Technologies are overtaking CAFO production at nearly every level. Scientists are continually attempting to drive the system faster: developing drugs to battle diseases from stress and overcrowding; breeding and genetically engineering animals that can be grown and processed in less time and more passively tolerate artificial confinement; eliminating human labor from all aspects of production.
The predicament we face in applying industrial remedies to the challenges of agriculture is that so often we end up with a “technofix”: a technological approach that seems to solve one problem but ultimately creates a cascading effect of unforeseen consequences. One oft-cited example is the Green Revolution, championed in the latter half of the twentieth century to increase global grain yields through plant breeding and the aggressive use of agrochemical fertilizers and pesticides and vast water and energy resources. Although the yields and advances of the Green Revolution were remarkable at the time, the unanticipated problems that this industrial farming approach created in terms of soil erosion, environmental contamination, biodiversity loss, and aquifer depletion have created a false sense of continual progress. In the short term, humanity averted large-scale famine and our population expanded, but arguably at extreme environmental, social, and economic costs.
Most technological approaches fail to address the Achilles heel of the CAFO industry: that of massive scale. When something goes wrong in a CAFO—the outbreak of a new disease or pathogen, for example—it can race through a population very quickly. In massive processing facilities comingling products such as ground meats or milk from widespread sources, pathogens can be distributed throughout the human food supply nearly as quickly. Relying on expensive technological solutions in the name of food safety or efficiency also often leads to greater concentrations of animals to pay for them. “Every time the industry comes up with a solution to a problem,” writes animal behaviorist Dr. Temple Grandin, “the solution ends up costing so much to implement that the industry has to intensify production—raise more pigs—to remain afloat.”1
Technologies geared to boost production eventually hurt small-and medium-size producers by flooding the market with cheap products. The only producers able to survive a low-margin market are those that can afford to spread their fixed costs around very substantial “animal units.”
From the cloning of farm animals for food, fiber, and pharmaceutical production, to the genetic engineering of farmed fish and livestock, to the use of radioactive materials and other techniques to render unhealthy food “safe,” the industry and its research arms are attempting to keep the CAFO system alive at all costs. Many of these techniques remain untested for long-term consequences. Instead, concerned citizens as well as eaters are expected to have faith in this brave new technology-intensive food system. The primary assumption is that industrial production offers the only real and practical solution for modern food needs given population demands.
Despite mixed rulings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration on the safety of cloning technologies, foods from genetically cloned animals are already entering the marketplace: through rendered downer animals, the milk supply, the sale of semen from cattle cloning companies, the production of drugs for human use, and other avenues. Whether we like them or not, whether we want them or not, whether they’ve been properly tested or not, cloned animals are entering the food chain. Once introduced in the broader environment, cloned foods will become increasingly difficult to isolate from the food supply and from the farming world.
In 2008, the vegetarian activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) offered a $1 million reward for the commercial production of “in vitro” chicken. The contest winner must produce—by June 30, 2012—a faux meat that tastes indistinguishable from chicken. It must be approved by all requisite health agencies and be manufactured in significant quantities to be sold in at least ten states. But the biggest challenge of all? The flesh will be “vat meat,” produced in a laboratory rather than from a living, breathing chicken.
Among PETA’s largely vegetarian membership, the announcement was highly controversial. But its link to the organization’s mission was clear. More than 40 billion chickens, pigs, cows, and fish are raised and slaughtered in the United States each year for food, many in horrific ways. Could in vitro meat production alleviate tremendous suffering? While this “high concept” idea might seem borrowed from a science fiction movie, “specialized tissue engineering” is, in fact, a serious pursuit and could one day contribute synthesized animal products to the food supply. In 2008, an international symposium was held in Norway to report on the progress being made to fabricate muscle tissue on an industrial scale. Does this sound appetizing or desirable?
We don’t have to look far to see the future of industrial animal production. Featherless chickens that don’t need plucking, with genetically shortened beaks so they can’t angrily peck away at a neighbor. Or, eventually, extra-plump, omega-3-rich chicken breasts grown in petri dishes requiring no animals at all.
High-tech factory methods aren’t the only way to raise animals. By the same token, alternative approaches don’t have to be void of technology or innovation. The alternative to the CAFO system, however, does require more hands-on livestock handling, along with careful observation of how new technologies influence animal behavior and impact the broader environment. Management must be involved. Even the best staff training can be overturned by managers who are desensitized to suffering or overly focused on profitability and efficiency. A marriage of appropriate technology, proper scale, healthy production, and real animal welfare standards is not only possible but is clearly necessary to restore balance to a rapidly industrializing food system.