Factory farming should be banned

Rebuttals OnlyIn round 2 PRO claims“1. Factory farms have an enormous environmental cost.2. Factory farm workers are often obused.3. Farmers of small farms often lose their jobs.4. Factory farming is not so effective after all.”PRO gave no evidence for these claims.Let me refute PRO’s unsubstantiated claims in order.1. Factory farming has no more “environmental cost” than raising the same number of animals with low efficiency methods.As I looked for details of the environment costs claimed by PRO I found contradictory and ridiculous claims.[1] Factory Farming is blamed for 37% of methane emissions (animal farts and vapors from sewage) as if this would not happen in some other form of farming. Large volumes of animal wastes are blamed for polluting the water supply. Again, this is more an issue of the number of animals that can be raised in the factory environment. Deforestation is claimed as a result of factory farming. This does not make sense. Factory farms reduce the amount of land used for grazing. Fossil fuel use is claimed to be a problem. Factory farms use less fuel per animal than traditional farming. Factory farms need one tractor per thousand animals where traditional farms use 2 or 3 tractors per 100 animals.2. Factory farm workers are not abused. It was difficult to find anything about this claim. The closest thing I could find was a claim that “ it is a common practice for those farms to hire either underage workers or illegal immigrants.”[2] Since these people choose to work at a factory farm, and there is a very low level of job vacancy we can assume there is no significant abuse.3. Farms that are not competitive may lose work. This has always been true. This is not an argument against factory farming. It is an argument for small farms to become more efficient. It is like saying “we should ban the internet to save jobs at Blockbuster Video”4. Factory farming is very effective. That is why small inefficient farms are not able to compete.I want to respond to some of PRO’s round 3 arguments.PRO states “Factory farming is currently more efficient, but small farms can be efficient by WSPA's Model Farm Project.” We need to compare things the way they really are. Factory farming is currently more efficient. Assuming we want our governments involvement in farming, they should be trying to improve efficiency of small farms, not banning the more profitable factory farming. PRO seems to think that the role of government is to prohibit the profitable methods of factory farming and subsidize the inefficient small farms. This is not really the role of government. If we are worried about environmental issues of factory farming then governments can set new standards or enforce existing standards. If the issue is the closure of unprofitable small farms we might choose to help these small farms with tax breaks or other help.There is much more to say, but let me repeat my main points.Governments should not ban factory farming for reasons around practical farming.Governments should not ban factory farming for reasons of the scope of government.[1] www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-factory-farms-and-environment[2] www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-human-cost-of-industrial-animal-agriculture/