Another 2 million get salmonella, resulting in an additional 2,000 deaths. To fight disease among their stressed-out animals, factory farmers dose them with antibiotics, many of which are also used to treat human illnesses. About a third of the antibiotics produced in America are now used in animal feeds, and the result is that factory farms are fertile breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant microbes. Though antibiotic-resistant human disease outbreaks are also on the rise, meat and poultry conglomerates have long denied any relationship with factory farming. However, recent papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere have made the connection conclusive.
Crowded conditions make it easy for diseases to spread quickly.
AP photo Even so-called mad cow disease is linked to factory farming. Cattle acquire the disease by eating commercial feed that contains ground-up animal parts, and cases have now been detected in Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. French farmer Guillaume Forzy feeds his cows only alfalfa, sugarbeet, hay and grass. On the independent family farm where both crops and livestock are raised, each supports the other. Livestock graze on the parts of the crop plant that aren't harvested for human consumption, and their manure is a key fertilizer for the crops.