Report urges huge changes to factory-farming practices

WASHINGTON — Factory farming takes a big toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock, concludes an independent, 2 1/2-year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.

The report, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and released Tuesday, finds that the "economies of scale" long used to justify factory-farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.

Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.

Tough recommendations

Several observers said the report, by a 15-member commission of experts with varying backgrounds, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the research and review process.

In the end, even industry representatives on the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production agreed to such recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals, a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.

The report, "Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Production in America," comes at a time food, agriculture and animal-welfare issues are prominent concerns.

Food prices are rising faster than they have for decades. Concerns about global climate change brought new attention to the fact that modern agriculture is responsible for about 20 percent of the nation's greenhouse-gas production. And recent meat recalls, punctuated by the release of undercover footage of cows being abused at a California slaughterhouse, struck a chord.

The report acknowledges that the decades-long trend toward reliance on "concentrated animal feeding operations" brought some benefits, including cheaper food.

But the system also brought unintended consequences. With thousands of animals kept in close quarters, diseases spread quickly. To prevent some of those outbreaks — and, more often, simply to spur faster growth — factory farms routinely treat animals with antibiotics, speeding the development of drug-resistant bacteria and in some cases rendering important medicines less effective in people.

It appears that the vast majority of U.S. antibiotic use is for animals, the commission noted, adding that because of the lack of oversight by the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies, even regulators can only estimate how many drugs are being given to animals.

The commission urges stronger reporting requirements for companies and a phaseout and then ban on antibiotics in farm animals except as treatments for disease, a policy initiated in some European countries.

The Pew report also calls for tighter regulation of factory-farm waste, finding that toxic gases and dust from animal waste are making workers and neighbors ill.

In calling for a 10-year phaseout of intensive confinement systems such as gestation crates for pigs and so-called battery cages for chickens, the commission adds impetus to recent commitments from some corporate operators to drop, gradually, those practices.

"These animals can't engage in normal behavior at all," said commission member Michael Blackwell, a veterinarian and former assistant U.S. Surgeon General.

Effect on prices?

The report also calls for implementation of a long-delayed national tracking system that would allow trace-back of diseased animals within 48 hours after a human outbreak of food-borne disease. It also calls for an end to forced feeding of poultry to produce foie gras.

Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, said he agrees with the idea of better disease tracking on farms. But he said many of the other recommendations would drive up the price of food.

"It's naive to think we can do away with antibiotics and modern livestock-production systems and still feed the world," Warner said.

But panel chairman John Carlin of Kansas State University said that making the necessary changes to the system doesn't mean making meat, milk and eggs so expensive that people can't afford to eat.

"We're talking pennies. And when you factor in the positives from the standpoint of public health and the environment, it would actually save us money," he said.

Material from The Baltimore Sun and USA Today is included in this report.