How large are US factory farms, really? According to data from the US Department of Agriculture, the most recent record in 2022 was a little over 10 billion animals being raised for consumption. This is almost a 100% increase from 1987, which was at 5.2 billion.
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As the chart above shows, majority of these animals are meat chickens. And this can be explained by the rising trend of chicken consumption, replacing beef as one of the staple meats Americans consume, since chicken meat is perceived to be healthier than red meat.
However, this has also posed certain problems. For one, raising billions of chickens in a concentrated area can cause air pollution, not to mention the waste that it brings. Moreover, disease spreads more rapidly in these spaces, which could easily disrupt the food supply chain, inflating prices.
Chickens are not the only ones overpopulating farmlands. Cows, pigs, and turkeys have also seen an increase in number. And they pose the same problems if not more seriously than chickens as waste management for these animals may become an environmental and public health safety issue. They are not being disposed of or treated at sewage plants, but stored in pits inside the farm, which can leak to water sources and cause contamination.
Not only this, but since there are more animals being raised on farms, farmlands are decreasing, and more land is needed to plant soybeans and corn to feed the animals, which can further aggravate the situation when pesticides and other harmful chemicals are being used in growing these crops, which could all be washed off into rivers, streams, and the ocean, further exacerbating environmental pollution.
Check out the rest of the charts on Vox.
(Image credit: Kenny Torrella/Vox, Data from USDA Census of Agriculture)
Source: neatorama