Have you ever wondered where meat comes from? We’re talking about even before the meat hits the shelves of your local grocery stores. The truth is, meat comes from animals that are abused at factory farms. Factory farms are also known as CAFOs, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Cows, pigs, sheep, and numerous other animals are abused in these facilities.

Animals are not able to see the sun. Chickens have to survive in crowded living spaces that become dirty and unsanitary over time. Do humans treat animals by their level of intelligence? Is that the reason why we mistreat animals? Based on the fact that animals are unintelligent compared to human beings? Then let us evaluate this question in terms of babies and retarded adults. Babies and retarded adults are unintelligent. In fact, they might as well have the intelligence level of a chicken. So why do we treat chickens and retarded humans or babies unequally?

CAFOs obviously mass-producemeat, but even though this may sound beneficial, is it really? Without CAFOs, there will be virtually no domestic meat in the U.S. In fact, 99% of all meat in the U.S. comes from CAFOs. This would be bad because 96% of Americans eat meat. This gives CAFOs a positive image for the average citizen to falsely admire. Yet, we mustn’t judge a book by its cover. While meat may come from this industry, environmental problems continue to occur. Land surrounding CAFOs becomes unusable after a few years, and the methane waste produced by the farmed animals pollutes the environment, which in turn, contaminates the entire global environment. Therefore, instead of just mindlessly establishing CAFOs, we must look for a realistic solution.

Numerous people in the past have stated, “Nothing is impossible,” and obviously, we should agree. The FDA, or Food and Drug Administration of the U.S., has already stated that they would employ new regulations to CAFOs, which would give animals more living space and less contact with manure. This new regulation will change the name CAFO to possibly AFO, due to the fact that it would not be concentrated. If this change were officially enacted, the pollution and manure waste issues would be properly addressed, at least formally. Above all, awareness is the first step to ultimately fixing CAFO-related problems.