Blog Five

Human and animal life to the CAFO system is considered “expendable”, willing to be sacrificed in order to achieve an objective. This is easily observed through the ways they treat their animals, consumers and the environment. The animals suffer because they are arranged as a product instead of a being for this organization. But the animals aren’t the only ones who suffer from this CAFO operation humans and the environment suffers too. Humans are exposed to danger diseases from consuming CAFO products. The environment is destroyed from CAFO callous operational methods. This organization is set up in a way that nothing besides products which yield financial gain matters.
Animals are treated as objects instead of beings by CAFO structure. They genetically breed and produce animals with artificial insemination, eliminating the entire natural reproduction process. They are tortured by the workers from birth to death with tactics such as mutilation. They have their tails cut off, testicles cut out, breaks seared off, all without anesthesia. Animals are fed corn, chicken manure, same species and other materials which they cannot digest. This causes liver failure within the animals and pain. CAFO respond by giving the animals antibiotics in order to survive and be healthy. These animals are suffering because they are a product to this profit driven system called CAFO. But they pain isn’t only felt by them it spills over to humans who eat the products.
Consumers are constantly at risk of contracting food borne illness when they consume products from the CAFO system. We are exposed to E.Coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and countless other diseases that procreate at these factories. The factories try to minimize the toxic food threat to humans by loading the certain meat up with chemicals. They use a chemical known as ammonia to decontaminate the meat. The chemicals stop the short term issue of some deadly diseases but they may harm people in the long term. The intake of these ammonia filled products can be fatal. The liver automatically converts ammonia to urea in the body. The problem comes when the liver is no longer able to make the conversions. The high ammonia levels in the blood can lead to liver failure, cirrhosis, and hepatitis. This fact is hidden from most consumers; manufactures aren’t required by the FDA to put it on the labels. Apparently the CAFO system isn’t concerned either because they choose not to inform their consumers.
Destruction to the environment from the CAFO system is monstrous. Their operations consist of having thousands of animals in a space that can only support hundreds. They use lagoons to store livestock manure, lagoons are tanks made from concrete and steel. Lagoons have spill sometimes. The spillage from the lagoons leads to water contamination that poses health threats to humans. The lagoons also emit odorous gases. The gases produce symptoms in humans like nausea, headaches, irritated eyes and throats. They also cause health hazards like asthma and other airborne sicknesses. Livestock waste also contributes to global warming; it may influence the nitrogen deposition because of the ammonia released from the lagoons to the atmosphere. The results from global warming will be temperate rising, melting of the polar ice caps and dissipating cities due to the flooding.