Sustainability in Animal Agriculture

"The chain" is what meatpacking workers refer to as the processing line where animals are broken down into different pieces as cuts of meat for consumers. Workers who are often immigrants and resettled refugees are forced to slaughter and process thousands of carcasses a day in a cold and fast paced work environment with few breaks. Workers in a ham processing plant reported stuffing 7-10 pounds hams in bags at a rate of 50 bags a minute. Due to the fast paced nature, workers are more likely to develop musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) through their work. There is little concern by supervisors about repetitive motion injuries because they do not want to slow the meat processing. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) stated in 2014 that beef and pork processing workers are 7x more likely to suffer from repetitive motion injuries and nerve damage. Despite this, the government does not report MSD's diagnosed in meat processing workers.

The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat a year. The increase in meat humans consume over the years has had a significant impact on the environment.

The three main problems with meat production is food sourcing, manure processing, and climate change. Millions of acres of land across the world have been dedicated to raising corn and wheat feed for meat. All of these crops require their own food and energy to cultivate and none of that food is something that we actually consume. We are experiencing deforestation in South America and the loss of prairies in the American Midwest to meat farming. Creating agricultural fields releases carbon emissions that increase climate change, the second issue with meat farming. Crop fields are doused in harmful pesticides that are carried away by water into nearby ecosystems that can wreak havoc on them. Manure is often stored in open lagoons that can overflow when it rains that spread parasites and bacteria across the environment. Also, as manure decomposes it releases methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide which also contribute to climate change. Every aspect in the current supply chain of meat production harms our enviroment.

OSHA or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a "large regulatory of the United States Department of Labor"https://www.osha.gov/. Originally, OSHA was intended to be a way to stop large corporations from exploiting their workers in order to turn a large profit. Their job is to conduct regular exams on working conditions in places such as meatpacking plants and to make sure that the site is safe and humane for the workers. However, in the meatpacking industry OSHA works a bit differently. OSHA has made it harder for meatpacking employees to file complaints about their employers and they often ignore most complaints. They have made it harder by charging meatpacking employees a fee for reporting a physical accident and most of the time they come to the conclusion that the accident was the employees fault and they do not give them paid time off to recover. This causes chronic issues for employees and forces them to work through the pain. So why does OSHA not do a very good job at protector meatpacking employees? This is because they do not want to be responsible for slowing down meat production in the US. The corporations are extremely powerful, to make it look like they are doing something, OSHA often fines the large corporations with small fines that are equivalent to slaps on the wrist. In September, there was an outbreak of Covid-19 that infected over 200 employees and the Tyson factory did not shut down like they should have according to OSHA's guidelines. They were fined $2,000. Tyson makes that amount of money in under a minute.

This has been a known issue in the meatpacking industry for many years after independent filmmakers started to infiltrate slaughterhouses owned by some of the largest meat conglomerates in the nation. The source of most of our meat are overcrowded/inhumane meat factories like the Smithfield pork plant shown in the video above. Animals are pumped with hormones that alter their development to make them mature much faster than normal. This causes them to become immobile very quickly and to have severe organ damage because their bodies are growing way faster than they can actually support. Thousands of animals are crammed into large warehouses that are dark and disgusting. The animals have very little room to move around and are constantly trampling each other. Videos like these are disturbing where you can hear the screams and cries of the animals as well as others who have completely given up and accepted their fate.

In a survey conducted in the US, 94% of Americans agreed that animals deserve to be free from abuse and cruelty. However, this is rather difficult due to the high demand we have in the US for meat. To meet consumer demand, slaughterhouses are forced to subject thousands of animals to cruelty in factories to be able to process the thousands of animals a day it takes to meet the demand for meat. In the US, a cheeseburger or another similar meat-based food is among the cheapest meal option available. This is due to how fast that slaughterhouses can provide the market with their meat by using inhumane practices. It is very cheap to cram thousands of animals in a small building, inject them with hormones, and feed them fatty foods in order to yield tons of meat. Animals in large slaughterhouses are over 50% larger than animals who are raised humanely through grazing and plant based diets. 80% of all antibiotics in the US are used on meat and poultry production. This poses a risk to humans because these antibiotics are used to prevent disease in the animals. However, the widespread use spreads antibiotic-resistant bacteria into the environment that can be harmful to humans.

Animal agriculture already occupies about 40% of the worlds landmass, and it is believed that meat production is leading to the extinction of other animal species. This is because large scale deforestation is used to create new land to raise animals on and this is resulting in the lowering of populations in other species. The World Wildlife Fund found that animal populations declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012 and it is predicted that it will reach 67% decline at the end of 2020.

The Sumatran elephant is being endangered by deforestation of land to be used for animal agriculture. Its home is being replaced by farms and they are rapidly dying out by being displaced.

Anchovies and sardines are being caught in massive quantities to feed farmed fish and other meat animals. This means that penguins food supply is being depleted by human fish farming causing them to rapidly go extinct as well.

From the World Wildlife Organization

"Without action, the world could lose up to 656,000 square miles of forest land—an area more than double the size of Texas. We’d also lose all the benefits that forests provide—like jobs, clean water, habitat for endangered species and wood for cooking. Our ability to address climate change could be greatly reduced, as  deforestation and forest degradation  account for approximately 15 percent of global carbon emissions. This is more than the total emissions from all the cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships in the world."

All together, the meat industry is one of our most vital and also one of our most destructive industries. While there can be alternatives to meat factories such as organic and free range meat, those will never be able to fulfill the massive demand for meat we have. It is not necessarily the fault of the corporations who are producing these meats as they are simply responding to a demand that consumers have. If there was not such a large demand for meat there would not be as many meat plants and meat workers being exploited. The problem lies with our insatiable hunger for meat and our need to have it available whenever we want. Humans were not meant to constantly consume meat, it was more of a treat to have after spending a lot of time and energy hunting or farming and it was meant to bring people together and increase moral. I think we need to return to a similar relationship with meat meaning we do not need to stop consuming it all together, but we should not expect it everyday. If we slowly decline our meat consumption the world would be positively effected by it. Climate change and other animal species would start to return to normal levels, and we could convert some of our farmland that is encroaching on other ecosystems back to homes for animals. All in all, we should not keep pushing to find better ways to harvest the same amount of meat, but instead lower our hunger for it and we will see positive effects.