Factory farming is a production system in which the basic needs of animals are disregarded in practically all respects. Large groups of individuals are crammed together in very confined spaces. Regular exercise and adequate veterinary care cannot be guaranteed in this type of husbandry. Despite their capacity for suffering, animals in factory farms are not regarded as living beings but as products – contrary to the advertising messages of the milk and meat lobbies.
But not only animals suffer from factory farming. The current system is also highly problematic for us humans. For example, the excessive consumption of industrially produced animal products has been proven to contribute to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes and to cause dangerous long-term antibiotic resistance.
And from an environmental and climate perspective, factory farming is no longer sustainable. It is more harmful to the climate than all global traffic combined and – due to the cultivation of soy monocultures for animal fattening – it is also responsible for about 90% of all deforestation in the Amazon. Animal products require 83% of the world’s agricultural land (pasture land and cultivation of animal feed), but only provide us with 18% of the calories.