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Animal Agriculture: Our Health and Our Environment

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Animals and Public Health

Part of the book series: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ((PMAES))

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Abstract

Even if we could, no matter how unlikely, contain the pathogens running amok among factory farms, we are still faced with a much larger problem. This is because there are just too many animals being produced for food: animals grown for meat and dairy products account for 20 percent of the world’s terrestrial animal biomass.1 To sustain this massive production requires unprecedented quantities of water, energy, land, pesticides and feed crops (crops fed to farmed animals). In exchange for all these depleted resources, we get polluted water, air and land, and perhaps one of the most significant climate transformations in human history.

He is a heavy eater of beef. Methinks it doth harm to his wit.

—William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, UK

    Aysha Akhtar

  2. US Food and Drug Administration, North Potomac, Maryland, USA

    Aysha Akhtar

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© 2012 Aysha Akhtar

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Akhtar, A. (2012). Animal Agriculture: Our Health and Our Environment. In: Animals and Public Health. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230358522_5

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