Pollution, poor working conditions, cutthroat practices, and a vicious contract system put people—farmers, farm workers and regular citizens alike—in danger.
Revealing the Problem with Factory Farming
Farm Animals Need Our Help
In polling, 94% of Americans agree that animals raised for food deserve to live free from abuse and cruelty. Yet the majority of the nearly 10 billion land-based animals, plus countless more aquatic animals, farmed for food each year in the U.S. are suffering on factory farms.
Factory Farms
“Factory farm” is a term commonly used to describe an industrial facility that raises large numbers of farm animals such as pigs, chickens or cows in intensive confinement where their movements are extremely inhibited. Animals are kept in cages or crates, or are crowded together in pens. These types of farms are sometimes referred to as concentrated or confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
View the major sources of animal suffering on factory farms
- Cages and overcrowding.
- Physical alterations like teeth-clipping or tail-docking, performed without anesthetic
- Indoor confinement with poor air quality and unnatural light patterns
- Inability to engage in important natural behaviors, like laying eggs in nests or roosting at night
- Breeding for fast growth or high yields of meat, milk and eggs that compromises animal health and welfare
- Illnesses and injuries left unnoticed or untreated, often due to an unmanageable ratio of animals to workers
- Reliance on antibiotics to compensate for stressful and unsanitary conditions
- Rough or abusive handling by workers, often due to a lack of training, frustration at poor working conditions, unreasonable demands by superiors or poor design of facilities
It doesn’t have to be this way. By advocating for more humane farming methods and scaling back industrial animal agriculture, the ASPCA and supporters are ending countless animals’ suffering, reducing the climate impacts of animal agriculture, and improving public health
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