Is Factory Farming Good or Bad?
The most up-to-date means of food production is factory farming. This system has been
adopted by the United States, mostly due to the growing fast food industry. Factory
farming allows for high demand to meet high supply in a cost effective way. Factory
farming is a system where agriculture is carried out on a very large scale. Although
individual animals or products might not get as much individual attention as they did
before on small local farms, the system allows for large amounts of products to be made at
a faster rate and in more supply than before. A controversy emerges with this concept of
whether factory farming is actually beneficial to the community or if the costs outweigh
the benefits. Both sides of this argument have accrued support but the controversy has
become a battle between big business owners and individual consumers.
Producing anything in bulk will reduce the price of each individual item. Factory farming
allows this same effect to occur, only with food. By having more condensed farms, it
allows for more food to be produced at one time. Having so much food being produced at
one time allows big fast food corporations to buy a sufficient amount of product for a
lower price than organic products or products raised on small farms. Being able to buy
bigger amounts of meat and products allows for fast food to be cheaper than any other kind
of food. One can buy an entire meal for less than five dollars. With the economy in the
state it is today, this allows for middle and lower class families to eat on a manageable
budget. Although all of this is true, the quality of this cheaper food comes into question.
With so many animals occupying a small area, disease is very easily spread through
factory farms and can eventually end up in the American food supply. For example,
diseases such as salmonella, E Coli, and campylobacter outbreaks can be traced back to
tainted meat or even leafy greens as mentioned in Food Inc. If even one cow is tainted, it
can contaminate thousands of pounds of meat because the various carcasses are all ground
up together. This makes it very difficult to track down a single package or batch of
contaminated meat. When people get infected with these diseases, some of the medications
do not work because the bacteria are too advanced and have grown immune to the
