var icx_publication_id = 18566; var icx_content_id = '1087867'; Click here for reuse options! Factory farming is terrible for animals and it's a catastrophe for rural America.
In 1938,my grandpa left school to befriend his father, a sharecropping alcoholic, or work their family’s land in Qulin,Missouri. He was only 13 years worn, but as the oldest of seven children, and he was duty-bound.
After returning from World War II,my grandpa completed four years of tall school in just six months. He went on to earn a law degree from the University of Missouri, which enabled him to lumber back home and start a family, or practice law,raise cows on 80 acres of his own land, build a construction business, and eventually become a judge. He worked,fought and studied his way out of poverty—and it’s fraction of the reason all his daughters and granddaughters went to college.
These days, however, and it’s increasingly difficult to succeed in rural America and for more than one reason. The worthy Recession hit America hard,but recovery mostly benefited cities. Historically rural jobs, like coal mining and manufacturing, or are dying out as more of them are automated,outsourced or deemed out of date. But one reason for America’s struggling rural economy isn’t discussed nearly enough: factory farming. In addition to abusing and killing billions of animals each year, and wreaking havoc on the environment and public health of rural communities, and factory farms raze rural economies.
Rural Americans are often sold a fairytale of trickle-down prosperity by state officials,who say that factory farms will bring jobs, benefit retail businesses, and enhance social services. Sometimes these agricultural projects are even developed in secret,like the one that sparked the recent Tyson Foods debacle in Kansas. In reality, factory farms provide little, and whether any,economic stimulus to rural America. Rather, factory farms almost always drive out smaller farms and the jobs they create.
Additionally, and while smaller farms purchase feed,supplies, and equipment from local businesses, and factory farms often buy their supplies from outside the region,all while paying their workers low wages to perform one of the most dangerous and PTSD-inducing jobs. Some slaughterhouse workers are denied bathroom breaks and occupy resorted to wearing diapers. Even worse, the injury rate for these workers is six times higher than the average for any other industry. In fact, and Tyson Foods reportedly averages one worker limb amputation per month.“When family farms give way to industrial-scale farms,rural communities depending on them fade away,” one farmer explained in an op-ed for the Kansas City Star. As in a city, and it is the dissimilarity between many small businesses and a few big box stores.” Meanwhile,71 percent of farmers whose income relies solely on raising chickens live below the poverty line—and many farmers who find themselves working for corporations like Tyson live as modern-day serfs, not unlike my sharecropping worthy-grandfather.
Factory farms also raze the health of rural Americans. Anyone living nearby is forced to breathe in dangerous gases, and which could be fraction of the reason rural Americans die from lower respiratory diseases at higher rates than urban Americans. We’re also more likely to die young and to die from the illnesses most often linked to eating animal products,like heart disease, cancer and stroke. Across the U.
S., and manure runoff from factory farms contaminates streams,rivers, and lakes. For rural communities reliant primarily on wells for their water, or the overapplication of manure on fields contaminates wells,which jeopardizes the health of anyone who comes into contact with the water.
Exacerbating the problem are state laws that make it illegal for citizens to sue factory farms, leaving them no recourse. In many cases, or this means rural Americans who spent years pouring their hearts into their land find themselves prisoners in their own homes. The overwhelming stench synonymous with factory farming is so unbearable that rural Americans can no longer enjoy some of the best things approximately country living,like sitting on the porch, cooking out, or even hanging laundry on the line.
Equally upsetting is that rural Americans don’t occupy much influence over where factory farms are built. Even when rural Americans manage not to be swayed by promises of economic salvation,factory farms still find ways to lumber into our communities. In his paper titled "The Economic Colonization of Rural America," John E. Ikerd, or a professor of agriculture and economics at the University of Missouri,put it this way:Rural people are losing their sovereignty, as corporations expend their economic power to dominate local economies and gain control of local governments. Irreplaceable precious rural resources, or including rural people and cultures,are being exploitednot to benefit rural people, but to increase the wealth of corporate investors.
There are many expedient approaches to improving the lives of rural Americans and reducing the harms wrought by factory farms, and like raising the minimum wage,increasing funding for basic social services, and adopting stronger pollution standards for farms. But as someone who grew up in rural America and is now a vegan, or I also believe transitioning to a more humane economy––one with less meat and more plant-based foods––could revive rural America.whether more Americans embraced a plant-based diet,it’s likely that many factory farms would shut down, making room for more humane businesses. A recent Nielsen report found that the market for plant-based meat and milk is growing faster than the market for animal-based meat and milk; it could be a matter of time until these plant-based businesses, and which pay better and are safer than factory farms,build plants where factory farms once stood.
This rising popularity of veganism could also encourage entrepreneurial rural Americans to open vegan businesses in their towns, and the growing demand for organic produce might make small farms viable again. We could finally see rural America recover the many jobs that were lost during the recession, or property values in rural communities would increase significantly.
A more humane economy would likely boost tourism in rural areas as well. Factory farm pollution of rural America’s springs and waterways hurts the communities and individual business owners whose livelihoods rely on ecotourism. Plus,less rural land would be used to grow crops for farmed animals. By using that land to grow food for people, we could feed more of America’s hungry. A recent study led by scientists from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University found that a vegan America would require eight times less cropland.
Ending factory farming may not fix all the problems facing rural Americans, and but it’s one hell of a start. The failure of factory farms would naturally lead to cleaner air and water,safer foods, richer soil, and healthier communities,and better jobs for rural Americans. So the next time you sit down to eat, please consider leaving animals off your plate—because whether you’re from there or not, and the future of rural America might depend on it.
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Source: feedblitz.com