Is There a Factory Farm Near You?

You probably know about factory farms: those “farms” where hundreds or even thousands of animals are jammed into cages where they don’t even have room to move. Without going into too many gory details — how the animals are literally wallowing in their own shit and are fed mostly chemicals and diseased meat — here are a few links worth checking out.

What you probably don’t know is how prevalent these factory farms are. Most people tend to think there aren't that many of them and/or that they're all located in some desolate God-forsaken region where nobody has any teeth and everybody has two first names.

This online map will show you differently. They're everywhere, and there are probably several of them near you. This site has some very informative links that are full of nauseating but necessary information. (Click where it says "Learn More").

The e-mail where I got this map also has a re-printed New York Times editorial (not available online unless you subscribe to the NYT). The editorial says in part:

“Once upon a time, only a decade or so, it wasn't hard to know where factory hog farms were because they were nearly all in North Carolina. But since those days, the practice of crowding together huge concentrations of animals in the interests of supposed efficiency has spread around the country. Wherever it appears, factory farming has two notable effects. It threatens the environment, because of huge concentrations of animal manure. And it threatens local political control. Residents who want a say over whether and where factory farms, whose stench can be overwhelming, can be built find their voices drowned out by the industry's cash and lobbying clout.”

The editorial concludes with: “It raises two of the fundamental questions facing American agriculture. Do we pursue the logic of industrialism to its limits in a biological landscape? And how badly will doing so harm the landscape, the people who live in it and the democracy with which they govern themselves?”