Bird's Eye View of Meat Factories

I came across these horrific satellite pictures collected by Mishka Henner who was initially looking for satellite images of oil fields, but discovered something just as disturbing. The seemingly beautiful and colorful lakes are cesspools of animal and chemical waste. Interestingly enough, these photos are rather controversial as many US states are protected by what they call 'ag-gag' laws which ban all undercover photography, video and sound recording in farms. They say these are in place in order to protect the farmers from unwanted intruders, but in my opinion, they work better to cover up the animal cruelty and environmental disaster that is ongoing inside closed doors of these factories.

These cesspools are a result of an unnatural growth cycle of the cattle, where their natural growth of about 5 years to slaughter weight has squeezed into 12 to 14 months. The diet of the cattle has been switched from grass to corn, protein and fat supplements. This ,combined with the fact that land per cattle ration in these factories is exceptionally low, means that factory produces a considerable amount of waste that naturally would be used as fertiliser. But due to the chemical composition of manure produced by factory cows, it  cannot be put to any good use and needs to be disposed of. And in come the cesspools, where all this chemical waste will just sit and damage the local water supply and air quality, causing disease within local human, animal and natural populations. Have a look at the photos:

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

(Source: http://www.filmsforaction.org)

The answer to this environmental disaster lies within the larger de-concentration of meat factories and food production in general. 'Farms' need to become farms again. The unnatural processes taking place in the factories are the root cause behing the photos above and rather than thinking how to sustainably dispose of the toxic waste, we should be thinking how to avoid creating it in order to arrive at a truly promising solution. Our meat production should be pasture-based, allowing the cattle's manure to be distributed so that the soil would be able to absorb it, making it a valuable fertiliser and creating a healthy lifecycle between the animal and the soil it feeds on. The road there is bumpy, but more on that later!

Here is the link to the initial article where all the photos are from: http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/unbelievable-photos-show-factory-farms-destroying-the-american-countryside/

Till next time,

Laura