Unbelievable Photos Show Factory Farms Destroying The American Countryside
Food production has become a race
for maximum efficiency. When it comes to producing meat, whether
chicken, beef, or pork, that race has fallen at the feet of the
so-called factory farm and its hallmark feature — the feedlot.Feedlots, officially called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO),
house thousands of animals in tiny, confined spaces before they're
slaughtered. Critics call the practice inhumane and say it breeds environmental problems and disease."A feedlot is very much a pre-modern city … teeming and
filthy and stinking, with open sewers, unpaved roads, and choking air
rendered visible by dust," Michael Pollan writes in his book "The Omnivore’s Dilemma."There are currently about 15,500 CAFOs in the U.S. According to FarmForward — which used numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — 99% of farmed animals in the U.S. are raised on feedlots.For the last several years, British artist Mishka Henner has collected images of the feedlots via satellite, to
document a largely hidden phenomenon. Initially, he was searching
satellite imagery to look for oil fields. When he came across the
feedlots, Henner was shocked he didn't know about about such a central
part of our food production. 
for maximum efficiency. When it comes to producing meat, whether
chicken, beef, or pork, that race has fallen at the feet of the
so-called factory farm and its hallmark feature — the feedlot.
house thousands of animals in tiny, confined spaces before they're
slaughtered. Critics call the practice inhumane and say it breeds environmental problems and disease.
filthy and stinking, with open sewers, unpaved roads, and choking air
rendered visible by dust," Michael Pollan writes in his book "The Omnivore’s Dilemma."
document a largely hidden phenomenon. Initially, he was searching
satellite imagery to look for oil fields. When he came across the
feedlots, Henner was shocked he didn't know about about such a central
part of our food production.
