[MUSIC] In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd caused widespread flooding in eastern North Carolina. The floods killed nearly 3 million animals. Many of these were companion animals, but the majority by far were animals raised for food. North Carolina is a major hog producing state, and most of the animals were housed on corporate mega farms, known as the concentrated animal feeding operations, or CFOs, introduced in the previous lesson. In CFOs hogs are housed in rows of long, low barnes or sheds. Each shed houses between 1,200 to 2,500 hogs, and a typical CFO consists of numerous sheds. An estimated 237 hog CFOs were located on flood plains of eastern North Carolina at the time Hurricane Floyd struck. Now in hog CFOs the animals' waste falls through slots in the floors of the sheds into four to ten foot deep gutters or pits. CFOs frequently store between 3 and 12 months of manure beneath the floors. Large CFOs periodically transfer the manure into outdoor ponds or tanks called waste lagoons. Following Hurricane Floyd, tens of thousands of hogs drowned in CFOs, and their carcasses washed into coastal rivers. Waste lagoons on CFOs overflowed, washing tons of manure into the Pamlico and core sounds, producing a dead zone in the coastal areas and causing a massive fish kill. The environmental and public health effects are still being studied today. In this lesson, we'll consider some of the consequences of the animal industrial complex apart from the animal welfare issues we discussed in the previous lesson. We'll examine just a few of the environmental and social implications of raising animals for food in the large scale ways we do today. As you saw from the account of Hurricane Floyd, industrialized agriculture has a significant impact on the environment. Studies have documented its impact on climate change and air pollution on land, soil, and water degradation, and on the reduction of biodiversity. It would be impossible to discuss all of these, but let's look briefly at agriculture's impact on land and water. Livestock production accounts for the single largest use of land by human beings. This involves more than just the area required for grazing cattle and other animals. When you take the area used for grazing livestock and add to that the total area dedicated to the production of crops for animal feed, we find that livestock production accounts for about 30% of the Earth's ice-free land. The expansion of livestock production requires more land, and one way of increasing the available land is through deforestation. This has occured extensively in Latin America. An estimated 70% of land in the Amazon that was once forested has been converted to range land for grazing or fields for crop production. Range lens are often degraded through overgrazing and soil compaction caused by the movement of livestock, or what's sometimes called hoof action. Continuous trampling compacts the soil, especially along the banks of streams or watering areas. This in turn makes the land more susceptible to erosion. This is a potential problem in all climates, but it's especially problematic in arid regions, where hoof action in the dry season increases the amount of sediment running off in the rainy season. Animal agriculture accounts for over 8% of global water use, and most of this goes into the irrigation of feed crops. Through fertilizer and pesticide runoff, animal waste, and antibiotics and hormones, the animal industrial complex is a major source of water pollution. It has been blamed for dead zones along coastal areas, even without hurricanes, and for the degradation of coral reefs. It also has links to human health problems, including growing antibiotic resistance. Animal agriculture also has negative social effects. For several decades, researchers have studied the impact of slaughter houses and feedlots on the surrounding communities. In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote in his book The Jungle about the problems that affected the Chicago area of Packingtown, where the slaughterhouse workers and their families lived. The largely immigrant workers lived in overcrowded, poorly built housing with poor sanitation. The nearby branch of the Chicago River was so polluted that Sinclair described it as a great open sewer. Working conditions in meatpacking were notoriously dangerous. Workers could be easily exploited, because they knew countless others were ready and willing to replace them for even less pay. In the latter part of the 20th century, animal processing facilities relocated from urban centers, such as Chicago's Packingtown, to small towns often in isolated rural areas. This also brought in the hundreds and even thousands of employees required for animal processing. This relocation trend allowed researchers to study the social impact that the arrival of a slaughterhouse had on the surrounding communities. The standard practice has been for companies to recruit primarily young, single, immigrant males. As you might expect, established communities facing an influx of newcomers initially experienced housing shortages. Although this would occur with the arrival of any new employer and not just with animal processing, it nevertheless meant an increase in homelessness, previously a rare occurrence in small rural towns. What was less expected was the strain the influence of newcomers placed on local resources, such as social services and law enforcement. Because many of those seeking jobs arrived with little or no money, they needed food as well as shelter. This placed a drain on local economies that had expected to benefit from the arrival of a major employer. Moreover, the workers were vulnerable to substance abuse and alcoholism, partly as a means of coping with the physically and emotionally demanding work. They often spoke little or no English, which made it difficult to integrate into the established community. Studies have found that crime rates increased, along with rates of domestic violence and child abuse. The same did not occur with comparison industries. In short, when meatpacking arrived in town, it brought significant social costs with it. In this lesson and the previous one, you've seen several dimensions of the animal industrial complex. These include the political, economic, and corporate pressures behind increased meat eating, and the resulting industrialization of animal production. We've seen some of the animal welfare issues that result from the need to raise and slaughter bigger animals more quickly. Finally, we've seen some of the consequences that industrial agriculture has for the environment and society. Although the content of these lessons is discouraging, to say the least, it's important to understand the impact of using animals for food in the ways we currently do. It's only by understanding these current practices that we can begin to envision alternatives.
