Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ANIMAL. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ANIMAL. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Animal chaplains offer spiritual care for every species
HUMANS ARE ANIMALS TOO
'This is beyond animal blessings and pet funerals,' said animal chaplain Sarah Bowen.
Animal chaplain Sarah Bowen interacts with a horse.
 (Photo by Sean Bowen)


March 8, 2024
By Kathryn Post

(RNS) — Sarah Bowen says she’s been doing the work of an animal chaplain since she was 6 years old.

Raised in the Midwest as a Presbyterian preacher’s kid, she was often hauled to hospice facilities and funeral homes but noticed that the chipmunks and other animals crumpled by the side of the road weren’t treated with the same compassion shown to people.

“At a very young age, I began picking up those little animals, putting them in my lunchbox, and giving them burials in the way my father did when he was working with humans,” said Bowen, who recalls saying “May the force be with you!” after the burials

Today, Bowen is an interfaith animal chaplain with credentials from Chicago Theological Seminary, One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and Emerson Theological Institute, and she continues to create rituals that both dignify the death of animals and empower those grieving that death, whether it’s the loss of a loyal golden retriever or the untimely death of a “feisty, beloved goat.”



Animal chaplain Sarah Bowen. 
(Courtesy photo)

“That’s one of the more powerful things I think I’ve ever witnessed in my life,” Bowen said. “That goat was originally intended for a dinner plate.”

Bowen remembers getting the call from the animal sanctuary in 2022, reporting a favorite goat had been fatally wounded in a vehicle accident. Bowen led sanctuary staff and volunteers in a ritual that involved writing letters to the goat on dissolvable paper, then dropping them in a bowl of water, “representing all of the tears that were being shed or the tears that people felt they could not shed,” said Bowen. She also held a “furry wake,” where humans gathered alongside other goats and sheep to share stories about the goat’s antics. Bowen left the group with a wind chime placed where the accident happened.

The field of animal chaplaincy — including pet and veterinary chaplaincy — is nascent but growing and involves ministering to animals, pet owners, animal care providers and entire communities affected by wildlife conflicts.

“The scale can really vary widely, but any place where there is a relationship between some number of humans and some number of animals, that is where an animal chaplain is going to work,” said Michael Skaggs, director of programs for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab.

What started as a few individuals offering ad hoc support for people grieving pets has become an informal network of professionals, both paid and unpaid, providing spiritual support everywhere from veterinary clinics to animal shelters. Animal chaplain training programs are reporting increased enrollment year over year, as well as a growing recognition that the work they do is no joke.

“This is beyond animal blessings and pet funerals,” said Bowen. “What we’re talking about are deep systemic and existential questions about our relationships with other species.”

The definitions of animal, veterinary and pet chaplains aren’t universally agreed upon. Most often, animal chaplaincy is used as an umbrella term, and while veterinary chaplains may work in a veterinary clinic, some also use the term interchangeably with animal chaplains. Rob Gierka, who founded the Pet Chaplain organization in 2004, owns the registered trademark for the phrase “pet chaplain” and says the term refers specifically to his organization.


Burial following an animal funeral. (Photo courtesy Sarah Bowen)

Though not always overt, faith is central to many animal chaplains’ practices. Some provide spiritual care for animals themselves, holding animal blessing events, praying for pets or being a grounding presence during euthanasia.

It’s not just pets and their owners who require spiritual support. Veterinarians are more likely than the general population to die by suicide, and many in animal care fields grapple with moral injury and compassion fatigue.

“Some shelter workers euthanize 100 cats a day as part of their job. So attending to loss in the community is important,” said Bowen.

Scott Campbell, a veterinary chaplain at the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, said it was seeing the toll of the veterinary field up close that drew him to becoming a veterinary chaplain.



Scott Campbell, right, the veterinary chaplain at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, visits with Payton Silva, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, in the lobby of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Pullman, Washington, while she waits for her dog to receive care. (College of Veterinary Medicine/Ted S. Warren)

“I became aware of the suicide statistics in the veterinary profession. I’ve been around the veterinary profession for, like, 45 years now,” said Campbell, whose father-in-law and wife both worked in the field. “I realized that that’s an area that really needed help.”

About every 10 days, Campbell said, he wanders throughout the teaching hospital, offering a listening ear to everyone from the veterinarians to folks working in shipping and receiving.


Valerie Richards. (Courtesy photo)

For many animal chaplains, their vocational path stems from personal loss. That was true for Valerie Richards, a cradle Catholic and longtime social worker now enrolled at a Buddhist seminary, and for Delores Hines-Kaalund, who completed a training program through Pet Chaplain in 2021.

Both lost longtime pets — Richards, a cat named Ellington; and Hines-Kaalund, her Chihuahua, Taz — and were taken aback by the intensity of their grief.

“It left such an impact on me, in terms of grief or bereavement. It was far beyond what I’d experienced with a human loved one,” said Hines-Kaalund, who describes herself as a “charismatic and nondenominational” Christian. She integrates her pet chaplaincy training into her full-time work as a hospice chaplain, helping patient families make decisions about the pets of their dying loved ones while also supporting people grieving dying pets.

A few years after Ellington died of cancer, Richards attended a Chaplaincy Innovation Lab webinar on animal chaplaincy hosted by Bowen, when something clicked. “I was like, I have to do this,” said Richards, who enrolled in Bowen’s online course on animal chaplaincy, hosted through the Compassion Consortium, in September 2023. She hopes to become a full-time animal chaplain supporting others struggling with pet loss and illness.

“People are often really surprised by how intensely they grieve. We hear it all the time, people saying they’re ashamed to say this, but they grieved more for their pet than when their mother died,” said Karen Duke, who, along with her partner Gierka, runs the Pet Chaplain organization where Hines-Kaalund was trained.


Scott Campbell, left, the veterinary chaplain at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, visits with Olivia and Phinehas Lampman, center, owners of Goose, a Husky mix dog, as Phinehas’ mother and WSU Honors College Associate Professor Annie Lampman, right, looks on, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024, in the lobby of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Pullman.
(College of Veterinary Medicine/Ted S. Warren)

Gierka added that, unlike other chaplaincy fields, animal chaplains often support people whose grief is minimized by family, employers and faith leaders.

Animal loss can also trigger existential questions about God’s existence and character, or whether animals are in the afterlife. Trained chaplains aren’t there to provide answers but are familiar with a range of religious and spiritual worldviews and can help people make meaning from their circumstances.

Campbell recalled one man he met with at a veterinary clinic who seemed to be in good spirits as his dog received chemotherapy.

“I was preparing to close, and the client stopped, was quiet for a moment, looked at me and said, ‘You know, I have the exact same kind of cancer my dog has. And so I’m seeing my future laid out before my eyes,’” said Campbell. “All of a sudden, that turned into a completely different kind of conversation.”


(Photo by Eric Ward/Unsplash/Creative Commons)


Because veterinary and animal chaplaincy are still emerging fields, there’s little consistency around training and credentials. According to Skaggs, ordination is common for non-animal chaplains who work in highly institutionalized settings, like hospitals or the military, but it’s rarely a requirement for animal chaplains. Financial compensation is also inconsistent, with some animal chaplains charging hourly rates or being paid by an institution and others working on a volunteer basis and accepting donations.

Gierka and Duke are passionate about empowering lay people to be animal chaplains and did so for years through their online Introduction to Pet Chaplaincy course. What started two decades ago as a six-week course with six people became a 15-week course with more than 30 people a semester. In 2022, the pair paused the course to translate it into a book series, which is expected out later this year.

“We’re seeing, after 20 years, now we’re at a tipping point,” said Duke. “There’s definitely a need.”

In this photo taken July 15, 2023, Scott Campbell, right, veterinary chaplain at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, looks on as people tie ribbons honoring pets that have passed away during the Garland Ceremony that was part of a “Celebration of Life & Remembrance for Our Companion Animals” event on Saturday, July 15, 2023, in Pullman, Washington. 
(WSU College of Veterinary Medicine/Ted S. Warren)

Campbell is hoping to help animal and veterinary chaplains connect through the American Association of Veterinary Chaplains, a professional membership organization he recently founded he hopes will eventually certify veterinary chaplains.

And Bowen launched an online animal chaplain training program in 2022 and told RNS that more than 50 people are completing the nine-month program each year. Her students include ministers, rabbis, veterinarians and animal activists. While there’s not a professional board for animal chaplains, Bowen is currently completing a Ph.D. program where she’s developing guidelines for the field.

“What I would say is, the field is gathering,” Bowen said. “This field started around pet bereavement. This field has grown to encompass so much more than that.”

Saturday, July 22, 2023

WHMIS

Animal testing under REACH: bringing numbers into the debate


So far, 4.2 million animal tests under the REACH chemical regulation: A study from Konstanz and Baltimore quantifies the number of animals that died for the hazard assessment of chemicals in the chemical industry

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ



Sixteen years ago, the REACH chemical regulation came into force across Europe. REACH obliges the chemical industry to identify the health risks of all chemicals used in their products. The downside of REACH is that this hazard assessment requires a large number of animal tests. Just how many was not clear until now.

The "Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing" (CAAT) based in Baltimore and at the University of Konstanz now wants to bring numbers into the REACH debate. In a current study, based on data from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the researchers show that so far around 4.2 million animals have been used for hazard assessment under REACH (of which 1.3 million animals are in ongoing studies). An additional 3.5 to 6.9 million animal tests are expected due to the revision of REACH in 2022.

Animal-free, alternative test methods were relatively rarely used. What is known as read-across methods (prediction of toxicity from comparison with structurally similar, already tested chemicals) were rejected in 75 percent of cases.

Animal-free alternative methods
The researchers from Konstanz and Baltimore advocate the use of animal-free alternative methods (New Approach Methodologies, NAMs). "Some of these new methods are not only suitable for large-scale chemical screenings, but also provide more meaningful results than animal testing, as the chemicals are tested on human cells – naturally in a petri dish", explains Thomas Hartung, Director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) and professor at the University of Konstanz.

"Animal-free alternative methods are available for an increasing range of test purposes. The goal must be to adapt the legislation to the current state of scientific knowledge", demands Marcel Leist, professor of in-vitro-toxicology at the University of Konstanz and co-director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing Europe. The CAAT researchers emphasize the importance of bringing scientists, authorities and industry to the same table to advance the introduction of alternative methods.

About CAAT-Europe
The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing Europe (CAAT-Europe) based in Konstanz was founded by Thomas Hartung and Marcel Leist. It is committed to reducing animal testing worldwide through the development and introduction of alternative methods. It combines research and information work, and creates exchange between scientists, authorities and industry. The CAAT scientists are also directly involved in the development of animal-free alternative methods. The 3R network Baden-Württemberg, Germany, as well as the Swiss Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation support their efforts. With the professorship of Marcel Leist, the University of Konstanz established the first professorship for alternative methods to animal testing in 2006. Among other achievements, the research team developed the world's first in vitro toxicity test for the peripheral nervous system.

 

 

Key facts:
 

  • Original publication:
    • Rovida, C., Busquet, F., Leist, M. and Hartung, T. (2023) “REACH out-numbered! The future of REACH and animal numbers”, ALTEX - Alternatives to animal experimentation, 40(3), pp. 367–388.
      doi: 10.14573/altex.2307121
      https://www.altex.org/index.php/altex/article/view/2665
       
    • Knight, J., Hartung, T. and Rovida, C. (2023) “4.2 million and counting… The animal toll for REACH systemic toxicity studies”, ALTEX - Alternatives to animal experimentation, 40(3), pp. 389–407.
      doi: 10.14573/altex.2303201
      https://www.altex.org/index.php/altex/article/view/2628
  • Data base: Data from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) on studies under REACH since 2009. Only studies in the area of reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity and repeated-dose toxicity were recorded.
     
  • Results: According to the studies, animal tests involving 2.9 million animals have taken place under REACH since 2009, plus 1.3 million animals in currently ongoing animal tests. An additional 3.5 to 6.9 million animal tests are expected due to the revision of REACH in 2022.

 

 

 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

 

Action platform for cosmetic products without animal testing


Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ

According to the European Union (EU) Cosmetics Regulation, animal testing for the risk assessment of cosmetic products or their ingredients is prohibited in the EU and all its member countries. The regulation includes an EU-wide marketing ban on cosmetics with ingredients tested on animals. This landmark political decision secured the EU a leading role in the protection of animal welfare and has contributed to positive developments in using alternative methods to animal testing beyond the EU's borders. "In fact, the cosmetics sector has become an engine for change, which – fuelled by European legislation – has greatly advanced the use of alternative methods to animal testing in other parts of the world as well", explains Dr Giorgia Pallocca, deputy director of CAAT-Europe at the University of Konstanz.

Consumers who buy cosmetic products in one of the EU member states therefore generally assume that no animal testing was conducted for the market approval of the products, at least not after the bans from the Cosmetics Regulation came into force in 2013. This assumption is incorrect, however, as reported in a recent article by the Transatlantic Think Tank for Toxicology (t4), which has just been published in the scientific journal ALTEX. According to the report, one reason for this is a second EU regulation that partly contradicts the Cosmetics Regulation, namely the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals regulation (REACH). All substances manufactured in or imported into the EU in quantities of more than one ton per year have to be registered with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), including a registration dossier with a full toxicological evaluation.

Loopholes and conflicting legislation
Many cosmetic ingredients are used also in other products, such as laundry detergents or wall paint. In such cases, the substances fall under other regulations that allow and require animal testing. "This dual use of substances is one of the 'loopholes' through which ingredients continue to enter cosmetic products, despite the fact that their risk assessment was partially based on animal testing", says Dr Costanza Rovida, CAAT-Europe’s regulatory affairs coordinator.

Also compounds that are only used in cosmetics are being animal-tested. This is the case, if the regulatory agency ECHA is concerned about the health of industrial workers manufacturing the products or about the environmental impacts (e.g. killing of fish) of substances intended for cosmetic use. In such cases, where different regulations clash, often the REACH regulation dominates, and animal testing may be required.

Animal testing continues despite ban
By analyzing the publicly available REACH dossiers, the scientists involved in the report found that in the REACH database (as of 23 December 2020), 419 substance dossiers reported cosmetics as their only use. Of these, 63 – or around 15 percent – used the results of "new" animal tests for risk assessment. These are tests that were conducted after the respective bans under the Cosmetics Regulation came into force. In some of these cases, risk assessments based on alternative methods to animal testing had been used by the registrants, but were later rejected by ECHA who explicitly requested additional animal tests. "The fact that animal testing continues to be carried out on substances that are later found in cosmetics is clearly the result of the conflict between REACH and the EU Cosmetics Regulation. However, a lack of harmonization and political will also plays a role here", Professor Thomas Hartung, CAAT-Europe’s co-director, states.

As ECHA is still reviewing a large number of REACH dossiers, it is likely that animal testing will continue to be requested for the registration of ingredients for cosmetics, according to the scientists’ report. What is also problematic in this context is that the latest EU status report (2020) on the use of animals for scientific purposes includes animal testing of cosmetic ingredients for REACH registration in the category of “industrial chemicals legislation uses”. Since it is important for both consumers and the cosmetic industry that cosmetics are truly "free of animal testing", the scientists call for more transparency on REACH testing as long as the conflict between the two EU regulations – the Cosmetics Regulation and REACH – is not resolved.

Action platform for cosmetic products without animal testing
In order to resolve this conflict and to contribute to a solution, CAAT-Europe, which is associated with the University of Konstanz and the Baden-Württemberg platform on alternatives to animal testing (BW-3R), is currently creating an action platform for cosmetic products without animal testing. With more than 10 years of experience as an independent institution, CAAT-Europe maintains extensive relationships with various stakeholders and decision-makers and is an official external advisor to the European Parliament on issues related to future technologies in the life sciences. "We would like to use our action platform to demonstrate the will of individual stakeholders, such as the cosmetic industry, to implement cruelty-free cosmetic products and to develop a joint strategy with scientists and policy makers to achieve this goal", describes Professor Marcel Leist, co-director of CAAT-Europe and professor of in vitro toxicology and biomedicine at the University of Konstanz.

###


Key facts:

  • Original publication: Jean Knight, Costanza Rovida, Reinhard Kreiling, Cathy Zhu, Mette Knudsen, Thomas Hartung (2021) Continuing testing on cosmetic ingredients for REACH in the EU. ALTEX. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14573/altex.2104221.
  • Despite a ban under the European Union's Cosmetics Regulation, animal testing is still required and conducted in the context of REACH approval of cosmetic ingredients in the EU.
  • Report sheds light on the role of the EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals regulation (REACH), which partly conflicts with the Cosmetics Regulation when it comes to animal testing for risk assessment.
  • Konstanz-based European Centre for Alternative Methods to Animal Testing (CAAT-Europe) is planning an action platform for cosmetic products without animal testing.


Contact:
University of Konstanz
Communications and Marketing
Phone: + 49 7531 88-3603
Email: kum@uni-konstanz.de

uni.kn/en

Thursday, February 01, 2024

The Animal Feed Industry’s Impact on the Planet


 
 FEBRUARY 1, 2024
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LONG READ


In some parts of the continental United States, you might drive through a nearly unchanging landscape for hours. Stretching for miles and miles, vast swaths of soil are dedicated to growing crops—corn, grains, fruits, and vegetables that make up the foundation of our food system.

The process seems highly efficient, producing enormous quantities of food every year. But only a small percentage of these crops will go toward feeding humans. According to a 2013 study conducted by researchers at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, a mere 27 percent of crop calorie production in the United States actually feeds humans. So what happens to the rest?

Some crops are used for the production of ethanol and other biofuels. But the vast majority—more than 67 percent of crop calories grown in the U.S.—are used to feed animals raised for human consumption.

Rather than feeding people, these crops feed the billions of chickens, cows, pigs, and other animals who live and die on factory farms. And that’s a problem.

The issue is that feeding humans indirectly—essentially, making animals the caloric middlemen—is a highly inefficient use of food. “For every 100 calories of grain we feed animals, we get only about 40 new calories of milk, 22 calories of eggs, 12 of chicken, 10 of pork, or 3 of beef,” writes Jonathan Foley, PhD, executive director of the nonprofit Project Drawdown, for National Geographic. “Finding more efficient ways to grow meat and shifting to less meat-intensive diets… could free up substantial amounts of food across the world.”

This shift in growing and consuming food more sustainably has become especially important, with up to 783 people facing hunger in 2022, according to the United Nations. Research indicates that if we grew crops exclusively for humans to consume directly we could feed an additional 4 billion people worldwide.

Farming has always loomed large in American politics, history, and identity. But the idyllic farming we may imagine—rich piles of compost, seedlings poking through the soil, and flourishing gardens of diverse fruits and vegetables—has transformed into factory farming, a highly industrialized system far removed from earth and soil. Animal feed is essential for the sustenance of this industry—supplying the cattle feedlots, broiler chicken sheds, and egg factories that increasingly make up the foundation of our food system.

What Factory-Farmed Animals Eat

Take a moment to picture a farm animal enjoying dinner. Are you imagining a cow grazing on grass or perhaps a chicken pecking at the ground, foraging for seeds and insects? In today’s factory farming system, the “feed” these animals eat is far removed from their natural diets. Rather than munching on grass or insects, most animals on factory farms eat some type of animal feed—a cost-effective mixture of grains, proteins, and often the addition of antibiotics designed to make them grow as quickly as possible.

The ingredients in animal feed don’t just matter to the animals’ health. They also impact human health—especially since the average American consumes 25 land animals yearly. Researchers have noted that animal feed ingredients are “fundamentally important” to human health impacts. As author and journalist Michael Pollan puts it: “We are what we eat, it is often said, but of course that’s only part of the story. We are what what we eat eats too.”

So, what are the main ingredients used in animal feed today?

Corn and Other Grains

In 2019, farmers planted 91.7 million acres of corn in the U.S. This equals 69 million football fields of corn. How can so much land be devoted to a single crop—especially something many people only eat on occasion?

The answer is that corn is in almost everything Americans eat today. It’s just there indirectly—in the form of animal feed, corn-based sweeteners, or starches. The U.S. is the world’s largest producer, consumer, and exporter of corn. And a large percentage of all that corn is used for animal feed, supplying factory farms across the country.

While “cereal grains”—such as barley, sorghum, and oats—are also used for animal feed, corn is by far the number one feed grain used in the U.S., accounting for more than 96 percent of total feed grain production. Corn supplies the carbohydrates in animal feed, offering a rich energy source to increase animals’ growth.

Unfortunately, what this system offers in efficiency it lacks in resilience. Numerous researchers have expressed concern about the vulnerability of the food supply that is so reliant on a single crop. “Under these conditions, a single disaster, disease, pest, or economic downturn could cause a major disturbance in the corn system,” notes Jonathan Foley in another article for Scientific American. “The monolithic nature of corn production presents a systemic risk to America’s agriculture.”

Soybeans

When you think about soybeans, you might imagine plant-based foods like tofu and tempeh. However, the vast majority of soybeans are used for animal feed. Animal agriculture uses 97 percent of all soybean meal produced in the United States.

While corn is rich in carbohydrates, soybeans are the world’s largest source of animal protein feed. Similar to corn, Americans might not eat a lot of soybeans in the form of tofu, tempeh, and soy milk—in fact, 77 percent of soy grown globally is used to feed livestock, and only 7 percent of it is used directly for human consumption, states a 2021 Our World in Data article—but they do consume soy indirectly through animal products like meat and dairy.

Soy production comes at a high cost to the environment. It is heavily linked to deforestation, driving the destruction of forests, savannahs, and grasslands—as these natural ecosystems are converted to unnatural farmland—and “putting traditional, local livelihoods at risk.” Critical habitats, like the Cerrado savannah in Brazil, are being razed to clear space for soybean production to meet the global demand for animal feed. More than half of the Cerrado’s 100 million hectares of native landscape has already been lost, with livestock and soybean farming being major contributors to this destruction.

“Most soybean-driven land conversions in Brazil have happened in the Cerrado,” said Karla Canavan, vice president for commodity trade and finance at World Wildlife Fund, in 2022. “The corridor [Cerrado] is like an inverted forest that has enormous roots and is a very important carbon sink. … Unfortunately, more than 50 percent of the Cerrado has been already converted into soybean farmlands.”

It’s a common misconception that plant-based soy products like tofu drive global deforestation. In reality, the vast majority of soy is used for animal feed. To fight this tragic habitat destruction, it’s far more effective to replace meat with soy-based alternatives.

Animal Protein and Waste

It’s not just plants like corn and soybeans that go into animal feed. The factory farming industry has a long history of feeding animals waste and proteins from other animals. In 2014, outrage ensued when an investigation by the Humane Society of the United States revealed that pig farmers were feeding animals the intestines of their own piglets. At a huge factory farm in Kentucky, workers were filmed eviscerating dead piglets and turning their intestines into a puree that was being fed back to mother pigs.

This wasn’t even an isolated atrocity. The executive director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians in 2014 commented that the practice was “legal and safe” and was meant to immunize the mother pigs against a virus called porcine epidemic diarrhea, according to the New York Times. Pigs aren’t the only animals who are effectively turned into cannibals by the factory farming industry.

Farmers were only prohibited from feeding cow meat to other cows following concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture notes on its website that BSE may have been caused by feeding cattle protein from other cows. The practice was banned in 1997—but, notably, only because of the risks to human health and not out of concern for the cows.

Antibiotics

Another key ingredient in animal feed likely doesn’t come to mind when you think about animal nutrition. This ingredient is antibiotics, commonly used in the food given to animals across the country.

On factory farms, animals are confined in extremely crowded, filthy facilities—the perfect conditions for spreading illness and disease. Not only do antibiotics allow animals to survive the conditions in these facilities but they also encourage animals to grow unnaturally large and fast. Drugs are administered through food and water, starting when the animals are just a few days old.

The meat industry’s excessive antibiotic use has directly been linked to antimicrobial resistance(AMR), a massive threat to human health. As bacteria are killed off, the surviving that remain gradually learn how to survive the attacks, becoming resistant to antibiotics over time.

AMR means that conditions that should be easy and affordable to treat—like ear infections—can become life-threatening. It’s “one of today’s biggest threats to global health, food security, and development,” according to the World Health Organization, states a News-Medical article, and it’s projected to kill four times as many people per year as COVID-19 did in 2020, according to the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

Additives and Preservatives

Along with the mixture of corn, soybeans, and a cocktail of antibiotics, animal feed may also contain a plethora of additives and preservatives. The Code of Federal Regulations provides a long list of additives legally permitted in animals’ food and drinking water. These include “condensed animal protein hydrolysate” (produced from meat byproducts of cattle slaughtered for human consumption), formaldehyde, and petrolatum—to name a few.

Unfortunately, many of these additives and preservatives have been linked to adverse human health impacts. For example, formaldehyde, which is classified as a known human carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program, is commonly used in animal feed to reduce salmonella contamination. In 2017, following concerns about farmworkers being exposed to the harmful substance, the European Commission voted to ban feed producers from using formaldehyde as an additive in animal feed.

Animal Feeding Operations

To understand the true impact of animal feed, we must look at animal feeding operations. Of all the animals in our food system today, 99 percent live on factory farms—enormous, vertically integrated operations designed to make as much profit as possible (at the expense of animals, people, and the environment). The transition to using animal feed has been closely intertwined with the transition to this type of large-scale factory farming.

The official term for a factory farm is concentrated animal feeding operation or CAFO. As the name implies, these operations are laser-focused on feeding large numbers of animals until they reach “slaughter weight,” after which they are killed and turned into products.

The faster an animal reaches slaughter weight, the more quickly the industry profits. So factory farms have dialed in on the most efficient way to feed animals in the shortest amount of time. Rather than grazing on pasture, animals are confined in stationary cages or crowded sheds and given feed that will increase their growth rates—even while it hurts their health.

Take cows, for example. Along with sheep and other grazing animals, they are known as “ruminants”—because they have a rumen, an organ perfectly designed to transform grass into protein. But the industry feeds cows corn instead of grass because it brings them to “slaughter weight” much faster than grazing. Sadly, this high-starch diet can disturb a cow’s rumen, causing pain with severe bloat, acidosis (or heartburn), and other types of stomach upset.

When it comes to feeding animals on factory farms these are some key industry terms to know:

Growth rates:This is the rate at which an animal grows or how quickly the animal reaches “slaughter weight.” Sadly, most factory farm animals are bred to grow so quickly that their health suffers. Chickens raised for meat frequently develop bone deformities, muscle diseases like white striping, and heart problems. Many chickens have difficulty walking, or even just standing due to painful lameness as a consequence of their fast growth rate.

Feed conversion ratio:This is the ratio between the amount of feed an animal eats and the amount of body weight that an animal gains. In other words, a feed conversion ratio is the industry’s effort to feed animals as little as possible to make them grow as quickly as possible.

Selective breeding:This is the practice of breeding two animals to produce offspring with a desired trait. For example, the poultry industry breeds birds who quickly develop outsized breast muscles. In the meat industry, selective breeding is generally used to optimize both feed conversion ratio and growth rates.

Animal Feed Industry Impacts

Overall, factory farming is incredibly resource-intensive and harmful to the environment. From agricultural runoff to water waste and pollution, CAFOs are responsible for some of humanity’s worst climate impacts.

“Livestock farms generate about 70 percent of the nation’s [United States] ammonia emissions, plus gases that cause global warming, particularly methane,” according to the Public Broadcasting Service. The practice of growing crops for animal feed is one of the worst drivers of environmental destruction—leaving biodiversity loss, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions in its wake.

Deforestation

Growing crops necessary to feed huge numbers of animals to support human meat consumption requires vast amounts of land, which results in massive deforestation. Forests worldwide are systematically being cleared and replanted with monocrops (such as the corn and soybeans mentioned earlier) to meet the demand for animal products—and therefore, animal feed.

Brazil, for example, is the world’s biggest beef exporter. In the Amazon rainforest—nearly two-thirdsof which is part of Brazil—crops for animal feed are one of the primary drivers of deforestation, damaging an essential habitat for countless species. Deforestation rates have averaged nearly million hectares yearly since 1995 in the Amazon, or about seven football fields every minute.

Meanwhile, farmland expansion accounts for 90 percent of deforestation worldwide, “including crops grown for both human and animal consumption, as well as the clearing of forests for animal grazing,” according to a July 2022 article in Sentient Media.

Deforestation eliminates one of our best defenses against climate change as healthy, intact forests provide a crucial ecosystem service: carbon sequestration. Forests safely store more carbon than they emit, making them powerful “carbon sinks” critical to maintaining a stable climate. When we destroy forests for farmland and other uses, we remove that carbon sink and release all the carbon into the atmosphere that had been stored there.

Biodiversity Loss and Extinction Threat

Naturally, deforestation goes hand in hand with biodiversity loss—of which animal agriculture is also a key driver. A 2021 study found that land use conversions to support the “global food system” are a primary driver of biodiversity loss. Tragically, researchers project that more than 1,000 species will lose at least a quarter of their habitats by 2050 if meat consumption continues at the same rate.

At the UBiodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal in December 2022, delegates warned that if our land-intensive eating habits don’t change, more and more critical species will go extinct. As author and journalist Michael Grunwald points out in the New York Times: “[W]hen we eat cows, chickens, and other livestock, we might as well be eating macaws, jaguars, and other endangered species.”

Water Use

Along with vast amounts of land, growing crops for animal feed requires enormous quantities of water. In the U.S. alone, more than 60 percent of freshwater was used to grow crops in 2012, and around 2.5 trillion gallons per year of water was used for animal feed in the same year. Corn, soybeans, and the other grains used in animal feed require about 43 times more water than grass or roughage, which animals could access if they were allowed to graze.

Soil Degradation

The intensive farming practices required to grow vast amounts of crops—like corn and soybeans—even take a toll on the soil.

Healthy soil contains millions of living organisms, which naturally replenish and recycle organic material and nutrients. Soil filters water, stores carbon, and allows for carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles that are critical for life on Earth.

But intensive farming practices, like growing “monocultures” (huge amounts of one crop like corn or soybeans), can degrade soil and deplete critical nutrients. Not only do these farming practices prevent soil’s natural processes but they can also reduce the amount of carbon stored in soil—a huge problem in the face of climate change. Intensive agriculture, closely intertwined with factory farming, damages the soil beyond repair.

Change Is Possible

The impacts of our animal-based food production system are far-reaching and complex. The intensive farming practices that supply animal feed for factory farms are destroying our water, air, and soil—and harming countless animals raised in food supply chains. But there is hope. It’s not too late to build a better food system from the ground up.

The movement to build a healthier food system is growing every day. Around the world, people are advocating for systemic change—from plant-based food options to better treatment of farmed animals. In fact, according to a March 2022 article in Phys.org, “switching to a plant-based diet in high-income nations would save an area the size of the EU worldwide.” Moreover, if just one person follows a vegan diet, an average of 95 animals will be spared each year, according to the book, Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs.

Concerned citizens and consumers can also hold corporations accountable for animal abuse and environmental degradation—by pressuring companies to adopt more sustainable practices. Already, several large meat producers and fast food and supermarket chains have stopped keeping pigs in gestation crates after people expressed “disgust” at the practice. According to the New York Times, “[T]he tide is turning because consumers are making their preferences known.”

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Vicky Bond is a veterinary surgeon, animal welfare scientist, and the president of The Humane League.