1. How and Why Did Animal Agriculture Become Industrialised?

Industrial animal agriculture as we know it today started in the early 20th century in the USA, in response to rural farmers being unable to produce enough food for rapidly growing populations in towns and cities. In the 1920s, chickens began to be selectively bred to produce meat and eggs at a faster rate. Flock sizes started to increase.

The development of antibiotics that could be added to feed helped to mitigate some of the risks associated with keeping animals in crowded conditions, such as rapid spread of disease. Thus, these larger flocks could now be kept in more confined spaces. Furthermore, the discovery of Vitamin D and a method of artificially giving it to chickens in their feed (rather than relying on sunlight) meant that chickens could now be kept indoors, all year round. Chickens, instead of being free to roam outdoors as they had done previously, were now being crammed into overcrowded sheds to be raised in greater numbers than ever before.

This was the start of the industrialisation of animal agriculture, which then spread to Europe. In the 1960s, the practice of keeping farmed animals in confined, indoor facilities extended to pigs and cows.

In these intensive farming systems, animals were increasingly treated as “machines” to produce meat, milk and eggs, rather than sentient beings. The “product” was the most important consideration to the industry. This gave rise to the term “factory farming”, which is frequently used by animal advocates to describe the practise of industrialised animal agriculture.

With growing populations to feed and increasing demand for meat, milk and eggs due to increased consumer wealth, intensive animal farming operations opened up in other parts of the world towards the end of the 20th century. Animals came to be regarded as “objects” or “products”. Increasing number of countries, including in Asia, are expanding industrial animal agriculture and replacing traditional practices of animal rearing.

The shift from the traditional raising of animals for food to animal farming becoming an industry is powerfully illustrated in the following striking image. In this image, each chicken is the same age — but the first one is a breed raised for meat in 1957, the second is a breed that had been developed by 1978, and the third is a modern-day breed. Each chicken was raised on exactly the same diet. This clearly shows how chickens have been genetically modified so drastically by humans to make more profit — at the expense of their welfare.