Hamilton, there are many influential figures that do not eat meat. Rejecting meat puts you in good historical company, too; Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison were all vegetarians or vegans!
If you are interested in learning about ways to make the agricultural industry more sustainable to protect the lives of both animals and humans, check out EARTHDAY.ORG’s Regenerative Agriculture campaign.
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