The Negative Effects Of Animal Agriculture

The Environment Would Appreciate a Movement “The average American consumes about 200 pounds of meat per year” (Marusic). Shockingly, a majority of the people around the world are unaware of the impacts of animal livestock and how the industry is destroying the environment and ourselves. For example, species extinction, global warming, water pollution, animal cruelty, ocean dead zones, and human health are all negative factors from the process of animal agriculture. Society is not acknowledging what kind of food the are eating, where it is coming from, and the harmful steps taking place to get it to their plate for our society to eat just for enjoyment. The animal agriculture industry is playing a major impact in destroying the environment

This land is used for grazing livestock, pasture grazing, and for crops. The amount of land needed is increasing, for example “2-5 acres of land are used per cow” (Oppenlander). In the United States “nearly half of the contiguous United States is devoted to Animal Agriculture” (Vesterby). Animal agriculture also has different types of farming besides factory farming. There is grass fed cattle, which have to be raised completely different. This leads to more land being used in the United States for animal agriculture. With the increasing need for land for animal agriculture, society must be reminded that not all the United States land is suitable for raising animals and crops to feed them. With the high demands of meat, but very few land left society must realize the United States is not suitable for this increasing

Changing our diet “towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change” (Carus).

Promoting vegan diets is not always easy to people who aren’t interested or open enough to change such a vital part of their life. Therefore, people can try to switch their diets towards just eating less meat or following a meatless day. Additionally, there is more ways you can help the environment, animals, and yourself. The next way would be to buy better meat from responsible producers rather than big meat industries. Following simple tasks like reading labels and choosing better meat can help the environment more than someone would think. When cautiously watching your everyday diet, cutting animal products completely out of your diet, or purchasing better meat you are helping the environment, yourself, and the animals. Some people tend to argue that animal agriculture is not hurting the environment at all. They tend to think this, because they avoid the main arguments on animal agriculture and focus on how factory farming creates jobs, efficiency, and cheap food production. When discussing employment, it has been argued that “factory farms provide employment to nearby communities and companies that use local people. In addition, supporters argue that they do invest in