Statistic
24,000 people in the world die of starvation every day, approximately one in every four seconds. Good morning/afternoon ……
As a member of ………….., I was asked to explore the necessity of animal confinement in intensive production systems. intensive farming began in the 1920’s at the discovery of vitamins A and D as food supplements. Adding these vitamins to feed mixtures meant that the animals no longer required exercise or sunlight for growth. Confinement may be feedlots, piggeries or poultry sheds.
Animal confinement has become critical because:
1.Without it, food can not be distributed appropriately throughout the world,
2.Extensive grazing is ecologically unsustainable,
3.Farmers are forced to produce as efficiently as possible to compensate for an ageing industry, urbanisation and the cost-price squeeze; and
4.In many areas, the housing of animals is essential to their survival
In the article “Africa is starving as the world feeds on Iraq” by Daphnee Dion-viens, Jean Zigler, the food rights assessor of the United States is documented as believing that with current technology and available resources, the world should be able to supply enough food for 12 billion people, twice the current population of the world. This will be achieved through intensive farming and its ability to supply a reliable resource of animal protein that can be grown regardless of the quality of the environment and produce a higher yield per area than conventional methods. Zigler sees the reason for starvation as being linked to the restriction of food distribution because of political tension and market forces rather than the ability to produce the food. While 34% of the African population is malnourished, America, Australia and many other countries alike suffer severely from obesity. By comparing the two groups of children in these pictures, each from extremely diverse countries and cultures, it is obvious that there is enough food but current distribution methods mean that both groups will suffer, through the extremes of obesity and starvation. Intensive farming improves the distribution of food by creating a reliable and safe food source where it is needed. Instead of shipping supplies across vast oceans, people in starving countries can build their own resources, producing enough food for themselves in their own country on land that was once deemed too infertile for production.
The Term Paper on Food Animal Animals Meat One
Vegetarianism: Why it is the Better Choice. The trend of abstaining from eating meat and other animal products is a rapidly growing one. According to David Bender in Animal Rights Opposing Viewpoints, "Today, nearly twenty million Americans are vegetarians, and many more have greatly reduced their meat consumption" (139). One meat-eating person may ponder why these non-meat eaters would deprive ...
Humans are said to require three main things; food, water and shelter. Agriculture provides two of these, making it absolutely essential. Since the beginning of human existence we have squabbled for territory as land is recognised as such an important commodity, and today it is clear that there is limited land available for agricultural production to feed, cloth and shelter everyone. Concentrating food production by converting from extensive to intensive farming allows countries to feed themselves. Through various methods of animal confinement, more animals can be grown on the same amount of land than that of extensive grazing. Extensive farming is also damaging to the environment as clearing land for farmland, often known as deforestation which claims one and a half acres every second, causes erosion and high salinity levels which ultimately makes extensive farming ecologically unsustainable. In the past 40 years, one-third of the world’s cropland has been abandoned because of erosion.
The Term Paper on Animal Feed Food Plants Transgenic
Plants are the primary source of food on the Earth. The domestication of plants for agricultural use was a long-term process. They were cultivated by human for thousands of years, during which time plants were continually selected for improved yield, growth of food characteristics. The improvement of a plant species by conservative techniques involves the selection for breeding purposes of certain ...
In the last 30 years, the number of farmers in Australia in their 20’s declined by 60%.
Many countries are following similar trends and when the current generation of farmers retire, there will be an exceptionally small workforce to take on the task of feeding the world. This decline in the farming workforce is due to urbanisation; as farming life becomes a bitter struggle due to the cost-price squeeze, where input costs substantially outweigh the returning figures. Due to the deteriorating workforce, farmers are forced to convert to intensive farming which offers a higher profit margin while requiring less land and labour.
Consumers demand a reliable price, quality and quantity of product from the already diminished number of farmers. Intensive farming achieves this by gaining a considerable amount of control over the growth and conditions of the product. By housing animals in controlled environments; farmers are able to dictate the amount and type of feed, regulate weather conditions and control diseases and pathogens. This control protects the animals from elements such as droughts, snowfall, heat waves and natural predators, therefore eliminating many of the risk factors behind farming.
Intensive farming can make it possible to feed every person on Earth by utilizing appropriate distribution methods that allow starving countries to feed themselves. It can create an ecologically sustainable method of farming by limiting environmental damage, and compensate for a limited farming workforce while meeting consumer demands of a reliable cost, quantity and quality of the product. Intensive farming also manages to create a safe environment for the animals by increasing the control of the farmer over the animals and their surroundings.
The confining of animals made the achievements of intensive farming possible. By exploring the importance of intensive farming to feed, cloth and shelter all living people, it is inevitable that animal confinement is recognised as the vital factor of intensive farming.
