Factory farming endangers the natural world, threatening the survival of many animals and plants.

Real story:

How a pristine wilderness is being destroyed for animal feed

We rely on the health of ecosystems for our general wellbeing - they provide our food, our water, even our air¹. In 1997, a group of scientists stated that the services provided by our ecosystems, if properly valued, would be worth around US$33 trillion every year². Despite this, the survival of countless plant and animal species around the world is currently threatened³. While there is a range of factors driving this extinction crisis, a critical component is factory farming.

Toxic outputs

Factory farming can create a range of pollution problems, fragmenting and even destroying natural habitats. This can drive out or even kill the animals and plants that inhabit them. The range of wastes from factory farms can be particularly problematic, leaking into water courses and, in the worst cases, leaving vast "dead zones", where few species can survive. Some of the nitrogen will also become gaseous, turning into ammonia, for instance, which creates problems such as water acidification and ozone layer depletion.

169 marine areas have been identified as "dead zones" as of 2008 - up from 44 in 1995. One of the largest, found in the Gulf of Mexico, was estimated in 2002 to be the size of Massachusetts - 22000 square kilometers.

World Resources Institute (WRI) (2008)⁴

The rush for land

The deliberate destruction of natural habitats is also a significant driver of biodiversity loss. Because the farm animals need to eat so much, we need a lot of land to grow the feed. In fact, around one third of the world's crop lands are already given over to growing animal feed⁵. Unfortunately, because space for crops is already at a premium, we are seeing a push for land in parts of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, including environmentally valuable grasslands and forests. Between 1980 and 2000, an area over 25 times the size of the UK was created in the developing world for new farmland - over 10% of this was at the expense of existing tropical forests. The scientists who discovered this concluded that intensive agriculture, rather than family farms, was the dominant driver⁶. The problem isn't just limited to tropical regions though; increasing pressure on crop lands around Europe, for example, is leading to the disappearance of a wide variety of plants and animals⁷.

Current trends suggest that agricultural expansion in the Amazon for grazing and crops will see 40% of this fragile, pristine rainforest destroyed by 2050.

Nature (2006)⁸

A changing climate

As covered in our climate change section, factory farming produces substantial greenhouse gas emissions - 18% of our total emissions in fact, which is more than the global transport sector⁹. These emissions are intensifying climate change and making certain habitats increasingly hostile to live in. According to the Convention on Biological Diversity¹⁰, climate change may affect plant growth and production by promoting the spread of pests and diseases, increasing exposure to heat stress and changing rainfall patterns, and encouraging soil erosion due to stronger winds.

One in 10 species could face extinction by the year 2100 if current predicted climate change impacts continue.

National Academy of Sciences (2010)¹¹

But don't just take our word for it

Factory farming endangers the survival of other animals and plants, with impacts including pollution, deforestation and climate change.

UNFAO (2006)¹²

Expanding and intensifying agriculture [leads to] habitat destruction, degradation and fragmentation.

Birdlife International (2011)¹³

Biodiversity contributes…to many constituents of human well-being, including security, basic material for a good life, health, good social relations, and freedom of choice and action... [L]osses in biodiversity…have caused some people to experience declining well-being, with poverty in some social groups being exacerbated.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005)¹⁴

So what?

Factory farming endangers the natural world. By taking action against factory farming, we are also helping to preserve valuable ecosystems and the animals and plants that inhabit them.

Our sources

1. Defra (2011), Ecosystems Services
2. Nature (1997), The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital
3. IUCN (2008), Wildlife in a Changing World, An analysis of the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™
4. WRI (2008), Eutrophication and Hypoxia in Coastal Areas: A Global Assessment of the State of Knowledge
5. UNFAO (2006), Lifestock's Long Shadow
6. PNAS (2010), Tropical Forests Were the Primary Sources of New Agricultural Land in the 1980s and 1990s
7. Birdlife International (2011), Agriculture in Biodiversity in the EU
8. Nature (2006), Modelling Conservation in the Amazon Basin
9. UNFAO (2006), Livestock's Long Shadow
10. CBD (2007), Biodiversity and Climate Change
11. National Academy of Sciences (2010), Recent Ecological Responses to Climate Change Support Predictions of High Extinction Risk
12. UNFAO (2006), Livestock's Long Shadow
13. Birdlife International (2011), Human Actions are Putting Pressure on Species, Sites and Habitats
14. MEA (2005), Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing

Huge thanks to RonanW for the image (cc)