Factory Farming

 As temperatures rise, ice floes shrink, natural disasters increase in frequency and new diseases attack nations, we are seeing the effects of climate change—a climate crisis, which is the state of our world. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide (N2O) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are warming the planet.

Climate change was an important issue in the recent American presidential polls, but it has yet to become a topic of discussion in India. The burning of fossil fuels, destruction of rainforests and animal farming add enormous amounts of GHGs to the atmosphere, increasing global warming.India’s major contribution to the climate crisis is animal farming, which nobody talks about because it requires a change of diet or due to commercial interests.

This is a very remunerative source of income with no questions about health and hygiene standards. India has the world’s largest population of livestock and annually produces around 5.3 million tonnes (MT) of meat, 75 billion eggs—being the world’s third largest producer of eggs, the fourth largest of chicken, the second largest of goat meat and the world’s largest exporter of beef, notwithstanding our protestations of Gau Mata.

These are the proud statistics of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India. The total number of cattle in India was 192.49 million in 2019, which includes 145.12 million cows, an increase of 18% from 2012. Animal farming—or factory farming—is a system of rearing livestock using highly intensive methods, by which poultry, pigs, or cattle are confined in small closed spaces under strictly controlled conditions to produce large amounts of meat, eggs or milk. It is a large-scale industrial operation that raises thousands of animals with hormones and antibiotics to prevent disease and maximise their growth and food output.

While egg-laying chicken are housed in “battery cages” the size of an A4 sheet of paper, “broiler” chicken are placed in boxes until they reach the required slaughter weight. Food animals live in their own urine and faeces till they go for slaughter. Factory farming is the main cause of animal suffering and abuse. Animals are converted into machines that generate meat, milk, and eggs.

Newborn female calves are taken away from their mothers and fed with milk from cows with cancer, since it is not legal to sell this milk. Male calves are sold at birth to become veal. Cows are artificially inseminated repeatedly so that their milk production does not stop and are injected with oxytocin to maximise output. When they stop producing milk, they are sold for beef and transported in terrible conditions to Kerala or Bengal for slaughter. Debeaked chickens stand on wire all their lives, while male chicks are ground live into pellets and fed to their mothers.

We forget that animals are sentient beings who feel pain and sorrow. Livestock farming has terrible environmental impact, contributing to air pollution, land and water degradation, biodiversity loss and deforestation. The primary gas emissions are CO2, methane and N2O that contribute the most to GHG emissions. 40% of methane emissions, which trap more heat than CO2, are produced by farm animals. N2O, found in manure and fertilisers, is 300 times more powerful than CO2 in warming the planet. Animal farms release compounds such as hydrogen sulphide, ammonia and methane.

According to an FAO report, 60% of human pathogens and 75% of emerging diseases are zoonotic; livestock contribute 18% to anthropogenic GHG emissions, while water use for livestock exceeds 8% of global human water use and causes 55% of soil erosion. Poor sanitation and waste management leads to the contamination of food supply by bacteria such as E coli and salmonella. Hormones and antibiotics fed to the animals enter human food chains.

Land is cleared to raise billions of animals for the meat and dairy industry. Around 30% of the earth’s land is used for livestock farming. Since food, water and land are scarce in most parts of the world, this is an inefficient use of resources. Instead, if all grain were fed to humans instead of animals, we could feed an extra 3.5 billion people. Every 2 seconds, one acre of rainforest—43,200 acres a day—is cut down for cattle farming; 3.5 to 7 billion trees are cut, resulting in a loss of biodiversity; 70,000 sq km of forest is lost annually

Dumping untreated animal wastes in soil degrades topsoil; it takes 500 years to produce one inch of new topsoil. 50% of the world’s wildlife habitats have been converted to farming land and 33% of land worldwide is used for livestock food production. 60% of grains are cultivated to feed farm animals. It takes 5 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of chicken, 9 kg to produce 1 kg of pork and 25 kg to produce 1 kg of beef. It takes 5,000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of meat. The rainforests of South America are cleared to grow soybean, 75% of which is fed to livestock. Meanwhile, 25 lakh Indians die of hunger every year—one-third of the world’s hungry people.

Industrial livestock farming, by converting food into feed, is not only inefficient but also not equitable.

Global warming affects crops, weather patterns, increases plant diseases and insect infestations. Increased rains lead to floods while the reverse lead to droughts. It wreaks havoc on ecosystems and biodiversity. Islands, coastal habitations and wildlife are at risk of disappearing. And I have not even touched upon the oceans and coral reefs. If we feed our hungry children instead of farming animals, we would have less hunger. The food choices we make today will impact the future of this planet.

Keeping Exotic Animals as Pets.

 An exotic pet is a pet that’s wild and not domesticated. Domestication is a selective breeding process that takes place over thousands of years. Snakes, parrots, iguanas, tortoises, and even otters – these are just some of the species suffering as pets around the world. Domesticated species include dogs, cats, and farm animals like horses, pigs and chickens. 

There are legal and illegal sides to the exotic pet trade. But legality doesn’t matter; captive-bred or wild caught – it’s all cruel. And this trade is growing fast.

The journey for an animal in the exotic pet trade is cruel – and often deadly. Either poached from the wild or bred in captivity on a farm, exotic pets are often shipped huge distances before reaching their final destination. Sadly, as many as four out of five animals caught in the illegal wildlife trade will die in transit, or within a year in captivity.    

Suffering is inevitable in a life of captivity.

It limits the natural behaviour of an animal and places both their mental and physical wellbeing at risk. They often lack adequate shelter, food, room to roam, and environment control to keep their body at the temperature it needs to be.  

We believe that wild animals belong in the wild, not as pets. The reality is that a life in captivity is a world away from a life in the wild. 

Animals bring joy to our lives, so why wouldn't we want them to be a part of our lives every day at home? Sadly, the truth is any wild animal that finds itself caught in the exotic pet trade experiences suffering.

Despite our best efforts we are just not equipped to provide wild animals with the care necessary to fulfil all their intrinsic needs. While keeping some exotic pets may be less cruel than others, no wild animal can have its needs met entirely in captivity.  

Only domesticated animals like cats and dogs should be kept in our homes, as all their needs are met.   

The glamorisation of exotic pets through pop culture and social media masks cruelty, and falsely legitimises the trade.  

Even with a quick glance through Instagram, YouTube Weibo or Facebook you’ll find hundreds of photos and videos showcasing everything from tigers and sugar gliders, to ball pythons and turtles, with thousands of likes on each post.  

We think these animals look cute, but they’ve actually been sentenced to a lifetime of suffering. 

Our research shows that the ‘cute’ videos prospective purchasers see shared across social media influences their decision to buy a wild animal: a full 15% of surveyed exotic pet owners found inspiration for their purchase via YouTube videos.

We know that social media is a largely unregulated marketplace. Many platforms lack policies against the live trade and, in some countries, openly sell wild-caught animals.  

By allowing the trade legally, they have opened the door to unregulated illegal trade in wildlife. Searching online, we found lovebirds for sale as low as USD $3 each, green iguanas for $12, macaws for $19,000 and even a giraffe for $50,000.   

Governments across the globe must act and ban the global trade of wildlife now.  

Wildlife trade is increasing the risks to human and animal health, compromising animal welfare, and placing biodiversity under immense and unsustainable pressure.  

You can stand up for wildlife by making a promise to keep wild animals in the wild and not buy them as pets. 

Animal Welfare - an overview

A dilemma

To understand animal welfare and its scientific assessment, let us begin with a dilemma that threatened to throw animal welfare science into disarray.

In 1997 a scientific committee of the European Union reviewed the literature on the welfare of intensively kept pigs. The committee asked, among other questions, whether welfare problems are caused by housing sows in "gestation stalls" where the animals are unable to walk, socialize, or perform most other natural behaviour during the majority of pregnancy. The review concluded that, "Some serious welfare problems for sows persist even in the best stall-housing system", and with this review in hand the European Union passed a directive to ban the gestation stall as of 2013.

Not long after, a group of Australian scientists reviewed much the same literature and asked much the same question, but came up with essentially the opposite conclusion. They concluded that, "Both individual (i.e. stalls) and group housing can meet the welfare requirements of pigs." They also cautioned "public perceptions may result in difficulties with the concept of confinement housing" but that "the issue of public perception should not be confused with welfare". The swine industry in the United States has used that review, plus a similar one, to argue that there is no scientific basis for eliminating the gestation stall.

Very accomplished and capable scientists did both of these reviews with great thoroughness, and both groups likely felt that they had done the best and most objective job possible. What, then, went wrong? How could two groups of scientists review the same scientific literature and come up with opposite conclusions? If we can solve this dilemma, the solution will take us a long way toward understanding animal welfare and its scientific assessment.

Different views of animal welfare

To solve this problem, we need to go back to the debate that arose several decades ago when concerns were first expressed about the welfare of animals in the then-new confinement systems of animal production.

The first major criticism of confinement systems came in the book Animal Machines, by the English animal advocate Ruth Harrison. She described cages for laying hens and crates for veal calves, and she claimed that these systems are so unnatural that they cause animals to lead miserable and unhealthy lives. She went on to ask:

"How far have we the right to take our domination of the animal world? Have we the right to rob them of all pleasure in life simply to make more money more quickly out of their carcasses? A decade later, in Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer based his criticism of confinement production on the principle that actions should be judged right or wrong on the basis of the pain or pleasure that they cause.

In these and other quotations a key concern centred on words like "pleasure", "pain", "suffering", and "happiness". There is no simple English word to capture this class of concepts. They are sometimes called "feelings", but that term seems too insubstantial for states like pain and suffering. They are sometimes called "emotions", but emotions do not include states like hunger and thirst. Perhaps the most accurate, if rather technical, term is "affective states", a term that refers to emotions and other feelings that are experienced as pleasant or unpleasant rather than hedonically neutral.

Astrid Lindgren, the famous author of the Pippi Longstocking stories and a driving force behind animal welfare reform in Sweden, proposed:

"Let [farm animals] see the sun just once, get away from the murderous roar of the fans. Let them get to breathe fresh air for once, instead of manure gas." 

And American philosopher Bernard Rollin insisted that we need:

"... a much increased concept of welfare. Not only will welfare mean control of pain and suffering, it will also entail nurturing and fulfilment of the animals' natures." 

In these quotations, although affective states were often involved implicitly or explicitly, the central concern was for a degree of "naturalness" in the lives of animals: that animals should be able to perform their natural behaviour, that there should be natural elements in their environment, and that we should respect the "nature" of the animals themselves. All of the above quotations reflected the views of social critics and philosophers, but when farmers and veterinarians engaged in the debate, they brought a different focus. 

Here the primary emphasis is on the fairly traditional concerns of veterinarians and animal producers that animals should have freedom from disease and injury, plus food, water, shelter and other necessities of life – concerns that we might sum up as the basic health and functioning of the animals.

In these various quotations, then, we see a variety of concerns that can be grouped roughly under three broad headings: one centres on the affective states of animals, one on the ability of animals to lead reasonably natural lives, and one emphasizes basic health and functioning. These are not, of course, completely separate or mutually exclusive; in fact, they often go hand in hand. Harrison and Lindgren clearly believed that allowing animals to live a more natural life would make them more happy and healthy; Sainsbury clearly believed that unhealthy animals would suffer.

Nonetheless, the different areas of emphasis are sufficiently independent that the pursuit of any one does not necessarily improve animal welfare as judged by the other criteria. Fifty years ago the American psychologist Harry Harlow wanted to create a colony of disease-free monkeys for research purposes. To do this Harlow separated infant rhesus macaques from their mothers a few hours after birth, and raised them in individual cages where they could be isolated from pathogens. The monkeys could see and hear each other but they had no physical contact. The method produced monkeys with excellent physical health, but as the animals matured Harlow realized that they were, in his words, "emotionally disturbed"

What if we pursue only naturalness? Various studies of outdoor rearing systems show that animals may have plenty of fresh air and freedom to perform their natural behaviour, but may also be challenged by parasites, predators, and harsh weather that could be better controlled in more artificial conditions. Examples of problems include high neonatal mortality in outdoor pig units , and high levels of parasitism among chickens on organic farms.

Much the same is true of the pursuit of happiness. Well-fed Labrador Retrievers may never suffer from hunger but are likely to develop heart problems from being over-weight, and human smokers may feel miserable when they try to stop smoking even though they accept that this painful process is good for their health.

Given this complexity, we are left with a conception of animal welfare shown in Figure 1 which provides a summary of three key points: that animal welfare involves different components that can be grouped roughly under three headings; that these involve considerable but imperfect overlap; and that the pursuit of any one criterion does not guarantee a high level of welfare as judged by the others.

ANIMAL WELFARE

LET’S TRY & SAVE

The relationships people have with animals and the duty they have to assure that the animals under their care are treated humanely and responsibly. Despite its current popularity, interest in animal welfare is not a modern phenomenon. Concern for animal care and wellbeing has existed since domestication, which occurred at least 10,000 years ago in Neolithic times. Our appreciation and respect for animals led to their domestication, animal agriculture and animal husbandry, the branch of agriculture that deals with the care and breeding of animals. Many historians consider the development of agriculture to be the most important event in all of human history. The animal welfare ethic that developed in the Neolithic era is one that obligated people to consider their animals’ welfare in order to achieve their own purposes. It set in place a mutually beneficial arrangement between people and animals that goes like this: “If we take care of the animals, the animals will take care of us.” In this ancient but enduring pact, self-interest demanded that people take good care of their animals. Amazingly, this very fundamental animal welfare ethic survives today, especially in settings where hands-on animal care continues. Today we call this special relationship the human-animal bond.

Farmers, ranchers, animal trainers, animal scientists, dog and cat breeders, veterinarians, zoo keepers, and others who live and work with animals recognize these challenges and work within their professions, hobbies and businesses to address them. Businesses that work with animals adopt animal welfare policies, practices and programs to assure the availability of wholesome food and fresh water, veterinary care, proper handling, socialization and in recent years many have added environmental enhancements for the animals they keep. They evaluate individual animals for health and welfare indicators such as energy level, appetite, hair coat, brightness of eye and other signs. Some businesses use scientific methods such as measuring cortisol levels in blood to evaluate stress levels. When best practices are in place and the animals appear comfortable and healthy, the level of animal welfare provided is generally deemed acceptable.

Animal welfare proponents also work to end animal abuse. Animal abuse comes in many forms, but for purposes of simplification, can be separated into two major categories: abuse that occurs as a result of negligence (failure to act properly) or harm that results from deliberate acts.  The lines are sometimes blurred between what is intentional and what is not, and cases are decided on the basis of case-specific facts.  Every state now has felony laws against animal cruelty, but they vary tremendously from state to state in the acts they designate as felonies, and in the punishment they impose for those crimes. In the case of neglect, abuse can be the result of ignorance, such as when a pet owner didn’t recognize that a pet needed veterinary treatment; or when it is the result of behaviour that a person should have known would cause harm to animals but allowed to continue.