A major study by vets shows that industrial farming of animals such as pigs, poultry and cattle to provide meat for hundreds of millions of people reduces the risk of diseases such as bird flu and Covid-19.
Despite reports from the UN and other bodies in the wake of Covid linking the intensive farming of livestock to the spread of zoonotic diseases, the authors argue that "non- intensive" or "low yield" farms pose a more serious risk to human health.
It is argued that this increases the chance of dangerous viruses between animals and humans because it drives habitat loss and brings disease-carrying animals into closer contact with humans. The authors of the report acknowledged that the rapidly increasing consumer demand for meat and other animal products is posing a significant risk to humanity. There are increasing risks of infectious diseases. It says that livestock hosts are outnumbering wildlife hosts for pathogens they share.
The authors argue that a drastic reduction in meat consumption would be difficult to achieve. The report looked at whether less intensive farming was a better way to reduce disease risk.
Long-distance livestock movements, crowded farms, poor animal health and welfare, and low genetic diversity are some of the reasons why intensive livestock farming increases the risk of bird and pig flu.
The report states that data on the emergence of disease in intensive farms is limited.
According to the lead author, those calling for a move away from intensive farming often fail to consider the counterfactual, which is the risk of farming less intensive and the consequences for land use
Compared with high-yield farms, low-yield farms need a lot of land to produce the same amount of food. A switch to low-yield farming would cause a lot of destruction. The risk of the first transmission from a wild animal to a human is increased by disturbing wildlife and increasing contact between people and animals.
Lower-yielding farms tend to involve larger livestock populations, poorer biosecurity, more workers and more area under farming, resulting in different, but not necessarily lower, disease risks than higher-yielding systems producing the same amount of food.
The risk of spillovers would increase if a global shift away from intensive farming took place. In places where livestock and people come into closer contact with stressed populations of wild animals, we are farming.
The £150 billion-a-year poultry and livestock industries argue that intensive farming is essential in order to keep diseases at bay. The animal welfare group argues that such farms are breeding grounds for diseases.
Farm animals and covides changed the world during the Pandemics.
According to the report, poultry farms described as both "industrial" and "back yard" played a role in the outbreak of HPAI in Thailand. It is open to debate if one played a greater role in spilling over in back yard production due to poor biosecurity permitting contact between wild and domesticated birds or amplification and reassortment from low to high pathogenicity in industrial systems.
The emergence of the Nipah virus in pigs and humans in 1999 is thought to have been caused by the intensive farming of pigs near bat colonies. Covid is thought to have originated in a Chinese wildlife farm before being spread in an urban market. According to Dr Guillaume Fournié, an epidemiologist at the Royal Veterinary College in London, it's not always a defense against the spread of disease.
The recent wave of bird flu in Europe has shown how difficult it can be to ensure optimal biosecurity standards and how this may lead to onward spread in high farm- density areas. If you sign up for the Animals Farmed monthly update, you'll get a rundown of the biggest farming and food stories around the world. Send your stories and thoughts to animalsfarmed@theguardian.
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