Five objections to factory farming at a glance

Factory farming has many disadvantages

Intensive livestock farming delivers cheap meat, dairy and eggs. But the bill is paid elsewhere: by the animals, by people living nearby, by nature and by people far away. Here we list the objections.

1. Ethics and animal welfare

According to Animal Freedom, freedom is a basic right for humans and animals alike.

When this basic right is violated by severely restricting animals in their freedom to behave naturally, the welfare of the animal is harmed. Intense boredom and the lack of space to avoid each other make animals aggressive.

The Netherlands produces far more than it uses itself: in 2024 almost three times as much pork and one and a half times as much chicken meat. Most of it is exported. As an overproducer, the Netherlands forces other countries to join in the same cheap production at the expense of animal welfare.

2. Public health

Overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming creates resistant bacteria against which no medicine works any more. Resistance genes can pass from bacteria in animals to bacteria in humans, which makes illnesses such as pneumonia harder to treat. According to the Netherlands Veterinary Medicines Institute (SDa), sales of antibiotics for farm animals in the Netherlands have fallen by 77 percent since 2009. Antibiotics as growth promoters have been banned in the European Union since 2006, but we doubt whether that use has really stopped. Residues of veterinary medicines can also remain in meat.

Where many animals live close together, diseases can jump from animals to humans. Between 2007 and 2010 more than 4,000 people in the Netherlands fell ill with Q fever, which came from goat farms. An estimated 50,000 people were infected and about a hundred have died of it since 2007. People living within two kilometres of a goat farm still get pneumonia more often (Dutch National Institute for Public Health, RIVM). And every outbreak of bird flu increases the chance that the virus adapts to humans.

Dust from the stables contains endotoxins: remains of bacteria that irritate the lungs. Pig and poultry farmers often suffer from them. In addition, ammonia from livestock farming combines with nitrogen oxides from traffic and industry to form fine particulate matter that spreads across the whole country.

3. World food production and climate

Farmland in poor countries is used to grow fodder for the animals in our factory farms instead of food for the local population. Local economies are disrupted. Because of the strong expansion of soy cultivation for animal feed, millions of farmers have been driven from their land. To survive, many had to clear new land in valuable natural areas. In this way the animal feed industry contributes directly to the disappearance of tropical rainforest, among other things.

According to the FAO, livestock farming worldwide is responsible for about 12 percent of all greenhouse gases emitted by humans. Earlier FAO estimates came to 14.5 percent (2013) and 18 percent (2006).

4. Quality of life for neighbours

The stench from the stables and from spread manure spoils life for people living nearby, as does the noise of fans and machines. Especially in early spring, when the stored manure is spread over the land, neighbours suffer from (sometimes severe) irritation of the airways. Some farms still have open manure basins.

Around 1994, 18 percent of the Dutch were bothered by odour from agriculture; around 2010 it was about 9 percent. This is due to a smaller livestock population and to the rule that manure must be worked into the soil. But in areas with a lot of livestock farming, the stench is still a big problem.

Air scrubbers (filters on the ventilation shafts of the stables) are no cure-all. Research by Wageningen University & Research on 48 air scrubbers showed that combined scrubbers in practice removed on average only 40 percent of the odour and 59 percent of the ammonia, far less than on paper. Cow sheds are simply open at the top and sides to let out the heat.

Ammonia from manure can, via the air or groundwater, harm the growth of crops in nearby (vegetable) gardens or make them taste bad.

5. Landscape and biodiversity

Large companies crowd out small farmers. Because of monocultures (such as fodder grass and fodder maize), heavy metals in manure and over-fertilisation in general, nature and the landscape are impoverished and soil and groundwater are polluted. In 2024 only 31 percent of the nitrogen-sensitive nature in Dutch Natura 2000 sites received no more nitrogen than it can tolerate.

Cows are increasingly kept indoors for higher production and to collect the manure. In 2024 almost a third of Dutch dairy cows never went out to pasture. Fodder grass has to be mown, which in spring costs many clutches of eggs, young birds and hares their lives. The black-tailed godwit, the national bird of the Netherlands, went from about 120,000 breeding pairs around 1975 to some 26,000 in 2025.

Manure

When cows are outdoors, their manure is spread evenly over the land in small amounts and over a much longer period. The young animals hiding in the meadow stay alive. Moreover, much less ammonia is formed outdoors, because dung and urine do not end up together in a pit. It is precisely the mixing of dung and urine in the manure cellar under the stable that forms ammonia.

Manure from the stable is spread, often in larger quantities than the land can absorb. Through leaching, the surplus ends up in the environment and the groundwater. Since the European exemption (derogation) for the Netherlands ended on 1 January 2026, the manure surplus has become much larger still.

What is wrong in factory farming?

One of the most important objections to factory farming is ethical. Even if all environmental problems were solved, the way the industry treats animals would still be unacceptable. Because the meat has to reach the supermarket shelves as cheaply as possible, the animals get just enough room to stand and stay alive.

In the European Union, male piglets may still be castrated without anaesthesia during their first week of life. In the Netherlands castration has been done under anaesthesia since 2009 and most male pigs are no longer castrated; in Germany castration without anaesthesia has been banned since 2021. Anyone who did such a thing to a cat would be fined for animal abuse. But animals bred for slaughter fall under different rules.

For a long time broiler chickens lived in almost continuous light, so that they would keep eating. Since 2010 European rules require at least six hours of darkness a day, including at least four uninterrupted hours. Pigs must have light of at least 40 lux for at least eight hours a day. That is still a long way from a natural life.

Keeping as many animals as possible in a small space, without freedom of movement or the opportunity to behave naturally, is only possible in an animal-unfriendly way. Despite changes in animal welfare law and even when the intrinsic value of the animal is taken into account, the basic right to freedom of animals cannot be guaranteed as long as factory farming continues.

Since 2009 the Treaty of Lisbon has recognised animals as sentient beings. Even so, animals in law are still treated largely like property: they can be bought, sold and rented out, like cars. Unlike humans, animals are not legal subjects: they cannot hold rights. When an animal in factory farming is denied the right to natural or even chosen behaviour, that is animal abuse, however good the care it receives.

See also the arguments against factory farming by Compassion in World Farming.

What is wrong in the fishing industry?

At first sight there seems to be no objection to eating fish, unless you are ethically against killing living beings. Yet the objections to meat apply to fish as well. Every year an estimated 1.1 to 2.2 trillion wild fish are caught worldwide. Fish can feel pain.

Fishing nets also catch animals that were not the target, such as dolphins, porpoises and seabirds (bycatch). They get entangled and drown. To protect dolphins, France has closed parts of the Bay of Biscay to fishing for a month every winter since 2024.

With beam trawling in the North Sea, more than half of the catch is still thrown back overboard, mostly dead: fish that are too small, of the wrong species or above the quota. Since 2019 the European Union has had a landing obligation, but with many exemptions. The heavy nets plough up the seabed and destroy the ecosystem for a long time.

Fish are not only caught but also farmed. More than half of all fish and seafood now comes from fish farms, where the animals live crowded together, comparable to factory farming.

Finally, eating fish also has health risks. Large predatory fish such as tuna and swordfish contain relatively high levels of mercury. Eel from polluted rivers contains too much dioxin and PCBs.

Sources: Netherlands Veterinary Medicines Institute (SDa), antibiotic use in farm animals in 2025 (June 2026); RIVM, Q fever and livestock farming and the health of local residents; FAO, Pathways towards lower emissions (2023); INPE/PRODES via Mongabay (October 2025); WUR, combined air scrubbers and odour nuisance; EU directives 2007/43 (broilers) and 2008/120 (pigs); North Sea Foundation, landing obligation and bycatch; fishcount.org.uk; FAO SOFIA 2024. Updated October 2026.