UK has more than 1,000 livestock mega-farms, investigation reveals: Newly published figures show for first time how US-style factory farms have spread across British countryside

29 comments

  2. The welfare of, and experience of short, horrific lives these animals have is often so disturbing that images of the conditions and treatment get taken down from social media. I would encourage anyone with a few minutes to do some research into the practices at these. Utterly heartbreaking.

  3. It didn’t say anything about sheep alot of farms with will have over 1000 sheep when it comes to lambing are these being counted.
    Plus winter time cows don’t go out to graze they have sheds and an and outside penning area like in the picture not in the farms interest to leave them out all winter as they don’t cope well with the cold

  4. This sucks. Now, imagine if the same number of animal products was made from British-reared livestock in an all-free-range or organic system. The requirements for space would be much greater, and take up space we simply don’t have on our island. So before you start switching every meaty meal you have to free-range, consider the alternative: cut down on eating animal products, or give them up entirely. Neither this nor free-range are ideal.

    Credit to [George Monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/most-damaging-farm-products-organic-pasture-fed-beef-lamb) for this thinking.

  5. So I have recently just got into going vegan and I have to say, once you lift that veil and look into these industries you kind of understand why vegans can be so vocal. What we’re doing is absolutely horrifying and I don’t think most people know the full extent of it.

  6. The Tories are intentionally putting farmers out of business, this is essentially a land grab by Tory donors / thieving politicians.

    No matter what they say about supporting farmers and the Brexit benefits, they are writing to farmers and offering them money to pack up and quit, telling them its not worth it.

  8. Sadly I can’t see decreases in these practices, as the U.K. population increases and inflation hits peoples wallets surely these mega farms are likely to take on a large role in farming?

  9. And people still claim to only eat from their uncles local free-range grass-fed pasture-raised humane farm where the animals get weekly massages.

  10. Broiler farms are insanely packed here in the UK, and it appears supermarkets are the ones pushing for quality of life, rather than government.

    UK farms have a long way to go compared to what Jumbo are mandating of their chicken suppliers on the continent (significantly longer life meaning much slower growth breeds and reduction in how much they’re fed), but I can’t say that life is particularly joyous either.

  11. If you want cheap meat, you’ve got to produce at scale. If you want good meat, you’ve got to accept the expense. This is something we maybe find hard to accept

  12. Yup and they are destroying the rivers, the river Wye in Herefordshire is being poisoned by the waste of so many of these chicken plants, they are trying to build more and more, it’s disgusting

  13. I wrote a dissertation on community spread MRSA a few years back. A section of my research reading was on US mega farms and what they have done for antibiotic resistance. Was pretty shocking, basically antibiotics are administered prophylactically – i.e. to prevent disease and improve yield which has had the effect of creating resistant bacteria at a massively accelerated rate.

    This is just one of the issues with these factory farms. I guess being like Auschwitz for animals is the other.

  16. It’s actually shocking how many people in the UK think British farming is like country file. I get told that farm animals live good happy lives by people that genuinely believe that, they think I’m the crazy one for being vegan and they are so deluded they think that I’m the one that is living in la la land for saying the animals suffer unforgivable cruelty.

    Factory farming isn’t just a American thing, it’s a worldwide thing, it’s absolutely horrendous and it’s happening here.

    https://www.landofhopeandglory.org/

    This undercover documentary is only 50 minutes long it shows RSPCA approved methods and red tractor farm, this documentary shows the stuff that we are told as consumers is the higher welfare stuff, we are manipulated into believing that the conditions are better, that the RSPCA actually cares about welfare. It’s actually nightmare fuel what happens on those farms but I believe it’s our duty to bare witness because it’s something that we are responsible for. If you eat animal products (or ever have) it’s your duty to watch the video in my opinion.

  18. Some of the comments here are incredible. People will (legitimately) worry about the cost of living crisis whilst demonising mass farming.

    I’m afraid you cannot have your cake, and eat it.

  21. This is so wrong. I don’t have any addictions but I would definitely say eating meat is hard to give up. I really want to and I think I am getting to the point where I stop altogether now…

  22. Its why I stopped eating meat, the thought of an animal, whatever it is suffering for its whole life literally made me sick. Fuck those bastards, I hope more people make the same decision and cut them off from tbeir misery profits

  25. The Tories have started with taking the rights away, next step is human right, which is what we know they want too, but it’s how far they will go with taking the rights of people away.

  26. But I keep getting told everyone on Reddit gets their meat from Jimbo the local butcher down the road who only sources it from his cousins ethical ten animal farm.

  27. An entire industry dedicated making innocent creatures of this earth suffer. Any wonder the Vegans are so vocal?!

    N.Ireland is terrible for all this. We have no independent environment agency and a government propping up the farms. We have huge industrial factory farms for cattle and pigs.

    I completely went off pork as soon as I saw one of these places. Hardly eat chicken. (Only organic eggs) and hardly any dairy.

    One trip to one of these places will at minimum, make you a vegetarian almost instantly.

    I don’t think there’s such a thing as a ‘good farm’ however there are farmers out there who genuinely look out for the welfare of their livestock. So it’s not all doom and gloom but it’s not good either.

    Someday, we are going to all pay the price for this.

    Just wait. An antibiotic resistance superstrain of bacteria will form eventually. One for which, there is simply no cure, because it will be resistant to every drug known to mankind.

    It will be nature’s way of stopping all this suffering.

  28. I thought Brexit made it easier for the UK Gov’t to bring in ‘British’ laws to protect animals and farming traditions??

  29. Went vegan a few years ago partly because of this madness. I’ll never understand why most humans think the only animals who have any moral value are other humans and maybe cats/dogs. Like, what’s the morally relevant difference between the animals we abuse and those we don’t that justifies the difference in treatment?

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