Comparing environmental impact of different animal farming systems

• Environmental damage caused by factory farms
• Animal agriculture and biodiversity loss
• Animal agro and soil health

Deforestation is often more driven by creating grazing land for ruminants than creating cropland to grow animal feed Animal agriculture drives deforestation

From a (manure perspective), while pastoralist and small scale systems produce beneficial amounts of manure, factory farms produce far too much for the surrounding environment to handle

From a land use perspective, CAFOs require too much land to grow their food, while pastoralist system use too much land period

From a water perspective, because CAFOs use more crop feed than grass, they have a much higher water footprint than small scale or pastoral systems. See also (Animal agriculture uses lots of water)