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What's Wrong with Factory Farming?

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Excrement:
Production of excrement by total US human population: 12,000 pounds/second
Production of excrement by US livestock: 250,000 pounds/second (including 25 pounds of manure per cow per day)
Sewage systems in US cities: Common
Sewage systems in US feedlots: None

Antibiotic Resistance:
Antibiotics administered to people in the US annually to treat diseases: 3 million pounds
Antibiotics administered to livestock in the US annually for purposes other than treating disease: 24.6 million pounds
Antibiotics allowed in cow's milk: 80
Percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin in 1960: 13%
Percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin in 1988: 91%
 
Numbers of Animals Slaughtered for Food in US:
Number of cows and calves slaughtered every 24 hours in the US: 90,000
Number of chickens slaughtered every minute in the US: 14,000
Food animals (not counting fish and other aquatic creatures) slaughtered per year in the US: 10 billion
 
Factory Farm Animals with Diseases from Intensive Conditions:
A report by the USDA estimates that 89% of US beef patties contain traces of the deadly E. coli strain. Reuters News Service 8/10/00
Primary source of Campylobacter bacteria: Contaminated chicken flesh
People in the US who become ill with Campylobacter poisoning every day: More than 5,000
American turkeys sufficiently contaminated with Campylobacter to cause illness: 90%
Americans sickened from eating Salmonella-tainted eggs every year: More than 650,000
Americans killed from eating Salmonella-tainted eggs every year: 600
Average lifespan of a dairy cow - 25 years; average lifespan when on a factory dairy farm - 4 years.

Water:
Water needed to produce 1 pound of wheat: 25 gallons
Water needed to produce 1 pound of meat: 2,500 gallons
Cost of hamburger meat if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by US taxpayers: $35/pound
The amount of water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer would float a (Naval) destroyer. (Newsweek article "The Browning of America")

All statistics and information compiled from The Food Revolution by John Robbins (2001), Diet for a New America by John Robbins (1987), Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet and the Rainforest Action Network.