Experts warn it’s only going to get worse. In 2014, the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, commissioned by the UK Government and Wellcome Trust, estimated that 700,000 people around the world die each year due to drug-resistant infections. Without action, that number could grow to 10 million per year by 2050. A leading cause of antibiotic resistance? The misuse and overuse of antibiotics on factory farms.

Flourishing antibiotic resistance is just one of the many public health crises produced by factory farming. Other problems include food borne illness, flu epidemics, the fall out from poor air and water quality, and chronic disease. All of it can be traced to the current industrial approach to raising animals, which values “high stocking density” over safe working conditions and farm animal welfare. Oversight for the way factory farms operate and manage waste is minimal at best. No federal agency collects consistent and reliable information on the number, size, and location of large-scale agricultural operations, nor the pollution they’re emitting. There are also no federal laws governing the conditions in which farm animals are raised, and most state anti-cruelty laws do not apply to farm animals.

For example, Texas, Iowa and Nebraska have excluded livestock from their animal cruelty statute and instead created specific legislation aimed at farm animal abuse that makes accepted or customary husbandry practices the animal welfare standard. After New Jersey created similar legislation, the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NJSPCA) sued the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA), claiming that “routine husbandry practices” was too vague. NJSPCA won, and as a result, the NJDA has created more specific regulations: tail docking of cattle is only allowed when performed “by a veterinarian for individual animals,” and debeaking of birds is only allowed if performed by a knowledgeable individual and in compliance with the United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines for U.S. Egg Laying Flocks. In North Carolina, any person or organization can file a lawsuit if they suspect animal cruelty, even if that person does not have “possessory or ownership rights in an animal.” In this way, the state has “a civil remedy” for farm animal cruelty.

The general lack of governmental oversight results in cramped and filthy conditions, stressed out animals and workers, and an ideal set up for the rampant spread of disease among animals, between animals and workers, and into the surrounding environment through animal waste.

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE

The problem: In 2017, nearly 11 million kilograms of antibiotics––including 5.6 million kilograms of medically important antibiotics––were sold in the US for food animals. Factory farms use antibiotics to make livestock grow faster and control the spread of disease in cramped and unhealthy living conditions. While antibiotics do kill some bacteria in animals, resistant bacteria can, and often do, survive and multiply, contaminating meat and animal products during slaughter and processing.

What it means for you: People can be exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria by handling or eating contaminated animal products, coming into contact with contaminated water, or touching or caring for farm animals, which of course makes a farmworker’s job especially dangerous. Even if you don’t eat much meat or dairy, you’re vulnerable; resistant pathogens can enter water streams through animal manure and contaminate irrigated produce.