Environmental Health Part 3
Damage from Intensive Farming

Pollution

In 2006, with environmental health and global warming a major issue, the UK Environment Agency published a booklet entitled Costs and charges for the intensive livestock sector under the Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) charging scheme

Acknowledging the extent of pollution caused by intensive livestock feeding, the agency decided to deal with it by charging the ‘factory farmers’. Having seen the UK tackling problems before by fining people and organisations, I think the only effect here will be to increase the wealth of HM Treasury. That’s another matter though. The statistics the environment agency quote make startling reading –

Picking through that extract, we find that intensive livestock production causes damage to soil, vegetation and…what’s that…human health?

Expanding on those three damage recipients, in order to get a fuller picture and a more realistic conclusion, it wouldn’t be fantasist to say that this pollution damages all aspects of environmental health; land, water, air and all living creatures.

The extent of the damage to the environment is made clear in an FAO report that states -

CIWF

Intensive or factory farming is a system that is geared to producing the highest output at the lowest cost. Such systems are never sustainable - there is always a price to pay. We are paying the price in terms of damage to our environment from pollution.

As well as causing environmental damage, intensive livestock farming results in inferior products. Factory farmed animals suffer stress and trauma, and are injected with an abundance of synthetic drugs including growth hormones and anti-biotics. Are we to believe that the meat produced from them is not affected?

And what about disease? Avian flu has already taken human life. Creutsfeld–Jacob is believed by many to derive from BSE infected meat. It is widely reported that the number of organisms resistant to anti-biotics is increasing rapidly.

For the last 50-60 years it has been the citizens of rich countries in the West that have 'enjoyed' factory-farmed meat as a daily part of their diet. Now though we have billions more people from China, India and other developing countries about to demand the same.

A pandemic in which an anti-biotic resistant disease sweeps across the globe is a real possibility.

Visit Environmental health Part 4 – organic livestock farming to see the dramatic results when a farmer goes organic for his livestock.

Return to organic food information

Go to benefits of organic farming - intensive arable

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