An unappetizing review

Monday, May 5, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

Factory farming exacts such a hefty toll on human health and the environment that it should end such practices as using antibiotics and tightly confining animals, researchers say in a new report.

“Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Production in America” was released last week by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It is the result of two years of analysis by a 15-member panel representing a variety of backgrounds including agribusiness and public health.

The report says antibiotics given to healthy animals, used to prevent diseases among large numbers of animals confined in close quarters, promote drug-resistant illnesses in humans — both from the meat and from the public water supply where drug residue settles.

Factory farms also degrade the environment because the high concentrations of manure cannot dissipate naturally, the report says. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that animals confined at factory farms produce 500 million tons of manure each year. That is more than three times the amount of waste that Americans produce annually. Communities near factory farm operations also are exposed to high levels of methane and nitrous oxide emissions — two greenhouse gases — and as a result people in those communities are more susceptible to respiratory distress and neurobehavioral disorders.

One problem, the report says, is that farming operations have evolved into large industries and are based on assumptions that “nature provides unlimited sinks to absorb the wastes thrown off by that economic activity.”

The panel made numerous recommendations, including banning antibiotics use in animals that aren’t sick and phasing out confinement that prevents animals from moving freely. Also, antitrust laws must be strictly enforced, the panel says, to prevent further consolidation of the agriculture industry.

Barraged by recent recalls of imported food and other items, Americans and lawmakers have called for better standards for imports. However, this report should make Congress and U.S. consumers alike take a harder look at domestic food production and demand better standards here at home.