Factory farms spawn human diseases

Deadly zoonotic diseases routinely emerge from industrialized animal agriculture operations.

Standard factory-farming conditions, including close confinement of animals indoors, unsanitary conditions, poor air quality, and untreated animal illness, injury, and stress, combine to increase the likelihood and spread of infectious disease among farmed animals. At least some of these diseases are zoonotic, meaning they are transmissible to humans. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), zoonotic diseases represent at least 61% of total human pathogens and 75% of novel pathogens that have emerged since the mid-1990s.

Animal agriculture has a history of pandemics

Nearly a century after the 1918 H1N1 avian influenza killed 50 million people, deadly infectious diseases continue to emerge from intensive agriculture operations. Since the mid 1980s alone, several have caused outbreaks among animals and humans and remain persistent threats to each. Creutzfeldt-Jakob (“mad cow”) disease (1986), H5N1 avian flu (1997), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS, 2003), H1N1 swine flu (2009), and H7N9 avian flu (2013) all spread among animals on factory farms before sickening and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the global economy and the factory farming industry

COVID-19 is the latest infectious disease to emerge from industrialized animal agriculture operations. And if the virus has taught investors anything, it is that zoonoses pose grave risks not only to human populations but also the global economy.

In January 2020, Chinese health authorities identified the novel pathogen that has since become known as COVID-19. Believed to have originated in bats and infected humans via contact with bats or other animals in a live animal market in Wuhan, China, the deadly virus swiftly spread to nearly every country in the world. As of early August 2020, COVID-19 had infected nearly 20 million people worldwide, killing more than 730,000, and, according to the World Bank, “plunging” the global economy into the deepest recession since World War II. In the United States, more than 5 million had contracted the virus, and over 160,000 had died. The Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 had all experienced historic losses, and the country had entered a recession after plummeting a record 32.9% during the second quarter.

COVID-19 has had a devastating financial impact on the factory farming industry. The rampant spread of the disease among slaughterhouse workers forced plant closures around the world. Meat industry giants Cargill, JBS, Maple Leaf, National Beef Packing Company, Perdue, Sanderson, Tyson, and Smithfield were all among the companies forced to suspend slaughterhouse operations. Amidst the ongoing closures, Tyson CEO John H. Tyson placed a full-page ad in the April 26, 2020 edition of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The ad warned, “the food supply chain is breaking” as factory farmers across the United States were killing millions of chickens, pigs, and cattle they could not send to slaughter.

Although the closures increased meatpackers’ expenses while also diminishing their profitability and share prices, Smithfield CEO Kenneth Sullivan emphasized the negative implications of the shutdowns for contract factory farmers. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers,” he noted in the wake of the company’s decision to indefinitely shutter a South Dakota plant where nearly 20 percent of its 3,700 employees had contracted COVID-19.

According to the USDA, COVID-19 hit the U.S. livestock commodity sector hardest. Between January and mid-April 2020, hog prices fell by 53.2%, a decline outpaced only by crude oil’s at 67.1%. The swine industry suffered an estimated $5B in losses as a result. Cattle prices fell by 25.1% during this period, resulting in an estimated $13.6B to $14.6B in losses for the cattle/beef industry, while the price of Class III milk was down 20.6%, translating into $8B in losses for dairy producers.

As of June 30, 2020, farming-operation bankruptcy filings had increased 8% over 2019, a nine-year high. (According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, 2019 bankruptcy filings increased 24% over 2018.) The dairy industry has been hardest hit, including by the late 2019 and early 2020 financial collapses of Dean Foods and Borden Dairy Company. But COVID-19’s significant negative impacts have combined with global trade disruption, the rise of alternative meat and dairy products, and record levels of farm debt to put all factory farming operations at increased risk of collapse.

The next pandemic looms in factory farms

In late June 2020, scientists identified a novel strain of swine flu called “G4” among pigs in China. The virus, they warned, had “human pandemic potential.” Describing G4 as “especially concerning” given that the pathogen combines elements of mammalian and avian flu strains to which humans have no natural immunity, one UK biologist warned the virus “is poised to emerge in humans” and that the situation “needs to be monitored very closely.” Emphasizing the importance of maintaining a constant awareness of the possibility another zoonotic disease will emerge from animal-based operations to cause a global health crisis, a scientist from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) noted, “We need to be vigilant about other infectious disease threats even as COVID is going on because viruses have no interest in whether we’re already having another pandemic.”

Animal urine in water or mud can also spread dangerous diseases. For example: leptospirosis, which is caused by corkscrew-shaped motile bacteria transmitted in the urine of infected mammals. Although basically any mammal can be infected with leptospirosis, farm animals are the main carriers worldwide.

The animals that carry the bacteria do not normally develop leptospirosis themselves. They excrete the germs in their urine, in some cases throughout their life. Humans can become infected through small skin wounds or via mucous membranes. The  main source is contaminated water or mud. In mild cases, the sufferer may experience flu-like symptoms. But there are also severe infections, which result in jaundice, kidney failure or meningitis. Two to ten percent of untreated leptospirosis cases are fatal.

The occurrence of this zoonotic disease becomes more probable where humans and animals live close together and where unhygienic conditions encourage rodent infestations. The incidence often rises after sudden heavy rainfall followed by flooding and mud flows. Leptospirosis is a typical post-disaster disease. It should be on the radar of every health professional working in the area of water and sanitation or delivering humanitarian aid in emergency situations.

Anthrax made world headlines in 2001 when it was used in mail attacks in the United States. Letters containing anthrax spores were sent to a number of senators and news media offices. The bacterium that causes the disease is called bacillus anthracis. It produces a lethal toxin, which lends itself to use as a biological weapon. Animals infected with anthrax typically die suddenly with no previously discernible symptoms. The danger for livestock owners arises when animal carcasses are processed, for instance, to get the hides for leather. The risk of infection is very high because anthrax is a zoonosis, a disease that can naturally be transmitted from animals to humans.

An awareness of the role played by water—both as a giver of life but also as a potential reservoir of germs that cause illness in both animals and human beings—is essential for any broad-based integrated approach for identifying health risks. This does not only apply to the world’s estimated 500 million pastoralists but also to the millions of smallholders and backyard animal farmers who live in close contact with livestock.

Cryptosporidium parvum is a protozoan that is dangerous for both humans and animals. Transmitted by fecally contaminated water, it causes a disease known as cryptosporidiosis, the symptoms of which are watery diarrhea and abdominal pain. It is likely to harm infants and people with a compromised immune system in particular. In East Africa and elsewhere, many water sources are used by both humans and animals. They are a potential transmission point, especially if children play in contaminated puddles or when faeces enter the groundwater.