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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)
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)
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)
Proposed new section: Environmental impact of Factory Farming
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.
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)
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)
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)
Cattle
In some countries, such as India, they are honored in religious ceremonies and revered.
Is the reader supposed to be able to infer any other countries from the “such as?” Are there really any other countries where this is the case to any significant extent? Would it not be easier/better to just say Hindus honor cows? Are there any other religions that do? —Wiki Wikardo 00:20, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
November 2010 comments
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)
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)
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
"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.
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)
"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."
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)
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.[1] 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.[2]
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.[3] It supplies factory farms worldwide - from Brazil to Ethiopia - with high-yielding breeds of chicken such as the Rhode Island Red, and White Leghorn. [4] Cargill plays a central role in supplying factory farms worldwide with animal feed, another important input. [5]
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.[6] 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.[7] 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.[8] 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."[9]
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)
"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)
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?
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:
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)
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.
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.
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).
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)
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.
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 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. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.242.82.18 (talk) 00:57, 1 March 2013 (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)
The statement should be written as "animals, such as a chicken being kept in a space smaller in area than an A4 page."
3/21/13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtomicAvery (talk • contribs) 04:15, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Remove the quote by Baker, Stanley because it is strictly limited to his opinion rather than facts
Remove the boxed quote (footnoted as #13) in the history section written by Stanley Baker, which reads, "Factory farming, whether we like it or not, has come to stay..." because unless Stanley Baker has a crystal ball & can see infinitely into the future, there is no way for him to know whether factory farming is here forever, or if it will be replaced by something else (even if that possibility may presently seem inconceivable to many). For all we know each future home will have its own living hotdog tree or burger bush & so have no need for a factory farm. Or maybe we will all be forced to go vegan to avoid worldwide environmental extinction. Many thought it was absurdity to imagine equality for blacks, or that man could ever fly or break the sound barrier. I, for one, think it's absurd to imagine something as wasteful & environmentally disastrous as factory farming will be the Earth's longterm solution.
3/23/13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtomicAvery (talk • contribs) 05:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Remove the boxed statement by Matthew Sculley (footnoted as #27) because it is merely his subjective opinion, rather than describing a fact.
Remove the boxed statement by Matthew Sculley (footnoted as #27) because, though it is merely his subjective opinion, it is positioned as if it were factual.
Matthew makes a statement as if it were a fact, "the conditions that we keep these animals in are 'much more humane' than when they were out in the field." But the words," much more" & "humane" are not quantifiable & describe only Matthew's sole opinion, rather than fact. Also, how far in the past is Mathew referring to when he infers how much worse conditions "were" out in the feild?.. last week, or a century or more ago when cattle could roam for miles, free from steroid injections? It could be strongly argued that allowing animals fresh air & the freedom to roam for miles was more humane.
Matthew also states, "They're looked after in some of the 'best' conditions..." The word "best" is always indicative of a personal opinion rather than something factual.
Matthew goes on to claim that "we" are very interested in their wellbeing because , "the healthier and [more] content that animal, the better it grows." Where, if at all, is this scientifically proven? By whom was it proven? And if it was proven, then where is the footnote for it?
Last, when Matthew states, "So 'we' are very interested in their well-being—up to an extent", who else is he speaking for when he uses the word "we"?
3/21/13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtomicAvery (talk • contribs) 07:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
It seems appropriate that you removed it. You gave a long explanation, but I think you said enough in the first sentence. You are right in doing this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:04, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
What does the term mean and to whom?
Article content pertaining to the nature of "industrial agriculture" appears to rely excessively on the opinion of article authors. From the descriptive content, it is clear enough that some kinds of animal production would be designated "industrial". However, because the article fails to cite or offer a definition of the term, and because it fails to indicate a threshold separating "industrial" from other agriculture, the reader is given insufficient information to understand the limits of what is meant by the term. Moreover, examination of several publications using the term suggests that it has different meanings for different people. At one extreme, a neo-Luddite definition might include any agriculture using technology introduced since the era of Jethro Tull. With regard to "industrial" production of livestock, FAO usage is far more limited in scope. Some comment about differing meanings and/or different usage and some appropriate supporting citations, with attention to thresholds involved in definition, would seem appropriate. Moreover, care is needed to ensure that if usage in various parts of the article involves different meanings, the meaning involved in each case will be apparent to a reader. Schafhirt (talk) 19:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Problematic data
The article states "In the U.S., four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 60 percent of pigs, and 50 percent of chickens". This information is erroneous, misrepresenting the original source. The citation claims that this information is from testimony by L. Swenson before the House Judiciary Committee in September 2000. However, if one examines the record of that testimony, one finds that with the exception of the 50 percent for "chickens", the other figures are CR4 percentages for slaughter, i.e. they do not refer to production. Morever, the figure of 81 percent pertained to beef slaughter, not cow slaughter;the percentage for pork slaughter was 57, not 60; and the figure of 50 percent pertained to production of broilers, not all chickens.
The article states that "Factory farming is widespread in developed nations. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced this way.[6] " However, Steinfeld (of the FAO) has indicated that only about 10 percent of global beef cattle and sheep production in 1996 was "industrial". There is also abundant quantitative information in Sere and Steinfeld's "World Livestock Production Systems". Was any attempt made to check the Worldwatch Institute figures and their meaning before presenting them in the Wikipedia article? Schafhirt (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
"Factory farms" and analogous terms
The article states that "Factory farms under United States laws and regulations are called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), [10] and in Canada they are called confined animal feeding operations (CFOs) or intensive livestock operations (ILOs). [11] " The CFO and ILO designations do not appear to have any status in Canadian federal law or regulation; they apply in laws and regulations of Alberta and Saskatchewan, respectively. The term corresponding to CFO is "confined feeding operation", not "confined animal feeding operation". Alberta's CFOs and Saskatechewan's ILOs have precise definitions in law that are somewhat different. Is there adequate basis for implying that any and all "factory farms" would meet these definitions, or should the terms simply be described as being analogous? ("Intensive livestock operation" is also sometimes used as a general term, without implied reference to law, in both the US and Canada, and the term has legal status in some US juriscictions, such as North Carolina. The term "Confined Feeding Operation" is also not restricted to Canada. It is used in the US, e.g. in Indiana.) It is not clear why the article would refer only to terminology of Saskatchewan and Alberta when indicating usage in Canada, without acknowledging that other terms have regulatory status for analogs of these in other Canadian provinces. Examples include "feedlot" (British Columbia and Manitoba), "parc d'engraissement" (Manitoba), and "high-density permanent outdoor confinement area" (Ontario).
CAFO has a precise legal definition. If "factory farms" are CAFOs, as stated in the above-quoted sentence , this indicates that that those AFOs which are not CAFOs are not "factory farms". This does not appear consistent with some other article content referring to "factory farms".
The article states that "The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified certain animal feeding operations, along with many other types of industry, as point source polluters of groundwater. These operations were designated as CAFOs and subject to special anti-pollution regulation.[17] " This misrepresents the cited source, which nowhere refers to point source pollution of groundwater in relation to the EPA. The cited source does state that "The EPA regulations that ensued from the 1972 CWA were singularly focused on the main issue of surface water protection, and the rules developed for the 'feedlots' point source category were no exception." Schafhirt (talk) 19:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
This merge was completely inappropriate. Rather than merge in the extremist POV, it would have been much better to give this article the same treatment as the Genetically modified crops article. Re-write and/or edit this article to the NPOV, then add a section titled "Controversy" which directs to Factory farming, or, better yet, to an article titled "Animal agriculture controversies". This merge flies right in the face of any attempt on the part of other Wikipedia editors to "normalize" articles across the entire encyclopedia, IMHO. I won't revert, but I would certainly vote toward that result. Adv4Ag (talk) 18:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi advocate... please do not be so exercised. And please slow down. As I wrote above, the two articles dramatically overlapped especially with respect to the negative information. They were the same article, organized slightly differently. What happened at the GMO suite of articles evolved over time and maybe things will end up where you suggest. But this set of articles needs to get there on its own path. Let's talk and not yell. Jytdog (talk) 18:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
My apologies. I really don't mean to yell; when I actually am yelling I use all caps. As an editor with a self-acknowledged biased POV (after all, it's in my username), I find that my opinions have to be expressed somewhat strongly in order to be taken seriously or sometimes even acknowledged at all. That said, I've been looking over some of your work on the GMO series and just want to express some appreciation for what you've been doing there, particularly the way you handled the "Consensus" issue with a RfC. Best wishes on the work on this page. I'm hoping it does work out similarly to what I suggested above. Thanks again! Adv4Ag (talk) 18:45, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
What I generally find is that people who make overly strong arguments: a) shoot themselves in the foot, alienating potential allies and hardening opponents' positions: b) are ultimately destructive with respect to Wikipedia's goals of making decisions by community consensus. Real conversation - not yelling at one another - and the meeting of the minds, is the goal here. I hope you reconsider your strategy.Jytdog (talk) 19:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Merge of factory farming to Industrial agriculture (animals)
This article overlapped completely with Factory farming, so today I was bold and merged factory farming into this article. Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps this is best and perhaps not, but something I am sure that I do not like is that 56k of text went out of factory farming and only 47k of text made the jump to industrial agriculture. In the future, I think it would be best if you take all the text from the first article and move it into the second verbatim. After it is in, then cut whatever is redundant because with the method you used it is very difficult to view changes between versions. Since you already edited this article further, if you could explain what it is that you removed - and particularly whether you removed any referenced content or contentious material - then I think that concern would be addressed.
Hi! Thanks for your questions! The factory farming article was tagged due to the abundance of unsourced, essay-like content. Also as mentioned there was a lot of overlapping content, almost verbatim. When I did the merge, I went section by section through the Factory Farming article, and carefully merged content into where it fit in this article, leaving out what was redundant or OR/essay-like/unsourced. That is an interesting suggestion about how to do a merge... it is not how the guidance on doing merges advises proceeding, but I see how it would give comfort, especially in the context of a bold merge like this. Thanks for the suggestion!Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Here are some other concerns:
Could you please give a rationale as to why "Industrial agriculture (animals)" is a better name for this concept than "factory farming"? See also the names on Wikidata - "factory farming" was English's connection point with everything else.
Can you make an argument that these two concepts are equivalent, or at least that they were treated as such on Wikipedia?
Assuming that the merge sticks - how would you feel about moving discussions from the factory farming talk page to this talk page?
The reason I merged to this one, instead of vice versa, is the parallelism with Industrial agriculture (crops); both this article and that one were formed via forks from Industrial agriculture and I am a big fan of there being order among related articles.
This question is strange. As I wrote in the original note, the contents overlapped completely. To say more on that, literally everything in the factory farming article mapped onto this article. Perhaps they are distinguishable out there in the world, but as the two articles evolved in wikipedia they completely overlapped.
That is great, but I don't know how to do that other than doing it manually. Is that what you are suggesting? I did make a note at the top of this page, as per the instructions for merging. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
If the articles are the same then talk would be merged manually just like article content. About #2, if the contents overlapped completely then what was all text you deleted? A lot went missing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, I will merge the Talk pages manually. I feel like I am not understanding your question about what did not come over. I addressed it in my initial description and again above, but what I wrote is not answering you, so would you please help me understand your question better so I can answer it? Jytdog (talk) 13:06, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Did the manual merge of Talk page and set up archiving. Let me give some examples of what did not come over (quotations are from Factoring farming article) - I think maybe concrete examples are what you are after...:
duplicate or strange images did not come over, like
Free range chickens (why did we have a picture of free range chickens?)
Directly overlapping (at times almost verbatim) content like this:
"The discovery of vitamins and their role in animal nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which allowed chickens to be raised indoors.[10] The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in larger numbers by reducing disease. Chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made long-distance distribution of agricultural produce feasible.
Unsourced statements like the following, some with moldly citation needed tags:
"People adopted more intensive methods between the 15th and 19th century. With this growth in production best characterized by the Agricultural Revolution, where improvements in farming techniques allowed for significantly improved yields, and supported the urbanization of the population during the Industrial Revolution."
"Standardization — Factory farming methods permit increased consistency and control over product output. However, this results in less genetic diversity among animals, and weakened immune systems."
"Efficiency — Animals in confinement can be supervised more closely than free-ranging animals, and diseased animals can be treated faster."
"Food safety — Reducing number and diversity of agricultural production facilities may or may not make oversight and regulation of food quality easier. However, crowding and filthy conditions can make diseases like E.coli easily transferred between animals. Overuse of antibiotics can also result in the development of drug-resistant "superbugs"."
"Low monetary cost — Intensive agriculture tends to produce food that can be sold at lower cost to consumers. This is achieved by reducing land costs, management costs, and feed costs through government subsidized agricultural methods.[citation needed]" Note - the latter was part of a paragraph, most of which did come over. I worked in a detailed way.
Ah, here is something I did that may be controversial: content that was not on target, was OR/SYN, or was just kind of bizarre:
"Destruction of biodiversity — A tendency towards using a monoculture of single adapted breeds in factory farming, both in arable and animal farming, gives uniform product designed for high yields, at the risk of increased susceptibility to disease. The loss of locally adapted breeds reduces the resilience of the agricultural system. The issue is not limited to factory farming and historically the problem is reflected in the rapid adoption of one or two strains of crops across a wide area as seen in the Irishpotato famine of 1845 and the Bengalrice famine in 1942.[11] The loss of the gene pool of domesticated animals limits the ability to adapt to future problems." The sources here are all about agriculture (as in growing crops) and are not relevant to animals, which is the topic of the both articles. Somebody did OR/SYN to create this content. On this, I probably should have brought it over and then deleted it in a subsequent edit. (clarified what I meant by "agriculture" in italics Jytdog (talk) 14:04, 4 November 2013 (UTC))
"Economic contribution — The high input costs of agricultural operations result in a large influx and distribution of capital to a rural area from distant buyers rather than simply recirculating existing capital.[citation needed] A single dairy cow contributes over US$1,300 to a local rural economy each year, each beef cow over US$800, meat turkey US$14, and so on. As Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff states, "Research estimates that the annual economic impact per cow is US$13,737. In addition, each US$1 million increase in Pennsylvania milk sales creates 23 new jobs. This tells us that dairy farms are good for the state's economy."[12]" I didn't bring any of it over. The first part is unsourced with a moldy citation tag; the quote from Wolff is not specific to factory farms and additionally could be said about any activity from the most virtuous to the most malign (you can't do much of anything without buying stuff and thus "contributing to the economy" ).
There are some examples for you. Jytdog (talk) 13:50, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Another question for you, Lane.. in the instructions for merging, there is discussion about requesting that the history of the merged-from article be added to the history of the target article... you put a tag on, and an admin has to do it. I thought that might be appropriate, but was not sure. What do you think? Jytdog (talk) 14:09, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for putting the burden on you of explaining what was deleted. Everything you said needed to be said, but it must have been a lot of work. In the future, just copy everything over even if it needs to be deleted and then prune it away after copying it. I really appreciate the breakdown because it acknowledges all the past contributions to that article, and after reading over what you did, yes, I agree, the merge was an improvement.
A history merge is not appropriate in this case. What that does is take one history and mix it directly into the history of another article. This works if the history of one article stops before the history of the other begins, but in the case of these two articles, they had activity going at the same time. This means that if there were a history merge, the recorded versions of the article would jump between the two versions in order of whatever timestamps existed, so that would make no sense to anyone trying to review things. The record of the other article's history is here in this talk section. There is some template which could go at the top but I cannot find it just now. It says something like "parts of this article were taken from that other article". Let me look a bit more and I will post it. After that the last thing to do will be to fix the Wikidata connection, and I can manage that also. I will post when it is done. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
great, thanks! All your questions were great and I think the burden was on me to explain myself, and I am glad we were able to work though this. Jytdog (talk) 14:04, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I put a copied template at the top of this article. It looks like a common practice is to leave the old talk page without merging it, but I think that is a bad idea. Both conversations are about the same article topic, so I think the merge is best despite what the template I used said. You made a manual note about the merge; I deleted that and left only the template because the template comes with a maintenance category which robots will want to track. I also updated the Wikidata link. I will commit to another thing - refactoring this talk page. Discussions need to be sorted and merged by topic, and I will do that later also. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for doing all that! I agree that the box is waaaaaaaaaay better than the little sentence I put at the top. Thank you! As for refactoring... from my perspective that a) seems like a hell of a lot of work; b) creates a real danger of upsetting people by messing with their comments on Talk via editorial decisions you would make; c) doesn't create a lot of bang for the buck, as all this is text and is very searchable. I would recommend against doing it, as (from my perspective) your time is very valuable! Jytdog (talk) 15:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
You are right - looking again I did not expect when I stated my intention that there would be 200 discussion threads. It is searchable. It needs to be archived - perhaps that could be done. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Past move discussions
Hmm... this move has been discussed in the past - Talk:Industrial_agriculture_(animals)#Who_would_prefer_which_article_title.28s.29. Probably this move should have happened with a formal AfD or RfC. I think after all these years you do make a legitimate case for the persistent large overlap between these two articles. The name of the article is a controversial issue. "Industrial agriculture (animals)" could be changed anytime though, but I think it is a lot less controversial to say that the content and intent of the two articles was the same and that the content needed to be merged in any case. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
yep i was aware of those conversations when I did the Bold move, and was especially aware of the age of those conversations (about "infinity" ago in Wikipedia time!). I have actually been thinking about the name thing. I think "industrial agriculture" is not a phrase used by people who actually do it (I don't imagine hearing that at 4H club) but it is very common among activists; the name itself is an expression of the bias that fills these articles. (personal aside: It seems to me that these articles on "Industrial Ag" were written not from "inside" farming but rather from the point of view of environmentalists and animal rights folks, who have no interest in agriculture per se but instead are out to Right Great Wrongs. The fact that the most-used source in the History section is "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy" speaks volumes. Over the weekend I debated whether to commit to the articles in this bigger picture (most of my wikipedia work in the past year has been on genetically modified crops, food, etc). I don't know that I have the bandwidth to engage the bigger picture, but am sore tempted.) In any case, the next thing I am thinking of doing boldly, is to merge the main Industrial Ag article into Intensive Farming (a neutral term) and then to rename the two subarticles accordingly.Jytdog (talk) 15:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I did as I speculated I may do and moved the article to this new and more neutral name. Jytdog (talk) 02:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
when I copied the pages over, i set up an archiving bot. it will take a couple of weeks for it to kick in, however. feel free to change the time, if you like! Jytdog (talk) 15:20, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
I read the article, and started to flesh out the content as this is too broad a statement about one aspect of the findings and doesn't make it clear this is a primary source with a pretty small N (see below for where I ended up). This is way too much weight for a single study with such a small N, and at that point I reverted in this dif with edit note "reverted addition of content based on 2013 PLoS study under MEDRS; please see Talk". Under MEDRS, we do not create health-related content based on primary studies; if we do, the source should be very very strong and still, we hew very close to the source.
Here is where I was when I realized I was breaking MEDRS:
A single study published in July 2013 found that compared MRSA colonization in 99 workers in industrial livestock operations (ILO) and 105 workers in antibiotic-free livestock operations (AFLO) and their household members, found that Staphylococcus aureus (SA) colonization rates were equivalent (41% and 40%, respectively); within the SA carrier group, MRSA rates were identical at 7% (3/41 3/42, respectively), MDRSA rates among SA carriers were 37% percent in the ILO group and 19% in AFLO group. "S. aureus clonal complex (CC) 398 was observed only among workers and predominated among ILO (13/34) compared with AFLO (1/35) S. aureus-positive workers. Only ILO workers carried scn-negative MRSA CC398 (2/34) and scn-negative MDRSA CC398 (6/34), and all of these isolates were tetracycline resistant." (ref)http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0067641 (/ref)
These are small numbers! And as the study points out, only workers carried the tetracycline-resistant scn-negative MRSA CC398 and scn-negative MDRSA CC398; not family members and the big concern is transmission to other people, which the original content left out. I am sorry to say, but the original content was cherry-picking, which is one of the key reasons why both the general policy on sourcing content WP:PSTS and WP:MEDRS call us to use secondary sources, not primary ones. Am happy to discuss! Jytdog (talk) 17:45, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
^Mia MacDonald and Sangamithra Iyer (2010) Skillful Means: China's Encounter with Factory Farming. http://brightergreen.org, 1.
^Mia MacDonald and Sangamithra Iyer (2010) Veg or Non-Veg? India at the Crossroads. http://brightergreen.org, (Policy Brief)1.
^Mia MacDonald and Justine Simon (2010) Cattle, Soyanization, and Climate Change: Brazil's Agricultural Revolution. Brighter Green, 21.
^Mia MacDonald and Justine Simon (2010) Climate, Food Security, and Growth: Ethiopia's Complex Relationship with Livestock. Brighter Green, 6.
^Simon de Lima and Justine Simon (2010) Brazil: Cattle, Soyanization, and Climate Change, Brighter Green.
^Mia MacDonald and Sangamithra Iyer (2010) Veg or Non Veg? India at the Crossroads, Policy Brief. Brighter Green, 1.
^Mia MacDonald and Justine Simon (2010) Cattle, Soyanization, and Climate Change: Brazil's Agricultural Revolution. Brighter Green, 21.
^Mia MacDonald and Justine Simon (2010) Cattle, Soyanization, and Climate Change: Brazil's Agricultural Revolution. Brighter Green, 21.
^Mia MacDonald and Justine Simon (2010) Cattle, Soyanization, and Climate Change: Brazil's Agricultural Revolution. Brighter Green, 26.
^John Steele Gordon (1996) "The Chicken Story", American Heritage, September 1996: 52–67
