The consolidation and intensification of farms
The spread of US CAFOs
In 1990, small and medium-sized farms accounted for nearly half of all agricultural production in the US. Now it is less than a quarter. Missouri, to the south, had 23,000 independent pig farmers in 1985. Today it has just over 2,000. The number of independent cattle farms has fallen by 40% over the same period. [1]
Between 1987 and 2007 the median hog farm size increased by 2,000 percent, while the number of farmers raising hogs fell by 69 percent[1:1]. Dairy herd size and egg production saw similar shifts to much larger operations from 2007 to 2017[2]
Iowa lost nearly 90 percent of its hog farms from 1982 to 2017, as rapid factory hog expansion drove out smaller, family-scale farms. Food and Water Watch, 2022
just three cooperatives market more than 80 percent of all fluid milk in the country[3]
Europe
- Some great stats in Feeding the problem (Greenpeace, 2019) and Greenpeace, 2024
UK
See World animal protection, 2024
A mega-farm in the UK is roughly equivalent to a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in the US:
- 2,500 or more pigs
- For dairy cows, the number is 700
- beef cows it’s 1,000
- At least 125,000 chickens raised for meat
- 82,000 “egg-laying” hens.
The UK had 1176 such farms in 2024 - Also in WAP report, between 2016 and 2021 the number of pig farms fell by 620 units but the pig population rose by 460,000 animals.
- According to CIWF, the UK saw a 20% rise in mega farms between 2016 and 2024
World animal protection, 2024#We don't know how many intensive dairy farms there are in the UK
World animal protection, 2024 calculate that the largest poultry unit in England in Shropshire has 1.48M birds
For cows it's growing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4ldkpz1klo
Other definitions
- We might define a UK factory farm as one requiring a permit under the EPR:
- 40k poultry
- 2k pigs for meat
- 750 sows
- Problem is this defines it based on size but there are smaller ones that are worse for welfare
- Also has no definition for cows
This article discusses some of the big agri involved in the UK
LMICS
#lower_middle_income_countries
# References
Lawrence, J. D., Grimes, Glenn 2007. Production and Marketing Characteristics of U.S. Pork Producers, 2006. Department of Economics Working Paper Series. Ames, Iowa, Iowa State University. ↩︎ ↩︎
James M. MacDonald. Tracking the Consolidation of U.S. Agriculture. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 2020; DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13056 ↩︎
Lee, Seth. IBISWorld. “Dairy Farms in the US.” Industry Report 11212. July 2022 at 4, 7, and 17. ↩︎