Animal husbandry, in all its variants today, is largely a factory enterprise with the animal being the machine churning out record production in a record time. On most ‘modern’ farms, all animals, whether cows, chickens, goats or pigs, are crowded together indoors or kept in unnatural conditions. A cage, pen or similar enclosure where animals can barely move or turn around or stretch their limbs, becomes the only home they will ever know in their short(ened) lives, till they are slaughtered or ‘culled’. Their feed and water is laced with a wide variety of medication and antibiotics, of which constant doses are required to prevent a host of diseases, the possibilities of which are high due to due to the overcrowding, unnatural conditions, stress and quality and nature of food. Even in family-scale or small-scale animal husbandry, levels of cruelty have gradually increased over the years.
Manure, an important and useful by-product of traditional animal husbandry has become difficult to manage in ‘modern’ and factory-farming methods. Disposal of an otherwise useful material is often accomplished by dumping off as refuse or into water bodies, further polluting the environment.
The unnatural methods of husbandry, whether for meat, milk or eggs, including over-crowding, stressful living conditions, high usage of medication and imbalanced feeding, have a direct effect on the food produced by such a husbandry system, which in turn adversely affects the consumers’ well-being and health. Various growth and production-boosting hormones are being increasingly used by animal farmers which are often cruel and painful to the animal and affect their health besides contaminating the produce and thus having a negative impact on consumer health. Bovine growth hormone and oxytocin are two such hormones.
Another issue to consider is that animal products have a negative contribution to global food security and human nutrition. This is because agricultural land which could be used for growing food for human consumption is diverted for animal food and fodder cultivation. After accounting for land, resources like water and energy and food, and the nutritional and calorific value of the food produced, the output is always found to be lower than the input. Yet another serious environmental issue is the clearing of forests (as in Brazil where rain-forests have been cleared over vast acreages) to make way for cattle ranches which feed USA’s growing demands for meat.
In this regard, these figures from USA are revealing :
We at Satavic Farms do not participate in projects or provide services to farms where humane animal husbandry is not practiced or where slaughter or culling are planned.
To know more about humane animal farming and animal welfare, you may follow these links :
http://www.factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Antibiotics-Factory-Farming-Facts.htm
http://www.goveg.com/l-intro.html
http://www.peopleforanimals.org/
http://jivdaya.org/milk_its_impact_on_health.htm
http://www.abolitionist-online.com/interview-issue02_notmilkman_robert.cohen.pt1.shtml
http://pets.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1066538483.cms
http://pets.indiatimes.com/articleshow/896476919.cms
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