Factory Farming Controversy

Has it ever crossed your mind where pet stores supply their adorable, irresistible-looking puppies from? They may look cute, most don’t exactly come from the nicest places. Most store displayed puppies come from a mass production, being bred in inhumane conditions. These companies are known as puppy mills. It has been proven that puppy mills supply almost 100% of all pet store animals. Not only are puppy mills harming puppies, these illegal companies can leave behind dire consequences. Such include financial obstacles for the government, overpopulation of dogs, and many others.

Sondra Simpson’s article “Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.: Strategy with a Higher Mission or Farmed and Dangerous?” alludes to portraying a controversy involving the popular Mexican fast food chain Chipotle and the agricultural industry, but it reads more as a testament to the restaurant’s environmental and marketing achievements. The introductory paragraphs lead us right into a brief explanation of the issue at hand, as well as Chipotle’s intentions and opposition. Simpson hooks her readers with inciting blog titles illustrating the overall feelings of Chipotle’s offended adversaries, such as, “Boycott Chipotle: My Farm is Not Dangerous” and “Chipotle Unnecessarily Tears Down Agriculture to Build a Brand” (qtd by Simpson p 38). These blog posts describe the agricultural industry’s reaction to Chipotle’s latest attempt at spreading their corporate message through a series of webisodes titled “Farmed and Dangerous.” These webisodes were co-produced by Chipotle to demonstrate “the most negative aspects of industrial farming. . . . such as antibiotic overuse and fossil fuel dependence in food production” (38). Chipotle asserts their intentions were to get people thinking about

“The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie” (Upton Sinclair).The revolutionary figure that will be addressed in this essay is the one and only Upton Sinclair. Through most of his life, starting from the age of 14, Sinclair was invested in voicing his opinions through fiction. He did this by taking a real-life issue and integrating it into the plot of his literature while a point of view in that literature is given to a fictional character representing something or someone related to the real-life issue. Although Upton Sinclair didn’t intend to, he improved the meat-packing industry’s cleanliness and ethics by revealing unethical practices and being

The three essays assigned this week had several common threads running through them. The strongest core theme is the rapid change in the food cycle in America and the vast changes that have taken place in the way by which we grow, produce, and process the food that average Americans eat. The food we eat now is drastically different from what our grandparents grew up eating and the three essays each examine that in a different way. Another theme is the loss of knowledge by the average consumer about where their food comes from, what it is composed of, and what, if any, danger it might pose to them.

Initially, the authors argue that the domestication of animals must be prohibited as it violates the basic rights of animals and raises moral questions. One right that animals must obtain is the right not to be property. When animals are a property they are mistreated and not protected. Despite the laws that governments such as the US and UK established towards animals, they only seem to be effective when a conflict arises between the owner and the animal. Furthermore, the

“Industrial agriculture characteristically proceeds by single solutions to single problems: If you want the most money from your land this year, grow the crops for which the market price is highest.” - Wendell Berry

Although Jeremy Rifkin, Bob stevens, and Lois Frazier have all written about their view on animals and how they are treated globally, but when bringing in animal rights groups like ASPCA and PETA, different bias and tactics are newly introduced.

“The more exposure people have to the realities of factory farming, the more we will see people rejecting it. It's already happening”(Jonathan Safran Foer). Factory farming has been going on since the 1900’s. Factory Farming is the production of livestock in large quantities for uses such as food supplies. Factory Farming is damaging to the animals, our bodies, and the environment.

The special topics course that freshman would be required to take would be called “Farms, Factories, and Food.” This course would be an exposure of the grim realities of the modern agricultural industry. Students would be made aware of the extreme mistreatment, and in some cases even torture, of animals in food factories. This course would also include discussions about how large agriculture companies use lobbyists and dark money to change public policy in their favor, instead of what is best for the American people. The course would also entail discussions about government policies towards different food such as corn, which is used in sugar and gasoline, along with pizza, which is legally considered to be a vegetable. It would also be important to compare government policies towards large factory farms and small, family operated farms.

The last thing that comes to our mind when we order a piece of steak at a restaurant is

The difference between a factory farm and a regular family farm is that a factory

Animal cruelty is becoming an issue that is too big to ignore. It can be defined as neglect or the infliction of pain or suffering towards animals. One might notice that this is an issue that is becoming more common in zoos and aquariums. These places can be wonderful for the animals, but can also portray an awful life for the captive animals. No animal should have to go through the pain and stress that many are suffering through. For the rest of the places, animals need to be returned to or left in their natural habitats.

Imagine having to raise your dinner, look it in the eye, and lead it to slaughter. Wouldn't you feel differently about how animals should live and how they should die? Natalie Purcell brought up this idea in “Cruel Intimacies and Risky Relationships: Accounting for Suffering in Industrial Livestock Production”. Animal

There is a growing consent that factory farming of animals or concentrated animal feeding operations is morally

Many of us, nowadays, eat and enjoy eating meat but many would agree that this is actually not an ethical action. Michael Pollan, in his persuasive style article “An Animal's Place" published in The New Work Times Magazine, on November 10, 2002 intends to persuade his audience that humans should respect animals and as long as they are treated well in farms and give them a more peaceful life and death it will be fine to eat them. According to Pollan, in today's huge industrial farms, cruel and unbearable things happen that are against animals rights. There is a high possibility that in the future these actions will stop as already some protest for animal rights have begun, because animals have feelings and farms take advantage of them thinking that they are mere machines, making them suffer. The solution to this conflict according to the author who supports friendly farms that respect and give a fun and secure life for animals. I believe that the author is convincing because he first makes clear what the argument is about, he then presents both moral arguments and