At what point do we consider a farm a "factory farm"?

Question

I have spent my life on the farm and read many comments by individuals or groups usually with an agenda, that reference farms as "factory farms". I am interested in hearing from individuals who eat meat to the vegan groups, what determines this title.

Answer 1

"Factory farming" has no real definition.  It is a phrase thrown around to demonize high volume farmers.  I have a small piece of land.  I have a couple dozen chickens.  I sell free range eggs.  It is fun.  It is also impractical to think that 99% of America's population (and charity recipients around the world) could be sustained by 1% of the population farming with my small-time, free-range methods.  PETA vegans think that farming is ugly.  They would like for humanity to return to a more primal state, so that we would have less of an impact on the environment.  To further their agenda, they introduce negative catchphrases like "factory farming".  You keep raising the meat efficiently, and I will eat it.  Thank you for farming.

Answer 2

When the animals are kept in inhumane conditions- think 10 hens in a cage the size of a microwave.

Answer 3

"Factory farms" has become a catch phrase for everything about farming that is not organic.  We used to call them feeding floors, now they are factory farms and farmers have no regard for and torcher their livestock.  Farmers used to care about their livestock and take care of them, after all their are our lively-hood.  But now it seems that we keep them prisoner and only care about the money we make from them.  We used to raise a crop of corn or soybeans now we raise mono-crops and have no regard for the soil, the air, or the world.  Farmers have always been the leaders on soil conservation, caring for livestock and wildlife.  I don't know exactly when we became the bad guys in the eyes of the rest of the world .

Answer 4

factory is when they over produce animals eggs milk vegitables but no i have not heard that one.

Answer 5

a scientific point of view

the most basic "currency" (money) is energy however you measure it

my concept of a factory farm is any 'agricultural system' that requires more energy input than is obtained from it

the 'system' should include processes up to the point where food enters your mouth  (so it should include 'costs' such as the energy input required to transport the product to the 'consumer'

incidently, considered from this aspect---the highly mechanized, high fertilizer/pesticide/transport dependent US farmer is the least efficient farmer in the world

in fact the US farmer inputs more energy than he outputs

not even considering ecological costs

however in money terms 'he' is the most efficient

because of the large land "ownership" he has a disproportionate say it in "democracy"

"farm subsidies"  huh?

Answer 6

First and foremost I love farmers, they are the people that feed us, produce our sustenance.  

Mass production is considered "factory farms" it is not segregated to farming the land.  Consider chickens who are bred for the sole purpose of human consumption.  they never peck the ground, unless of course you buy what they call "free range chickens" chickens that were raised on a real farm free to peck the ground and so on.

I hope this helps, also when a farmer only concentrates on one crop as their source or main source of income for the farm this could be considered "factory farms"

Answer 7

In my eyes a factory farm is a mass production "animal factory" where animals are "manufactured" for the sole purpose of being eaten, their needs do not come into the equasion and the living conditions are that of a factory and not a farm, when I think of a farm I think of a peaceful country setting, where the only noises are a tractor humming and a rooster crowing, where the animals graze in rolling fields on fresh grass and hens strut around proudly, when I think of a factory farm I think of a dark, noisy, "metallic" enviroment where the priority is to roll out meat, not make sure your food comes from a clean, safe place where at leased the animal has had a decent existance.

Answer 8

Factory farms are for mass production and employ automation and sometime practices that may be considered inhumane treatment to animals.

Answer 9

Farms are not really factories.  Factories use non-biological inputs to manufacture non-biological products.  (steel and rubber to make cars, etc.)  Farmers use biological inputs to grow biological products.  (corn to produce pork, etc.)  Farmers have however, advanced with the times, as has the rest of the world.  Ford no longer produces Model T's and pork producers no longer produce the fat pork that was produced by their forefathers.  

To keep the price of your food low, farmers have been forced to accept lower profit per unit of output, and therefore must produce more outputs than just 10 or 20 years ago.  Where a farmer once produced 1000 hogs per year to support his family, he now must produce 10,000 per year for the same level of net income.  (The same is true of grain farmers.  They once could get by on 4-500 acres, now it takes 1500-2000 acres.)  Economies of scale do not make them a factory, it just reflects the lowered profit per unit produced.

Most people are now 2 or 3 generations (or more) removed from living on the farm.  They don't realize that farming has changed, as has the rest of the world. Advancements in  breeding, nutrition, management, and computers has allowed agriculture to keep pace with the world's increasing population and supply food and fiber to the world at ever decreasing percentages of their income.

Answer 10

factory farms are typically those who produce mass quantities and process the goods on location.I grew up on a farm and we were a working farm,factory implies industrialization like automated milkers and such.