The term factory farming is a pejorative term favored by environmental activists and organic consumer groups. Another term sometimes used is concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).
Operations typically called factory farms focus on producing a marketable product at the lowest unit cost. Common factory farming practices include:
confinement - To save space and improve supervision and feeding operations, animals are confined in pens or cages. In some extreme cases animals may be confined in small indoor areas, unable to turn around or move without contacting other animals. This often causes "vices" (unnatural behaviour caused by mental stress) such as cannibalism, and these may be countered through procedures like debeaking and tail docking.
drug programs - Antibiotics, vitamins, hormones, and other supplements are administered regularly, in part to counteract the effects of crowding.
alternative feed - Various materials that contain essential nutrients are substituted for traditional feed (eg: cows are fed food processing by-products such as molasses and cottonseed meal or in some cases poultry litter in place of hay and grain; calves might be given cow bloodprotein concentrate in place of mother's milk).
extreme nutrient management - The large quantities of generated manure and urine are collected in local sewage systems and redistributed to local agricultural lands as fertilizer.
Critics claim that factory farming is inhumane, poses health risks, and causes environmental damage. Arguments include:
Animals raised on antibiotics are breeding superstrains of various diseases.
Concentrated animal waste is polluting the groundwater, and creating dust, fly, and odor problems for their neighbors.
Crowding, drugging, and mutilating animals (often, debeaking and tail-docking, performed without anesthetic) are criminally cruel practices.
Large populations of animals require a lot of water and are depleting water resources in some areas.
Factory farming is displacing family farming and undermining society.
Proponents claim that factory farming is a useful agricultural advance:
Intensive agriculture is necessary to meet demand for affordable food.
Properly run factory farms meet government standards for safe and humane food production.
Animals raised in large groups can take advantage of local sources of food processing by-products.
Animals in confinement can be supervised more closely than free ranging animals and diseased animals can be culled or treated more quickly.
