It’s thought that for every 100 calories we feed to factory-farmed livestock, we only get 40 calories back in the form of milk, 22 back in the form of eggs, 12 back in the form of chicken meat, 10 in the form of pork and 3 in the form of beef.

But the wastage doesn’t stop there. Growing these crops to feed the animals uses up vital land, water and energy, and has led to the intensification of crop production with the use of chemical-soaked monocultures. The result is poor soil quality, as well as more pollution, carbon emissions, deforestation and biodiversity loss.

It would be hard to devise a more inefficient way of feeding people.

Believing the hype

To add insult to injury, factory farming wraps itself in a cloak of virtue: its advocates tell us that 70% more food must be produced in order to feed a world population of 9.6 billion in 2050, and that intensive farming is our only hope of achieving this.

This blind fixation with producing “70% more” drives global food and farming policy, justifying industrial and technology-based “solutions” to achieving food security. What it fails to acknowledge, however, is that the planet’s natural resources – upon which our ability to produce food depends – are under serious threat from intensification, and that there is already enough food on the planet to feed the world’s projected population.

It’s been calculated that all the cereals due to be fed to intensively farmed livestock by 2050 (when the global population is expected to peak) could provide the necessary food energy for an astonishing 3.5 billion people every year. What’s needed, then, is a fairer distribution of food; and this, in large part, will involve curbing the demand for “cheap” meat and dairy.

We do not need to produce huge amounts of extra food; we simply need to use what we produce more wisely.

In conclusion

So there you have it: a complex, interlinked web of deception, dodgy information and senselessness that allows factory farming not only to survive, but also to thrive.

We urgently need fresh thinking that allows society to develop a food system that provides healthy food for all, restores and enhances the natural resources on which agriculture depends, and respects the animals that provide our meat, eggs and dairy.