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Animal agriculture worldwide encompasses 83% of farmland (but only accounts for 18% of the global calorie intake), and the direct consumption of animals as well as over-harvesting them is causing environmental degradation through habitat alteration, biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, and trophic interactions. [174]
There are many potential impacts on human health due to the modern cattle industrial agriculture system. There are concerns surrounding the antibiotics and growth hormones used, increased E. coli contamination, higher saturated fat contents in the meat because of the feed, and also environmental concerns.
Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of agricultural land area.
Animal agriculture, in particular meat production, can cause pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, disease, and significant consumption of land, food, and water. Meat is obtained through a variety of methods, including organic farming, free-range farming, intensive livestock production, and subsistence agriculture.
Pollutants from agriculture greatly affect water quality and can be found in lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, and groundwater. Pollutants from farming include sediments, nutrients, pathogens, pesticides, metals, and salts. [1] Animal agriculture has an outsized impact on pollutants that enter the environment.
Farms often pump their animal waste directly into a large lagoon, which has environmental consequences. Pigs in intensive farming. The environmental impact of pig farming is mainly driven by the spread of feces and waste to surrounding neighborhoods, polluting air and water with toxic waste particles. [1]
One paper estimated that in Austria, at an intensive farming facility used to fatten up about 1800 growing pigs at a time, the already observed warming between 1981 and 2017 would have increased relative annual heat stress by between 0.9 and 6.4% per year. It is considered representative of other such facilities in Central Europe. [13]
In 2020, it was estimated that the food system as a whole contributed 37% of total greenhouse gas emissions and that this figure was on course to increase by 30–40% by 2050 due to population growth and dietary change. [21] Between 2010 and 2019, agriculture, forestry and land use contributed between 13% and 21% to global greenhouse gas ...