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Animal Factory

the Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment
Dec 22, 2012crowflown rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
It's a huge relief to have trustworthy information about the environmental consequences of confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Not knowing what happens to the neighbors of a CAFO is like walking around holding your hat in front of your face: it takes a lot of work to move forward when you are avoiding seeing what's in front of you. This journalistic account follows rural residents, mostly politically conservative, who were driven to activism when the air where they live was fouled, the rivers they depended on for fish were poisoned, and their rural communities were destroyed. There's very little information in this book about the kinds of neglect and cruelty towards farm animals now commonly shown in videos on the Internet. Instead, the book's author (who mentions that he does now and then eat at a fast food restaurant) tells the story of the fight to curb the environmental pollution caused by the now dominant industrial model of animal agriculture. Kirby clearly explains how CAFOs are part of an industry characterized by vertical integration, in which a few large firms own the animals and reap large profits, while the operators of CAFOs lease the animals, build structures to house them according to the company's specifications, buy feed from the company, send the animals to the company's slaughterhouses, and assume liability for any environmental damage. Kirby makes the case that the CAFO industry was able to drive smaller, independent operators out of business because taxpayers subsidize the large firms' operations and because CAFOs have been allowed to make unregulated discharges of trillions of pounds of wastes into the environment.