Talk:Factory farming

needs to be worked on. Factory Farm is a term that is almost exclusively used in conjunction with negative information about these particular farms. In addition the term is almost never used in the agriculture term is almost always associated with animal rights/welfare or environmental groups that are advocating agaist these farms. --71.205.192.189 (talk) 05:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

This topic needs more perspective. The posts seem to reflect and are referencing cites to those opposing larger agricultural production operations. The article needs to explore why someone opposes a business because they perceive it to be large rather than simply judging it evil because it is large. This is true especially for food production because without some larger operations, people would go hungry.Whobach (talk) 11:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

the definition used for factory farming is inadequate and misleading. For example, two farmers are farming next to each other. One farms 100 acres and the other 5000 acres. Both use tractors, plows, harvestors, etc..... Using information in this article, ascertaining the industrialized processes that differentiate these two operations is impossible. Is the use of a tractor an industrialized process? Why is one of the two a family farmer and the other a factory farmer? What if a large corporation owned the 100 acre farm and a family owned the 5000 farm? Anyone reading this article would be confused. The article needs a rewrite and especially needs more perspectives.Whobach (talk) 12:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC

Whobach: yep, agree that the definition can be worked on, but your good faith edit still fails to maintain a NPOV. I would suggest perhaps (and anyone pls weigh on this) that if we want to cite the USDA, we bring in their classification of these large farms, which is CAFO http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/afo/. The fact that a farm is family owned or provides a need really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it falls under the "factory farm" definition. And I've been reading this page over and over, trying to get a sense of what the "evil" is in this and I'm just not finding it. If anything, I would suggest that your edits actually draw focus to a perceived evil. I'm thinking that the definition could include the USDA's definition of a large farm and then add something to "Scale" or "Characteristics" about who these farms are owned by. Also, please review how to add references. Bob98133 (talk) 15:34, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I definitely need some help on editing and references but i will get there. It is difficult for a reader to understand the use, definition and context of term "factory". First this is a blanket term applied to all meat species and that is a big mistake. The production process are so differentiated as to make a general statement meaningless. With respect to cattle, all cattle are confined. Some are confined to areas with forage and some to areas without forage. Some areas with forage are stocked densely and some areas like desert pastures are sparce. Most areas require supplemental feed for the cattle because grass is dormant portions of the year, like wintertime. The feed must be mixed and fed to the cattle. The mixing and delivery is the same process that has occured for 100 years. This same application occurs in a feedyard. Feed is mixed and delivered to the cattle. Where is the factory? What are the industrialized processes? How do you define industrialized processes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whobach (talk • contribs) 14:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Whobach: Interesting points, all. When in doubt, I always go to the Oxford English Dictionary to get a base from which to start. The first use of the word "factory" dates to 1640 with a meaning of "the action or process of making anything" followed by the first use of the word in 1664 to mean "A building or range of buildings with plant for the manufacture of goods; a manufactory, workshop; ‘works’." From that, the term "factory farming" (which, btw, shows up on Dictionary.com as well as MSN Encarta, and the NYT actually has a search category for articles on the subject) can be applied to ANY size operation where animals are confined and used to produce a product. Also, factory farming doesn't just apply to meat species. I've seen it applied to egg production as well. What do you think of the USDA's use/definition of CAFO's? (Please feel free to ask questions about referencing processes, happy to help!)Bob98133 (talk) 17:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary is a source we can all accept and i don't find factory farming in my edition. "Factory" is a term used for manufactured goods. It is only in the last decade that urban writers with little or no understanding of ag production processes introduced the term and applied it in a pejorative manner to large farmers. The NYT has championed its use but can not and will not explain its definition or why, when or how it is applied, or to whom. There is no known use of the term "factory farmers" by large commercial operations involved in producing meat or ag products.Whobach (talk) 12:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The manufacturor of a product in a factory has no feeling towards the product. The producer of a beef animal must care about well being of the animal or the production process will fail. This excludes the use of factory by any objective standard. The target of the term "factory farming" is simply to operations of a large size. No one can say at what size the term should appropriately be applied. A more appropriate term would be "large commercial farming" and some CAFOs would fall in this category. Absent the large commercial farming operations, many in this country would starve. Whobach (talk) 12:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be no NPOV by contributors to this article. All references and source material is negative in tone and content towards large commercial agriculture operations.Whobach (talk) 12:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Archiving

|Spenny]] 16:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Picture may not be right

The picture of cows on a feedlot may not be a real factory farm. Such feedlots exist where cattle merely pass through and are not retained there. I note it is from an epa website that is about animal feeding operations and not necessarily factory farms. --Blue Tie 23:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but what is a factory farm? Serious question: is for example an animal feeding operation simply a form of factory farming aka industrial agriculture? The terms are not clearly defined, what definition were you thinking of? Personally, it strikes me as representative of an example of a style of factory farming, but I wouldn't fight a battle over some suitable alternative. Spenny 23:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I was using the definition of factory farming as provided in the article. By that definition, this picture does not seem to apply. --Blue Tie 23:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Which definition? There are several, for example under terms it suggests it applies to In the U.S., factory farms are also known as confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), concentrated animal feeding operations, or intensive livestock operations (ILOs). which would seem to cover the picture context you mention. However, we have a barren and unnatural version from the intro which is also applicable. There is a long debate on terminology, and the problem is that even within the article it is not absolutely clear, though in reality there is not one definition but a variety of definitions.

What do you think would be a good way to address your concerns? Spenny 23:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I get the impression that a "Confined animal feeding operation" (CAFO) is what is meant by Factory Farming. CAFO is a form of "Animal Feeding Operation" (AFO) but AFO is not a form of CAFO. The picture is of an AFO but not a CAFO. You can see that the definitions for Factory Farming and other examples are indoors, whereas this picture is outdoors. (And certainly a CAFO must be indoors).

So if the definition includes ordinary feedlots as part of factory farming, then this picture would apply, but, then too, the article should be revised to express this wide ranging definition. I think that perhaps the picture should be removed. At the very least it should be retitled in the article, but I do not think that would go far enough. I'm interested in hearing what others think. --Blue Tie 00:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"Confined animal feeding operation"s can be outdooors. The difference between CAFO and "Animal Feeding Operation" (AFO) is largely one of size which results in CAFO's producing concentrated environmental pollution that must be regulated by law. [1] [2] WAS 4.250 05:11, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

<<<CAFOs can be outdoors. The "barren" aspect refers to lack of natural vegetation that the animals can eat and can naturally process the resulting animal waste. High density destroys the vegetation and produces unacceptable pollution from the animal waste in runoff and ground water unless it is handled appropriately, so laws have been enacted to deal with that; thus the legal definition for the term CAFO. Confinement here is about destroying the vegetation. Caged for life in pens too small to be humane is a completely seperate issue from what "confined" refers to when used to define "factory farms" and "CAFO"s. WAS 4.250 05:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure how this definition exercise pertains to the picture which appears to me to be of a transition feedlot. --Blue Tie 18:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure why you think being a transition feedlot (if it is) precludes it from also being part of a factory farming operation. WAS 4.250 22:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Googling "transition feedlot" produces nothing but googling "feedlot "factory farm"" produces sources indicating that many American cattle have a traditional first few years of life followed by being processed by factory farming (industrial farming) methods. Perhaps you were under the impression that it isn't "factory farming" if it isn't conception to dinner-table industrial processing. It is a set of methods that are constantly in evolution as research and laws and disease and consumer attitudes creates new conditions. WAS 4.250 23:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

new animal health material

I have reverted this section since it needs discussion prior to such a major change. The first reference used is a "group" formed by most major drug companies selling pharmaceuticals to the animal agriculture sector - see members here: http://www.ahi.org/aboutAHI/member_comp.asp As such, they are far from impartial as a source. One of the references used for the USDA is a list of references and the other is to the table of contents of a report - not to the report itself - neither are good references.Bob98133 (talk) 15:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

proposed content

• Animal health — "Because farm animals produce a vital part of our food supply, farmers use different tools to protect and maintain the health of animals. Healthy animals are an essential first step to ensuring safe food." Unhealthy farm animals can spread disease to other animals and humans and decrease the farmers' profits; so farmers, the farming industry and society all take measures to insure farm animal health. These measures include antibiotics, vaccination, stress reduction measures, research, disease surveillance, quarantine, agriculture trade restrictions, proper nutrition, and other measures.

WAS 4.250 (talk) 16:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Acording to the FAO: "you cannot feed six billion people today and nine billion in 2050 without judicious use of chemical fertilizers. [...] data and models regarding the productivity of organic as opposed to conventional farming show that the potential of organic agriculture is far from large enough to feed the world. [...] The key elements in feeding the world now and in the future will be increased public and private investments, the right policies and technologies, knowledge and capacity building, grounded in sound ecosystem management."

WAS 4.250 (talk) 16:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Your first statement about how many animals you can feed using chemical fertilizers is out of place in this article. The article is not about chemical ferilizers, it is about factory farming. Although I agree there is probably a link between the two, this is the wrong article to be making it in. If you are keen on this info being in Wiki, why not put it in organic farming or pesticides or soemwhere it belongs? Please read this entire article prior to making changes - much of what you say is already discussed in the Key Issues section. I reverted your last edit since there is always a balance between things like big farms being able to hire vets more easily and how many animals each vet has to examine. Realisically, when 100,000 chickens are kept in one barn, it would take almost that many vets to assure their well-being. When a farmer has 10 chickens, he is probably better aware of their health even if he is less likely to call a vet. If you are going to claim that the availability of vets is a bonus for factory farms, then you have to examine the vet:animal ratio for it to make sense. The AVMA publishes data on the number of vets involved in intensive agriculture - if you divide this number into the number of animals produced in intensive agriculture, you're going to end up with each vet "caring" for thousands and thousands of animals. Maybe that's better than small farms, but I wonder. Bob98133 (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

As near as I can tell, you are making the same mistake some previous editors made in that you are mistaking this agriculture article for an animal rights article. My two edits where merely to add sourced information, not to engage in debate on an issue close to your heart. In the one case, "animal health" is an important issue that is dealt with using a variety of measures and your response is to bizarrely claim that people making their lively-hood in agriculture are not to be trusted making claims about agriculture. In the second case, someone added a fact tag so I tried to illuminate what was being claimed - there are two aspects to the need for "factory farming" to support the human population - one, that I did not go into involves the fact that humans are not choosing a meat free diet - that concerns the more limited definition of "factory farming" as a concentrated animal farm - two, that I did address, was the need for factory style farm management - specifically in terms of soil management. WAS 4.250 (talk) 01:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if you think I'm mistaking this for an animal rights article. Actually, I thought it was an article about intensive confinement farming which has to do with the number of animals kept and the condtions in which they are kept. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the use of chemical fertilizers, organic foods or the number of vets per animal. Bob98133 (talk) 14:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the article should be about intensive confinement farming; but if it were, we would then need to delete the claims about mad cow disease because that is related to animal feed issues and not animal density issues. The article is a mess due to a former battle that got way out of hand. Maybe you could help improve the article to be an agriculture article about intensive confinement farming; because that's not what it is now. What it is now is the messed up battlefield of an ugly edit war. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, OK. I can see how that happened. I'll take a look at this article as a whole when I have time and see if I can reorganize it so it makes more sense and stays on topic. Any help is appreciated! Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 19:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

See Industrial agriculture for our article on "factory farming" in the broad sense of the phrase and http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Confined_animal_feeding_operations&action=history for the location the content of this article could go if it was confined to the subject of intensive land animal confinement farming. See Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture for an interesting example of the new movement towards the scientific integration of multiple species in an integrated artificial ecology that renders obsolete simplistic divisions of agriculture. Also see Industrial agriculture (animals). WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

NYT

There's a Mark Bittman article on factory farming in the NYT Week in Review. Useful? Incidentally, a quote: "Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all." Is the use of the word 'growing' common? Perhaps we should consider using it here. Relata refero (talk) 10:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Just read the above exchange. Copying this note to the other article. Relata refero (talk) 10:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Animal rights tone

I'm changing "treating farm animals as mere factory parts" to "treating farm animals as factory parts" since the original is an inflammatory statement indicative of an animal rights bias. Qc (talk) 04:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

After reading a bit more this article has a major animal rights bias. A lot of cleaning needs to be done. Qc (talk) 04:17, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read the rest of the article closely, but I agree on this edit. I don't know about "inflammatory" but "mere" is definitely a weasel word. Bob98133 (talk) 14:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I would read the use of mere as indicating that factory parts are lesser than farm animals; in the sense that animals are alive. Consider, "John handled the precious vase as if it were mere glass.", it should be read as saying that John was not being careful with the vase. The whole idea behind the sentence "treating animals like factory parts" seems to suggest that animals are greater in value than factory parts in terms of intrinsic rights; thus, the "mere" doesn't really seem to be suggestive of anything beyond making this clearer.Phoenix1177 (talk) 09:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. I'm not sure how I read this before, but as you explain it "mere" does fit. It's still a bit weasily though, maybe something like 'no better than' or something like that would be more clear. Bob98133 (talk) 14:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

"treating farm animals as factory parts" is a POV bit of rhetoric that isn't provided in any of the references. I've reworded it. Neıl 龱 10:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

BSE - Natural food source?

I think the spread of BSE was promoted by factory farming. Meat and bone meal isn't a natural foodstuff for ruminants - it's quite unnatural. I think the reason it was used was because it was a cheap source of protein which was a byproduct of factory farming, so it was good economics to grind up and feed unsaleable cows or parts to growing cattle. I don't belive this is a practice that small farms ever engaged in, unless they bought a commercially prepared food that included animals. So I think this should stay in the article, perhaps a line explaining why. Bob98133 (talk) 00:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It is all a matter of how one defines "factory farming". This article as it stands is more about high density animal farming (raising for food) than about the animal feed industry. See Industrial agriculture, Industrial agriculture (animals), and Agricultural policy for the broader concept. Agricultural policy#Bovine spongiform encephalopathy handles the issue. While spamming the issue everywhere is unwarented, adding data to Industrial agriculture (animals) to create a better summary of the issues raised in Agricultural policy would be warrented. Go for it. WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:33, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.104.144.184 (talk) 13:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed new section: Environmental impact of Factory Farming

There is a lot of information on the publications here http://www.ciwf.org.uk/resources/publications/environment_sustainability which is relevant. I would like to add the following:

Concentrating large numbers of animals in factory farms is a major contribution to global environmental degradation, through the need to grow feed (often by intensive methods using excessive fertiliser and pesticides), pollution of water, soil and air by agrochemicals and manure waste, and use of limited resources (water, energy).

Livestock production is also particularly water-intensive in indoor, intensive systems. 8 per cent of global human water use goes towards animal production.

Industrial production of pigs and poultry is an important source of GHG emissions and is predicted to become more so. On intensive pig farms, the animals are generally kept on concrete with slats or grates for the manure to drain through. The manure is usually stored in slurry form (slurry is a liquid mixture of urine and faeces). During storage on farm, slurry emits methane and when manure is spread on fields it emits nitrous oxide and causes nitrogen pollution of land and water. Poultry manure from factory farms emits high levels of nitrous oxide and ammonia.

Organic pig meat production has a lower global warming potential per kg than does intensive pig meat production and the GHG emissions for free-range poultry meat are only slightly higher than for factory farmed poultry meat.

I also feel these lists provide value to the article:

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF FACTORY FARMING • Deforestation for animal feed production • Unsustainable pressure on land for production of high protein/high energy animal feed • Pesticide, herbicide and fertiliser manufacture and use for feed production • Unsustainable use of water for feed-crops, including groundwater extraction • Pollution of soil, water and air by nitrogen and phosphorus from fertiliser used for feed-crops and from manure • Land degradation (reduced fertility, soil compaction, increased salinity, desertification) • Loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication, acidification, pesticides and herbicides • Worldwide reduction of genetic diversity of livestock and loss of traditional breeds • Species extinctions due to livestock-related habitat destruction (especially feed-cropping)

ANIMAL WELFARE IMPACT OF FACTORY FARMING • Close confinement systems (cages, crates) or lifetime confinement in indoor sheds • Discomfort and injuries caused by inappropriate flooring and housing • Restriction or prevention of normal exercise and most of natural foraging or exploratory behaviour • Restriction or prevention of natural maternal nesting behaviour • Lack of daylight or fresh air and poor air quality in animal sheds • Social stress and injuries caused by overcrowding • Health problems caused by extreme selective breeding and management for fast growth and high productivity • Reduced lifetime (longevity) of breeding animals (dairy cows, breeding sows) • Fast-spreading infections encouraged by crowding and stress in intensive conditions

I understand that the animal welfare list may be seen as contentious but it is based on verifiable research so I would still like to propose it. I do feel strongly that the environmental impact is very worthy of being added though as it is pure fact and not opinion or emotion, so please let me know if you disagree and why. Thanks.

Bethgranter (talk) 11:31, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Why all the bias against large farms? That is the angle you are coming at and trying to prove. I am in the egg business and have extensive experience with those "factory farms" that everyone hates. However, we treat our animals well this has really improved over the years with the Animal Care programs that are being ADVANCED BY THE INDUSTRY AND NOT FORCED ON US BY EXTREMISTS. We have provided them more space and have found that to have benefits. We also believe that cages were developed for several reasons. (1) the hens can be inspected easier. (2) they can not pile up on each other. (3) they and their eggs are not incontact with their feces. (4) air quality is better because the manure falls onto a belt and can be removed easily. I could go on and on. If you are going to present a balanced article you need to present BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE. If you are just trying advance one side then wikipedia is not the place to do it. Yoscratch (talk) 15:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Yoscratch - see WP:OR and WP:COI and WP:reliable Bob98133 (talk) 15:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Decartes' Entourage

"Consumers vary in their perceptions though, and are divided into three classes of consumers: Naturalists, Price Seekers, and Descartes’ Entourage. Naturalists place great importance on allowing animals to exhibit natural behaviors and exercise outdoors, and comprise 46% of the sample. Price Seekers, comprising 14% of the sample, are primarily concerned with low prices. Descartes' Entourage make up 40% of the respondents, and value animal welfare but perceive it can be achieved by simply providing food, water, and treatment for injury and disease. This last group perceives amenities such as access to outdoors and ability to exhibit natural behaviors unimportant for the well-being of farm animals.[40]"

Makes the division sound somehow official; also seems to contain an inside joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.71.236.110 (talk) 06:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The report cited is indeed unpublished. However, the final draft is available at http://asp.okstate.edu/baileynorwood/AW2/InitialReporttoAFB.pdf. The words "naturalist", "price seeker", and "Descartes' Entourage" do not appear anywhere. Furthermore, the sentence, "Support is particularly strong from females, Democrats, and residents of the Northeastern United States." is completely unsupported in the document. Lastly, since the entire reference is in violation of WP:NOR due to WP:PRIMARY, I would suggest that the entire section titled "U. S. consumer preferences" be removed, since the unpublished report is the only reference given. Kwagoner (talk) 03:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this section should be removed, and unless someone responds in favor of keeping it or removes it first, I will take out the section tomorrow. The section has major problems, including being based on unpublished work, making original research claims based loosely on that work, and lending undue weight to a relatively small opinion survey. Dialectric (talk) 22:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Update - I removed the section. Dialectric (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

New article: Mercy_for_Animals

I just added this article, about a poultry business which released a video which shows workers throwing male chics being dropped alive into a grinding machine.

Please watch the article. Ikip (talk) 00:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Factory farms / CAFOs

If anyone is interested in starting an article List of Factory Farms in the U.S.A or the like please let me know. I understand there are only a handful and they are huge. Should be a worthwhile article and quick to put together. I just don't know where to start. --Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

There are 450,000 AFOs in the United States and approximately 15% of them are Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). I don't think it would be quick and easy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.197.173.212 (talk) 17:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Farmed animals and the law - what law?

This section mentions the federal and state laws, but doesn't mention a country. "Federal" and "State" need to be associated with a country to be valid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kateaclysmic (talk • contribs) 05:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to revert, but...

I am sorry to have reverted so much of your edit, but most is clearly point of view pushing, not adding "counterbalance and accuracy of reporting". Some of what you wrote is just dandy, so please add only neutral content. Thanks. --Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

NPOV exemption

Kwagoner (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC) How did this article get an exemption of Wikipedia's Neutral Point Of View rule? The author(s) preferences are pretty obvious when you look at the sentence construction, the text box at the end of the "History" section, and the list of references used. And that's just for starters. It would take one person days to get this article cleaned up, yet there's no NPOV violation banner anywhere on it that I can find. I'm newly signed up, so I don't know how, but I would if I could.

Let's start with just the article's opening sentence. The sentence starts, "Factory farming is...", which implies a definition. If you want to start with a definition, use one of the many dictionaries in existence, rather than going to a highly subjective group of biased sources. This is a case in which Occam's Razor clearly applies. The simplest explanation is usually correct. Let's try it again using NPOV, since Encarta's definition is perfectly adequate.

"Factory farming is the practice of raising animals on a large scale using intensive methods and modern equipment."

There. It's neutral, it's concise, and it's non-inflammatory. Now -- can we work on the rest of the article? I found out how to do it, so I'm adding the NPOV template now. Kwagoner (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I added the "NPOV language" template due to the use of the word "exacerbated" twice within the first two full paragraphs. Since the word is quite negative (usually applied to the worsening of diseases), this usage is obviously biased against the concept of factory farming. Kwagoner (talk) 23:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with your insertion of the NPOV banner and your reasoning for it. In both cases where exacerbate is used, it is used correctly. Perhaps you may be unfamiliar with its uses, except in its medical use. I do not think that your suggestion above for a new lede sentence is nearly as informative as the existing one, nor could it be easily referenced. Unless there is consensus for the NPOV banners, i think they should be removed. Bob98133 (talk) 18:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I will concede that I haven't gone through the entire talk page archives to find out if this has already been addressed, but my question still stands. Is this or is this not a standard Wikipedia article subject to NPOV rules? You state that the use of "exacerbated" is correct, but the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines it as "...more violent, bitter, or severe..." How can you possibly claim that usage is neutral? If this is, in fact, an animal rights page, then it should be labeled as such. As far as the lead-in sentence, please come up with some other suggestion that is at least closer to neutral. If you can't come up with a suggestion of your own, it seems to me you only wish to start "flaming". Kwagoner (talk) 00:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The third paragraph of the lead should not be there. Its presence creates a bias.Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree w/Anna that 3rd ph could go. Not sure if it's biased, but it is not relevant enough to be in the lead, could be elsewhere.

Kwagoner - where do you see that this page is exempted from NPOV? You have stated this twice. Is there an exemption log or something? I understand the definition of exacerbate to mean make more severe or aggravate in which case it fits well. Would you prefer aggravates or increases in a negative fashion to exacerbate? I don't have to come up with a suggestion of my own, since I believe that the article is OK as it stands. If you believe it is POV, it behooves you to supply a referenced version which is not POV, not me. I don't know what you're talking about flaming. Please stick to the subject of the discussion and not make this personal. Bob98133 (talk) 14:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I wish I was a student or someone who had time, ability, and better access to a library so I could do this topic the justice it deserves. "Neutral point of view", as described in Wikipedia's policy section, would seem to be a fairly straightforward concept. While there is, of course, no "exemption log" as mentioned previously, I feel the article would benefit from an analysis by someone ***outside*** the animal rights movement. From that point of view I suppose the article DOES appear neutral. I would just like to suggest showing it to a farmer, and see if s/he also finds it neutral. Since the list of references provided is contraindicative of any truly unbiased reading, I'd bet s/he would be highly offended. I had hoped there would be others with the ability to see the obvious, but since there appear to be none, I'll have to leave it at that. Due to the time issues mentioned previously, I'm changing the NPOV banner to the NPOV-check banner. After that review, I'll just quietly disappear along with my objections. I am highly disillusioned, though. Wikipedia (and, apparently "Encyclopaedia Britannica") would seem to be only as neutral as its writers choose to be. Kwagoner (talk) 02:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kwagoner. Wikipedia is created by people like you and me, but, as there are more health-food-store-employee editors than, say, oil-well-owning editors, there is slant to the libertarian left. Thank heavens the latter doesn't edit much, as this article would describe a factory farm as "...a place of joy where all the animals come to mingle and celebrate life..."

If you find the article to be pushing a POV, then click edit, and edit the article. I don't suggest swinging it to the other direction, as editors will revert. Just make it the way you think is right: balanced.

You say you are disillusioned. People get disillusioned with governments because we are subjects. "The People" make Wikipedia. Wikipedia is our subject. Get in there and balance the article out. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. (I hope this makes sense. I haven't had my coffee yet.) Happy editing! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This talk of hypothetical farmers possibly having possible objections to wikipedia articles seems to be very vacuous and a very tenuous reason to attach POV labels. In my experience hoping that "someone" will come along and do "something" that we ourselves can't be bothered to do is an exercise in futility. We are the people...Colin4C (talk) 15:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is certainly not NPOV as it stands, but I think it's important to realize in what WAY it's not NPOV. A lot of it is very well researched, and overall the article is not particularly biased in its STRUCTURE, but it is peppered (to say the least) with very suggestive, inflammatory, and biased language. All of this language can be done away with through re-wording sentences one by one, no major structural changes need to be made for the biased issue (although the frequent use of bullet points, which often repeat the same information again and again, needs to be fixed). I would also note that in a few minutes I counted eight instances of anti-factory farming biased language and two instances of pro-factory farming biased language, so it is not all one-sided either. It seems that this article is being assuaged by both revolutionaries and reactionaries, both of which are equally dangerous to Wikipedia's purposes.MarcelB612 (talk) 08:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess the best thing is to document the facts of the matter and then let the wikipedia readers make up their own minds about the moral issues. If the facts of the matter are unpalatable, then so be it, it is not part of our brief to sell either products or illusions, but to tell the truth. Colin4C (talk) 22:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I have read the article, made a few small wording changes, corrected some info per the reference, and removed a sentence from the lead because the reference (the Voice of America) is no longer available. I have also read the discussion and would like to see the tags removed unless someone voices an objection. Gandydancer (talk) 12:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I mostly agree with your changes,Gandy. I think that the pandemic potential is a significant point, so I readded that with a ref (just to a media account referencing WHO, so a better ref could be found). I also re-added category Gestation Crates since that is relevant to the topic. I removed some welfare org from the see also. Your grammar/rewrites elsewhere were good. Thanks ~~

If you all want to remove the tags, please feel free. I just read the first sentence of WP:V. Kwagoner (talk) 04:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Kwagoner, I have removed the tags. Also, re the WHO reference, I agree that it is very poor. Even though I agree that factory farms pose a huge pandemic possibility, if someone would dispute your ref, I'd have to agree with them. Can you find something better? Gandydancer (talk) 20:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, the WHO reference was added by Bob98133 (talk), not by me. Kwagoner (talk) 21:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Please see new comment above

Please take a look at the new comment above in the section titled "Descartes' Entourage". I just wasn't sure if I should put it there or down here at the bottom. Thanks! Kwagoner (talk) 03:44, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Article needs to be rewritten

I think this article needs to be re-written. When I look at the sources, I see animal-rights organization citations who provide their "facts." These tend to be exaggerated and extreme in their favor. May I suggest someone rewrite the entire article using ubiased sources (universities, government websites, etc.)? I will if I have the time, but I thought I would throw this idea up in the air. Also, there are no external links/further readings for PRO factory farming, just against.

P.S. If an article is neutral, it will not refer to Factory Farms as Factory Farms, but rather to Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs).

Please feel free to rewrite it. But please don't blank large sections of sourced content. It's best to discuss that here first. Happy editing. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:04, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm very new to wikipedia so please bear with me if I break any of your rules. I've been farming for many years and discovered this page when one of my kids was doing class project. My kids were very bothered by the content of this page and thought it unfair and very biased – I do too (and I see from this discussion page that several other farmers do as well). I think the problem you are having is that there is no neutral definition of “factory farming”, It's a pejorative term used only attack certain types of farms (hence no "pro factory farm" articles). No ag college has courses in “Factory farming 101”, no one goes to the bank for a “factory farm” start-up loan and no government, anywhere in the world that I know of, has a department of “factory farming”. The best definition I've every heard was from the Ontario Farm Animal Council, which defined the term as “one acre or animal more that the user is comfortable with” - for example I run 1000 sheep on my farm in Canada. For a Canadian farm, 1000 sheep is a very large number of sheep, but for my cousin, who ranches in Australia, 1000 sheep is a small hobby farm. So I might be a factory farmer in Canada and a part-time, small-scale farmer in Australia. It all depends on the perspective of the person looking at the farm.

The term “factory farm” is used to criticize modern farming techniques by implying that these operations are more like factories than farms. Whether these criticisms are valid is an entirely different topic and open for what is often passionate discussion, but the term itself is only ever used to create a negative characterization of whatever aspect of farming the user does not like (for example I've seen an article in Harrowsmith magazine attacking “factory organic farms” on the grounds that these farms are too big). It makes sense to provide a definition of the term, since its in common usage, but to use that definition as a forum to present a very one-sided attack on modern farming is not what I thought wikipedia as supposed to be about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.237.21.29 (talk) 16:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You make good points.

First, I would like to say that Wikipedia as much yours as anyone's. Feel at home. Feel welcome. Nobody owns these articles. We all just chip in.

The term factory farm IS generally used pejoratively. Add that fact to the article. But add a good source supporting it. It's not about truth. It's about verifiability.

I just googled: "factory farm" pejorative site:edu

I came up with this on the first page: http://duplin.ces.ncsu.edu/index.php?page=news&ci=ANIM+75 that states:

"And there is that pejorative “Factory Farm” term that’s too often used to slander anything bigger than 40 acres."

That can be written as: The term "Factory Farm" is often used in a pejorative way.

Well, not the greatest source, not the greatest bit of copy, but you get my point. If it's sourced, and is balanced, or maintains overall balance in the article, it should stick.

As for the bulk of the article itself, edit it. Keep it neutral. Use Google Books, Google Scholar, search "Factory Farming site:edu". Back up the content you add with decent sources. Keep the whole article neutral. If you want a section on why factory farming is wonderful, then a section on why it is not wonderful is needed. Overall balance. But the best policy is "Just the facts." A good editor writes in such a way that nobody knows where she/he personally stands.

Finally, it's probably best not to sign your real name. Consider registering an account.

If I can be of help, just ask. Sorry if what I've just written is sort of daft, I'm just off to bed and am very tired. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 16:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello Oliver and welcome to Wikipedia! You didn't break any rules. I think it's great to get your perspective. I would encourage you to look over the Talk page on this article and you'll see that yours is a common concern and the issue of defining "factory farm" accurately is an ongoing one. All of the editors who have worked on this page have tried pretty hard to do the best we can with finding the most NPOV sources out there. Please take a look at those sources too and let us know where we could do better. I think the definition at top of this page is as about as good as it can get. But, as in all Wiki pages, we can improve. Please feel free to take a shot and also ask any questions you want about rules.Bob98133 (talk) 17:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Anna, thanks for opening this discussion, and thanks to Oliver and Bob for their posts. Now, as for you, Oliver, : ), I think that we may very well turn out to be on the opposite sides of the fence, so as to speak, since I am strongly opposed to CAFO's. That said, I can hardly say how delighted I am that you posted! Over the years I have tried to get people to edit here but as far as I know I've yet to recruit even one person. People seem to have some sort of idea that we are some sort of experts here, when nothing could be farther from the truth. And even if we were, there are always opposing viewpoints, and that is a good thing. Anna and all, for starters could we change the name of the article to CAFO, since there is no question that Factory farm is a pejorative term? Gandydancer (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

We already have the article Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, talking a look through the sources Factory Farming covers other areas as well so is a distinct topic. --Errant ^(chat!) 19:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It the term is pejorative, then maybe it should be a redirect to a more neutral term. The lead could be: X (commonly known by the pejorative term "Factory Farming"), is the practice of .... Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well... I'd be inclined to leave it unless we can find a decent new title. Factory farming is quite clearly the common name and in academic use - it is just often used negatively in wider society. I think we can adequately cover both those things in the one place. I don't think there is any real problem with it being a pejorative term, so long as we don't get behind the idea ourselves --Errant ^(chat!) 00:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the term is pejorative, that it is used by those who oppose the specified practices, and not by those do use those methods. So it seems that the article, under this title, is inherently non-neutral POV, which is a problem. I think that the lead suggested by Anna above is a valuable one. I think a merge with the CAFO article and the industrialized animal agriculture article is in order. (Which is going to be a large amount of work.) Kerani (talk) 23:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Although, seeing that the term is pejorative, and is the first thing one sees (obviously), it might be fair to balance it out by bumping up the edit you added to the end of the lead, to, say, the end of the first paragraph. Just a thought. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It is a strange situation... I googled CAFO and mostly EPA standards came up and when I googled factory farming, media articles came up. Certainly I do not want to start splitting hairs, but what is the difference other than the term used? Gandydancer (talk) 16:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

CAFO seems to be a specific categorisation scheme for some factory farms used only in the US --Errant ^(chat!) 16:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Section Should Be Removed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.163.186 (talk) 08:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi this is my first wiki post but I became interested to read more after reading:

"# Diseases – Intensive farming may or may not make the evolution and spread of harmful diseases easier. Many communicable diseases spread rapidly through densely spaced populations of animals with low genetic diversity. Animals raised on antibiotics may or may not develop antibiotic resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria ("superbugs").[58] Use of animal vaccines can create new viruses that kill people and cause flu pandemic threats. H5N1 is an example of where this might have already occurred.[59][60][61]"

I'm a vet student and was particularly interested in this statement "Use of animal vaccines can create new viruses that kill people and cause flu pandemic threats. H5N1 is an example of where this might have already occurred". I have followed all the references and none of them indicate any proof of the vaccination of animals as a source/cause of disease, in fact the link for "60" is broken and "61" is a website that referes to an unsubstantiated report that makes these claims about H5N1.

This may very well turn out to be true (I personally doubt it), but no one has proven this, and it sounds to me as though someone very "anti industrialised farming" has written it. I also find the wording unscientific, so I am going to delete the statement. If someone can find a referenced article showing how vaccination has been experimentally verified as a source of human disease and subsequent deaths then please feel free, to add this section.

Hugo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.163.186 (talk) 08:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Good work, that whole section might need a good clean. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not true. I have done a great deal of editing at the 2009 flu pandemic article and am a member at the FluTrackers forum and I think I would have heard about it. I made some changes on the Disease entry; please let me know if anyone has any problems with it. Gandydancer (talk) 16:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed additions

{{request edit}} (I read the guidelines WP:SCOIC, and was unclear about whether or not to actually copy the proposed edits here - I am copying them - apologies if that's not necessary.) I'd like to update the history section of the factory farming page with some information about how the system has been globalized in recent decades, and is now controlled by multinational companies that replicate the factory farming model from country to country. I think it's important to show examples of how the system is being replicated in fast globalizing countries like India and China, and that the history section could be expanded to include more recent developments such as these. Proposed addition: </ref> Multinational meat and dairy producers, as well as animal feed suppliers are now involved in every aspect of factory-farmed animal production in countries around the world. U.S. based Tyson Foods, the world’s biggest meat corporation, has invested heavily in China’s poultry industry, where per capita meat consumption has quadrupled in the past thirty years. The company is also active in India, and in 2008 Tyson acquired a 51 percent stake in Indian company Godrej Foods, which produces poultry under the Real Good Chicken Label.

I think it's also important to update the "distinctive characteristics" section, adding information about how these multinational companies control the entire chain of production, supplying inputs such as grain, animals, veterinary care etc. I think this information is still relatively unknown, but central to understanding how the factory farming system operates. Proposed addition: Another key characteristic is that in factory farm systems, multinational agribusinesses often control the entire chain of production. In poultry factory farming for example, Cobb-Vantress (a subsidiary of Tyson Foods) is the world’s leading supplier of broiler chicken breeding stock. It supplies factory farms worldwide - from Brazil to Ethiopia - with high-yielding breeds of chicken such as the Rhode Island Red, and White Leghorn. Cargill plays a central role in supplying factory farms worldwide with animal feed, another important input.

I'm proposing that the "key issues" section be expanded to include consequences on labor and food security; issues that are being increasingly discussed in relation to factory farming. I'm suggesting them as I think it's necessary to include information that shows how factory farming affects our societies on a larger scale, beyond simply animal welfare or environmental consequences. Proposed addition: As the factory farmed animal population grows, so too does demand for staple grains like corn and soy required for animal feed. As a result, grain prices rise, making it increasingly hard for the lowest economic levels of society to afford key dietary staples. A related growing phenomenon is for countries experiencing food insecurity to divert grain resources to animal feed - both domestically and via exports. India for example, though struggling with malnutrition within its own borders, allocates about 10 percent of the its coarse grain production (maize, bajra, sorghum, and millet) for domestic livestock feed, and in 2007 exported 45 percent of its soy crop and 14 percent of its maize harvest, mainly to feed farmed animals in nearby countries. Given that the production of one kilogram of beef requires seven kilograms of feed grain, growing meat production has important consequences on the availability and pricing of grain.

And

Small farmers are often absorbed into factory farm operations, acting as contract growers for the industrial facilities. In the case of poultry contract growers, farmers are required to make costly investments in construction of sheds to house the birds, buy required feed and drugs - often settling for slim profit margins, or even losses. Factory farm workers also cite the repetitive actions and high line speeds that are features of the large-scale slaughtering and processing facilities that characterize the factory farming poultry sectors, as causing injuries and illness to workers. In Brazilian factory farming, contract growers supply soybeans to Cargill or ADM and often experience low profit margins, high costs and delays in getting soybeans to ports and onto ships, and often incur large debts in the production process. Forced labor is another problem encountered in factory farming system. Greenpeace’s report Eating Up the Amazon described a set of abysmal conditions at Roncador Farm in Mato Grosso, where workers are responsible for maintaining more than 100,000 cattle and 4,000 ha (9,000 ac) of soybeans: :"Working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, the laborers were forced in live in plastic shanties with no beds or sanitary provision. Water for washing, cooking and drinking came from a cattle watering hole and was stored in barrels previously used for diesel oil and lubricants. There was no opportunity to leave the farm. Goods had to be bought from the farm shop at extortionate prices, putting laborers into ever-increasing debt, which they would never be able to pay off—a form of slavery known as debt bondage."

To address the conflict of interest issue, I am posting on behalf of an organization that studies sustainable food systems. We have published a series of case studies and informational videos on these topics, which I wanted to include as certain references in my proposed changes. These case studies are produced by an established expert on the topic (Mia MacDonald), whose work has been published in reliable third party publications like the Huffington Post, Resurgence Magazine, and Grist. Carroll Gardens (talk) 16:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey. First off apologies for not doing "due diligence" over your edits. That was a mistake and something I should be slapped for. Anyway; the reason I edited out your additions initially was due to some concerns I had..

• Firstly the material was not cited to a specific source, but a page listing some sources. It is better to link directly to the specific source, perferrably hosted in some form of academic or official setting. This allows material to be verified
• Secondly the language you were using is quite... flowery. We try to write with an off-hand tone, in a clinical style (I realise the existing content in the article is not a good example of that... it is an issue that needs addressing). This is not a major issue, I'm only pointing it out for completeness.
• I had concerns with the repeated mention of Tyson foods as examples, are there other examples to use?
• Promotional language; it is probably not deliberate but there was a lot of promotional sounding language in the article, for example: In poultry factory farming for example, Cobb-Vantress (a subsidiary of Tyson Foods) is the world’s leading supplier of broiler chicken breeding stock. - phrases like "the world's leading supplier" is a difficult phrase.

That's the substance of my concerns, upon review. Mainly the reliance on a single source for a lot of content with not entirely neutral language. I reverted your content back in because it was wrong of me to remove it out of hand without engaging - but if you could perhaps look into addressing my concerns (particularly citing the content) then that would rock. Let me know if you need any advice :) --Errant ^(chat!) 16:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for bringing this discussion to the talk page. I'd like to give my reactions to the Carroll Gardens edits and the deletions. My concerns were similar to ErrantX's concerns. Furthermore, of course I did note that it was Carroll's first edit and s/he had added a considerable amount of information with no discussion. My impression was of someone who had just watched their first video on the subject, was quite impressed (and perhaps horrified) with the information, and went right to wikipedia to share what they had just learned. I googled the website and nothing came up, and that was a concern. With the first time the information was deleted I had decided that the new editor would just drop it, or hopefully continue on with more discussion and hopefully more references than just the one. When the information was again added I twice was ready to delete it myself, but each time I could not bring myself to hit the undo button, and finally decided on a wait-and-see attitude. It was a difficult position because I am an organic/permaculture gardener/ small-scale farmer and firmly believe the added information to be accurate. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and I want to be certain that information that I do not believe to be correct can not easily be included in our articles either. Gandydancer (talk) 17:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, and I'll make the recommended changes. Just out of curiosity Gandydancer, what website couldn't you access? Carroll Gardens (talk) 18:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

What I meant was that I could only find information from the website - articles they have published and so on. I have no way of knowing anything about them except what they have to say about themselves. Take the non-profit CATO Institute for example, at least I can go here http://world.std.com/~mhuben/cato.html and see a different viewpoint. Your site does not even have a wikipedia entry. When I go to check out your source I find a bunch of videos. You can't expect me to check out your facts by watching videos. If the information is strong enough to put into wikipedia you should be able to find something better. I can tell you, as one who has done a fair amount of editing, that it is not easy and it takes a lot of time and patience. Gandydancer (talk) 21:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Carroll Gardens, it has been quite a few days and you have done nothing to improve your references. Take this addition under "Food security":

As the factory farmed animal population grows, so too does demand for staple grains like corn and soy required for animal feed. As a result, grain prices rise, making it increasingly hard for the lowest economic levels of society to afford key dietary staples. A related growing phenomenon is for countries experiencing food insecurity to divert grain resources to animal feed - both domestically and via exports. India for example, though struggling with malnutrition within its own borders, allocates about 10 percent of the its coarse grain production (maize, bajra, sorghum, and millet) for domestic livestock feed, and in 2007 exported 45 percent of its soy crop and 14 percent of its maize harvest, mainly to feed farmed animals in nearby countries.[60] Given that the production of one kilogram of beef requires seven kilograms of feed grain, growing meat production has important consequences on the availability and pricing of grain.

Now I have done a great deal of reading about food security and we discuss it frequently at my gardening forum, and I happen to believe that your addition is most likely accurate. But what if I did not believe a word of it, how would I check it out? IMO the only ref you provide is worse than none (for reasons already stated). What is so hard about researching food security with even a wikipedia article to help you? I feel that if you are not willing to take the time to properly reference your additions they should be deleted. Gandydancer (talk) 15:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

If consensus (small as it is) is that problems remain with the references, they should be removed (especially after a month to improve them). For instance, does factory farming cause more disease (crowded conditions) or does it decrease disease by allowing closer supervision over animals and ease of treatment? Right now the article says both. I applaud all your cool heads for discussing the issues instead of engaging in edit wars. Also, YouTube videos aren't generally valid references. If you'd like any further help, contact me on my user talk page. You might instead want to put a {{help me}} template up on your own user talk, or put the {{edit semi-protected}} template back up on this page and either way someone will be along to help you. :) Banaticus (talk) 11:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes removing poorly sourced material is a difficult decision because if one were quite strict about the decision half of wikipedia would disappear. But when there is contention, as in this article, I feel the standards must be kept higher. The author has made no attempt to improve his references and I agree that the material should be removed. Incidentally, this comment made by Banaticus: "growing demand for meat which drives up grain prices can theoretically be blamed on all meat producing farmers, factory or not -- section lays the blame solely on the "bad factory farmers") (undo)", is not correct. CAFO's rely on grain for food whereas free range animals eat pasture. Gandydancer (talk) 14:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

"CAFOs rely on grain for food whereas free range animals eat pasture" - this is not factually correct. 'Free range' animals (such as 'pastured poultry' and cow-calf beef operations) are supplemented with grain and hay forage, particularly during the winter when the grass is either buried under snow, dead, or not growing well. Chickens are supplemented more, as they are not grazers but insectivores & grain eaters. Furthermore, even feedlot cattle are fed a significant amount of forage (hay & silage) and are not fed a straight grain corn diet. Drawing a sharp distinction (confinement = corn; traditional farming = grass) is inaccurate.Kerani (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I am aware of that. I was speaking broadly. Gandydancer (talk) 11:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I would have to say after reading this article today and looking at the references, they seem to me to be outdated and biased. There were only a hand-full of references that are from reliable sources and only a few of them younger than 5 years. Most of the sources are from animal welfare/rights groups that offer one-sided information. While I do agree that the term "Factory Farming" is used almost exclusively by people that do not agree with large farming practices and their opinion should be noted, it should not be considered fact. Everyone here speaks about 'balance' with-in the articles, however there is not balance in this article and when someone offers to add balance the chief editors shoot them down. Take out the 'flowery' language that persuades people to believe that farming is awful, take away the biased information that is not supported by research and you may have an fact based article.Dearhearted (talk) 18:21, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Antibiotc resistance in the news

Someone suggested these would work here and at Antibiotic_resistance#Role_of_other_animals.

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem
  • "Since 1995 Denmark has enforced progressively tighter rules on the use of antibiotics in the raising of pigs, poultry and other livestock. In the process, it has shown that it is possible to protect human health without hurting farmers."
• http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-antibiotics-agriculture-20110425,0,7598829.story
• http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/651982.html

I don't know what to say about it at this point, so please try to use these reports. 99.39.5.103 (talk) 14:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

"Sexual and Physical Abuse"??

Just a quick thought here:

In line 134, under "Animal Welfare Impact", it states that animals suffer "Sexual and physical abuse at the hands of workers." The source listed here is a PETA video, which we all know is not an unbiased organization. My question is that since PETA has been known to falsify videos (they did this at a farm in my community), should this reference be allowed? I don't want to delete this without a consensus that is should be deleted, so since the source may(is) not be reputable, should this be deleted?

Your Thoughts Please Betarays (talk) 21:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I believe you should delete it. Gandydancer (talk) 22:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks for your input.

Betarays (talk) 22:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Democracy Now! video link

Looking for input yet again, this time on the link to the Democracy Now! video "Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction". Democracy Now! is a progressive group which has a radio show. This video seems to be more of an editorial than an instructional video, and as such, I question its purpose for being here. Editorials, whether conservative or liberal, do not belong on Wikipedia. I see this was previously deleted and then reverted, presumably because of no discussion. Should this be deleted?

Your Thoughts Please

Betarays (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup (multiple issues) tag

The article appears to have suffered somewhat from drive-by editing, with quite a bit of awkward, poorly integrated and/or inappropriate content having been added. I've tagged it for several issues:

1. The introduction is a bit of a mess, and may not adequately capture the content of the article (e.g. the segue into antibiotics takes up 3-4 sentences for a topic making up only about 1/8 or less of the article text)
2. POV of sources: many (even most) of the sources are good, but there are parts of the article that read like POV screeds, and tend to be substantiated by somewhat partisan sources (either for or against the practice). I believe this is a consequence of steady decay due to drive-by editing.
3. The section "Aspects of factory farming" appears to be redundant with the rest of the article. It seems like some of parts of it should fall under the "Nature of the practice [of factory farming]" section, while other parts (e.g. ethics) should be incorporated into those sections.
4. A discussion of definitions of the term itself might be extremely useful to have under the "Nature of the practice" section. It shouldn't be hard to find definitions from a number of sources (e.g. FAO, USDA, ECARD).

-Kieran (talk) 18:15, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Page Transfer

As has been said previously, this page needs quite a bit of work.

I would suggest, instead of filing more and more complaints against this page, that a new page is created called Intensive Animal Agriculture. Start the page from scratch pulling information from this article only as needed to fill the page. Then have this article title set to redirect to new page, which should include a further reading section which has some of the more fact-based resources linked to in this article.

einfarben (talk) 19:25, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Generally speaking, rewriting while incorporating past material is better than throwing a page away completely. There is quite a lot of salvageable material in this article, and blanking it all would lose that. The correct way to fix the page is incremental changes, so that they get tracked by the software and all attribution is preserved. Of course, you can feel free to be bold and mercilessly hack out large chunks of poorly referenced text, and rewrite large chunks of biased text (there's quite a bit, on both sides).

I agree with your idea of moving the article to something like your suggested name. However, I think that first you or someone else should find good, verifiable sources for the suggested name. I'm not entirely sure if there even is an agreed-upon term for the practice. -Kieran (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I would be quite alarmed if I were to see an editor do extensive editing to any wikipedia page as his/her first few edits on WP. Please present any proposed changes on the talk page first. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 23:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea of changing the name of this article. "Factory farming" is a term used only by opponents of large-scale animal agriculture. This article seems to do a very good job of laying out that viewpoint. I just think that a name like suggested above would tend to muddy the issue for those without an opinion either way. The CAFO and AFO articles seem to cover the more NPOV more effectively, so I just don't see the need. Just my thoughts. Adv4Ag (talk) 16:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I support shifting the information and reducing the size of this article. I think that this article, as it stands, is being incorrectly used as a general reference for intensive agriculture, when 'factory farming' is actually a pejorative term for some types of modern, commercial intensive agriculture. There is not an alternate term for 'factory farming' because the practitioners and subject matter experts of the practice do not lump together different practices in the same manner as the opponents of the practice, and because the practitioners of intensive agriculture simply call it "farming". The use of "factory farming" as a term is an effort to demonize certain practices, and is not a neutral term. I think that WP should include an article on "factory farming", and even include some perspectives and opinions as voiced by those who use the term, but to default to that term to describe agricultural practices, imo, fails the NPOV test. Shifting the focus to a more neutral article would help with this issue. Kerani (talk) 13:46, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Factory Farm Workers

I was considering going into more detail about the quality of life of factory farm workers. This would include wages, employment process, and health risks they face. Does anyone have any suggestions for more ideas I could add? Kristibanana (talk) 05:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Zero grazing

It would be good to see a section on Zero Grazing here. There is a fair bit out there in terms of sources. Lineslarge (talk) 20:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Ethical Issues

In the ethical issues section it states "animals such as chickens being kept in spaces smaller than an A4 page." that is not factual. An A4 page can be used at a measure of 2D volume but specifies a 3D volume of less than 10 cm3 which is smaller than the volume of the average chicken. I suggest that statement removed and replaced with an accurate 3D volume. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.171.233.77 (talk) 16:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Factory farms

You need to show how the farms are good. They are not some place that mistreats animals. They actually take better are of the animals then take care of ourselves. Instead of watching all these videos that PETA and HSUS are paying people to do, go to a far, yourself and see the real side of it.