The Rise of the "Mega Farm"

Shades of "The Grapes of Wrath"? I mean the vision of the huge dust bowls created in the USA...Scary. As usual, I can only make a literary connection, but await the comments of those of you who know far more about this sort of thing.

Always something to learn on GN!

It is terrible news for any animals destined to be bred and reared in such inhumane conditions. To quote from the article:

"Farmers and officials insist the introduction of modern facilities offers a solution to Britain's voracious appetite for cheap meat by increasing production while maintaining or improving animal welfare standards and without affecting the environment"

Why should meat be cheap? I believe it should reflect the true cost of its production. We probably eat far too much of it nowadays and the animals bear the cost.

Having crossed the U.S. on an epic train journey we saw several of their vast feeding station 'farms'. They are massive bleak places where 1000s of cows stand shoulder to shoulder in yards intensively fed. Cheap meat is a disaster for all concerned. Nutritionaly we only need small amouts and not every day. Far better for it to be small portions of good quality meat - than us going down the route of huge slabs of protien that clogs arteries etc and reduces us to treating animals so badly.

Yes, I too question the wisdom of cheap meat Hilda and Nightowl for all the reasons given.

I saw those 'farms' too HildaW whilst driving through the US. Terribly upsetting. Funnily enough, it was in the Salinas Valley so maybe the literary connects stands.

I caught part of a programme about pig farms in America that kept burning down and each time hundreds [thousands?] of pigs burnt to death. Was horrified by it. OK so they're being bred to eat but give them a decent life first. I do eat meat but probably only about once a week [if that]. Note to self; must make a point of buying it from the Co op who are more ethical than a lot of other supermarkets [or so I believe].

Personally, I try to stick to a non-meat diet as I think the production of meat is a waste of resources. I agree with other posters - people that eat meat don't need to eat so much - quality is better than quantity.

When I was young, it was a treat to have a chicken at Christmas. Chicken is so cheap now that it's not valued at all. In a documentary about food waste I saw a woman slice off the breast meat and throw the rest of the chicken away. To produce chicken (or any other meat) so cheaply animals are intensively farmed and then pumped full of hormones, antibiotics and goodness knows what else.

I watched a programme on TV a year or so ago where the reporter flew over one of those mega farms in the USA. He said, even from the height he was flying at, he could smell the stench from the farm. In the UK we don't have the wide open spaces of places like Australia and the USA. Are people living nearby going to be subjected to this? My friend used to live near a very small pig farm - and it absolutely stank. Also, presumably, the vast amount of animal waste will drain into the soil and into the rivers.

This surely isn't progress.

www.pigbusiness.co.uk/pig-business-events/foston-june-2011/

This link gives information about the human cost, environmental cost, and animal cost. I remember signing a petition against this proposal the first time around but it seems the firm just won't give up. Bearing in mind South Derbyshire County Council voted unanimously against it last time it will be a travesty if it gets through this time.

Thanks for the info nightowl. It sounds absolutely ghastly and it's no surprise many people are upset.

Not exactly on the subject but our local dairy farm and milkman has this month had to give up because of the double (triple?) whammy of milk prices being kept articially low by IMPORTED milk sold in supermarkets, the appalling weather last year and over the winter which resulted in him having no silage of his own making and consequently the prospect of buying it in and needing to invest £30-40K to replace necessary farm equipment. They have been local dairy farmers for 4 generations and delivered faithfully over a wide area whatever the weather . I imagine the bottom has fallen out of their world and I along with many, many other customers feel the loss acutely. Did you know that milk only has to have 3% British content to "qualify" as British ? If it is imported from Eastern Europe - what price the environment? As consumers we have to take some of the blame as many of us prefer to buy supermarket milk because it is cheaper, but what about the cost of getting to the shops? It seems the smaller dairy farmer is damned whichever way he turns and all I know is that a family who just about have milk running in their veins, will now need to seek other work and maybe even another home.

gracesmum What a terrible shame. I feel a bit guilty on that one because we get our (organic) milk from the supermarket. We used to have a milkman but he often turned up after we'd left for work and the milk went off.

I guess from what you say that you live in a fairly rural location, whereas we live in London. I'm fairly sure that if we had a small local dairy we would support it.

I didn't realise how little British content milk had to contain to be described as British - that's ridiculous.

Cattle raised on concrete are grain fed and the meat is much less flavoursome and far poorer quality than grass-fed cattle, quite apart from the miserable lives the poor animals leave. The smell from gigantic pig farms is the least of worries; vast slurries accumulate and every now and again erupt like a massively tall geyser, spraying the surrounding area with fermenting pig shit. Nice!

Setting up mega farms would be an appalling thing to do but, of course, money talks.

animals lead, not leave - although they do that too.

Yes we do Eloethan - just 3 miles or so from the farm in question - but commuters (and there are many) need not have suffered - the milk was on our doorstep at 5.30 every morning - or more exactly 3 days a week, Tues, Thurs and Saturday without fail - even during the snow. We are devastated for them and they have kindly made a deal with a dairy about 12 miles away to take over the round on the same days and at the same prices. The milk is coming at the same time - fingers crossed they can keep it up.

Mega farms are truly appalling. The trouble is the majority of the population have been conditioned to believe that cheap is good without realising it's false economy and the people who buy inferior food don't tend to watch tv programmes highlighting the horrors of these things.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall justifies eating meat on the basis that we give the animals we eat a better safer life than they would have in the wild and then a quick and pain free death. Mega farms give them a worse life than they would have in the wild

I would rather go vegetarian than eat meat that comes from a factory that treats animals as if they are vegetables. I already do not eat chicken or pork in restaurants unless I know their provenance. The meat we eat at home is all organic, which is expensive but I bulk it out with vegetables and pulses and lentils so that 1lb of meat will serve six to eight people. I also do my best to ensure we only eat meat once a day at most.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall justifies eating meat on the basis that we give the animals we eat a better safer life than they would have in the wild and then a quick and pain free death. Mega farms give them a worse life than they would have in the wild

I would rather go vegetarian than eat meat that comes from a factory that treats animals as if they are vegetables. I already do not eat chicken or pork in restaurants unless I know their provenance. The meat we eat at home is all organic, which is expensive but I bulk it out with vegetables and pulses and lentils so that 1lb of meat will serve six to eight people. I also do my best to ensure we only eat meat once a day at most.

Mega farms are such a backward step with regard to animal welfare. There have been very informative programmes on TV in the last few years showing animal husbandry as it should be. Hugh FW, Adam Henson, Jimmy Doherty et al have been pushing the message with zeal. There are still too many people though who cannot afford to pay that bit extra so the campaign is in danger of dying at the supermarket checkouts.

Back in the seventies East Anglia was fast becoming a productive wilderness because of intensive cereal farming. It's taken thirty years to realise the error and replace hedges and trees. I dread to think it will happen again.

Not sure how that happened but it helps reinforce my views!!

Like you Flickety I don't eat pork or chicken in restaurants. It can be a bit of a problem can't it, and I find I'm turning more and more a restaurant vegan!

Cheap food, cheap clothes. It's what people want. Only when a factory collapses or the reality of mega farms is mentioned will some people wake up. I guess we've grown accustomed to being a throw away society - why not extend that to animals too? Bearing in mind the figures on food waste now surely the correlation is obvious? I don't waste any food and never have. It's quite upsetting that it's become the norm even when we're talking about non animal items but when something has died to provide that food for us and we throw it away, it's just appalling.

If you don't want to kill life in order to live yourself, you need to only eat foods that can be harvested from the mother planted without harming it. No carrots or onions then, or other root vegetables. You can take a leaf or two of a lettuce or cabbage while its root is still in the ground, making sure you pick off any insects that happen to be deriving life from it and put them back. Don't wash them off in the sink. That would be a crime. And you should really let all crop plants run to seed.

Fruit and nuts. That'll be safe.

As a vegetarian I am not anti meat farming at all.
I would though just like to ensure that the animals are kept and slaughtered humanely with a relatively free range life style. Being intensively farmed on concrete does not do that.
We do not need to eat as much meat as we do in the West. I have survived for 25yrs without any. I do eat dairy products. I have not suffered from any protein efficiency.
The desire for cheap meat and milk puts an unacceptable stress on animal welfare.

I agree far too much of the western diet has become meat. 10 ounce steaks for Pete's sake - that should feed three! I do wonder if this need for larger quantities of meat is down to poor quality. My butcher makes his own 4 ounce burgers from good beef. I struggle to eat a whole one and my high consumption meat loving SiL really struggled to finish two. Free range chicken not only tastes better but feeds more people. People don't realise that buying cheap is false economy.