The key to the bookkeeper is to put enough animals in a small enough space to keep labor costs low, land use minimal, and production predictable. The losers are the farmers squeezed out by factory farms, local economies, the environment, the animals, and the people that eat the animals. Works the same with pigs, cows, and chickens. A little E Coli can go a long way. Agriculture today is about more than plowing a furrow and planting seed.
Big dollars bring the consolidation of power.
In 1781 Thomas Jefferson wrote that the security of American democracy is tied to a nation of small farmers. But they are not the producers. In the past 25 years, the number of poultry farms fell by 35 percent, but production tripled to over 7 billion birds. Corporate livestock operations own not only the animals, but also large shares of packing and processing facilities. Exclusive contracts with processors give them an unfair market advantage.