According to the Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs 2012 publication, the number of global farmed animals rose from 3.5 billion in 1980 to 4.3 billion in 2010. While there has been a decline in meat consumption in industrial countries, the demand for meat, egg and dairy products in developing countries has increased at a overwhelming rate.
Factory farmed systems, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOS), are the most rapidly growing system for rearing animals. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that factory farms are responsible for 72 % of poultry production, 43 % of egg production, and 55 % of pork production worldwide.
The Worldwatch Institute highlights how such intensive systems produce high levels of waste, use huge amounts of water and land for the production of animal feed, contribute to the spread of human and animal diseases, and are partially responsible for loss of biodiversity. And these negative effects are in addition to the widely documented suffering caused to animals kept in factory farm systems.
Livestock production also contributes to climate change. The 2006 UN report Livestock’s Long Shadow estimated that livestock is responsible for 18 % of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and other organisations, including the Worldwatch Institute, have suggested the environmental impact of meat production is much higher. Just last Monday TheBeefsite.com admitted “for the planet as a whole, taking into account the large amount of deforestation to support meat production, and the fact that per-capita consumption increases are continuing for meat (which is a resource-intensive food), the FAO figure may actually be an underestimate”.
Another startling fact to consider is that, according to the Worldwatch Institute, approximately 75 % of the new diseases that affected humans from 1999 to 2009 originated in animals or animal products.
